Want to break 3 hours in the marathon? Learn how to increase mileage, structure workouts, build strength, and fuel properly for a faster race day!
Mileage
Running a Sub 3 hour marathon on 20 miles a week just isn’t going to happen. Sorry to break it to you. Having a strong aerobic base for months leading up to your marathon block is probably the biggest single factor for breaking 3.
As a guideline, having a minimum of 40 miles (64 kms) per week for 4 months leading up to a 12 or 18 week block should be the absolute minimum that you are aiming for.
Aiming for 50 miles as your base would be a great goal to set for yourself.
For an advanced runner, going 60+ miles per week prior to your Marathon block will significantly increase your odds of breaking 3, as long as you can stay healthy.
But 40-45 miles of aerobic base prior to a marathon block should be the standard.
How to Increase Weekly Mileage
Most training plans have a structure of 1 workout session, 1 Medium-long run (MLR), and 1 Long Run (LR), with easy runs to fill in the gaps. Depending on how many days a week you can train that would commonly mean 2-3 easy runs with 1 rest day.
A great way of increasing your mileage is to increase your easy days ever so slightly.
Lets take a sample week:
M: 10 miles at with 6 at Half Marathon pace
T: 4 miles easy
W: 12 mile MLR
Th: 4 miles easy
F: 4 miles easy
S: 14 mile LR
Su: Rest
Total: 48 miles (77 kms)
There are a few distinct levels of mileage. At level 1, your recovery runs are 4 miles (6 kms). Your hard days are hard and the easy days are easy. The next level up from here is to increase your recovery runs from 4 miles, up to 5 miles (8 km). This is an easy way of adding 2-3 miles every week. Maintain this for 4-6 weeks before bumping up to the next level. Which is to up your easy recovery runs to 6 miles (10km). Without changing your workouts, MLR, and LR, you just added an additional 2-3 miles every week, or 4-6 miles as compared to the start.
An advanced runner would then bring their easy recovery runs up to 8 miles (13 kms). Again, don’t push this too fast, maintain this as your easy run for a few months to get comfortable with your easy day being an hour long run every day. After a few months you begin to internalize that an hour of running is normal every day.
The last big step and level to jump to is to have your easy recovery runs at 10 miles (16 kms) every day. This is a big jump. If you are able to maintain 70-80 miles a week staying healthy then this is the spot you should strive to get to. With this sort of easy mileage breakdown, your other workouts stay relatively similar.
Your sample week could look like this:
M: 12 miles at with 6 at Half Marathon pace
T: 10 miles easy
W: 14 mile MLR
Th: 10 miles easy
F: 10 miles easy
S: 18 mile LR
Su: Rest
Total: 74 miles (119 kms)
Progressively over the course of 6 months you have gone from ~45 miles (75 kms) up to ~75 miles (120 kms), this will be the single biggest factor to help you increase your Marathon time. And a very sustainable way at that!
Workouts
To break 3 hours in the marathon there are some specific running workouts to do throughout your training. Most training plans target threshold paces since the more that you can build your lactate threshold pace the faster you can run.
To break 3 hours you need to comfortably run a 6:47/mile (4:13/km) pace for the duration of the race. Mixing in workouts where you run at 6:20 or 6:30 for a period is a great way of improving your lactate threshold.
Tempo Run
This is a standard, 2-3 mile warmup with 4-6 miles at 15k-HM pace, ending with 1-2 mile cooldown.
This can be a brutal workout but really helps build the LT engine.
1km repeats
Warm up with 2 miles easy, then have a main set of 5x1km at 6:20-6:30 min/mile pace with 90 second recovery. End with 1-2 mile cooldown.
Fast Finish
10-12 miles total, with the last quarter at target HM pace. First 6-7 miles at 7:15-7:30 min/mile and last 4-5 miles at 6:30/mile pace.
This is a great workout to push the pace on fatigued legs.
Strength
Strength training and mobility work has become very popular on running twitter & instagram in the past few years, and for good reason! There is significant evidence that it not only helps increase Marathon performance, but also injury prevention.
The stronger your legs are the harder you can push off of the ground, every force has an opposite and equal reaction meaning that your body is forced off of the ground higher and farther.
A great protocol to follow is to add 1-2 strength sessions per week, approx 30 mins in duration, preferably on already hard days. Keep your hard days hard and your easy days easy.
Running specific exercises:
Squat
Hex Bar Deadlift
Bulgarian Split Squats
Calf Raises
Leg Press
Single Leg Romanian Deadlift
These exercises help target your hamstrings, glutes, quads, and calves. Single leg variations are a great way of targeting them from a running perspective since running is a single leg action.
Aim for 3-4 sets, 5-6 reps each. We want to be lifting heavy with fewer reps rather than going for 10+ reps. Lifting heavy maximizes strength gains by improving power while staying light.
For a runner we want to schedule the strength session AFTER a run, as opposed to before. Preferably leaving a few hours in between to recover but if you have to do it immediately after a run that is fine too. The rule of thumb is that you want to be fresh for your primary goal, which for us is running!
Hill Running or treadmill on an incline is a great way of combining strength training with our running. We all have busy lives with work, kids, and other life obligations so fitting in training can be tough. Hill training helps with strength training, it helps add the power that our legs need. Winter time can be a great opportunity to do this in the off season by running on a 3-5% incline on your treadmill.
An alternative is adding hill sprints to your training as well. 4-6 repeats of 30 second hill sprints with a 60 second rest is a very effective workout for strength training!
Fueling
This might be one of the biggest changes in the running world, next to super shoes of course, in the last 5 years. Runners are more and more realizing that increasing carb intake throughout your day, as well as during your run makes a massive difference. We need to be on a high carb diet.
For any run over 1 hour bring along some carbs on your run, 30g carb drink in a handheld water bottle is great to bring along.
For any run over an hour and a half, aim for 60-90g of carb.
For your long run, a good rule of thumb is that if you are finishing a 2 hour run and are starving afterwards you didn’t fuel enough during. You should be able to wait about an hour after your run before having some food.
The better you fuel the faster your body can start recovery and the more energy you will have the rest of the day. We all have other commitments, if you find yourself exhausted and needing to lay on the couch for hours on end, you are probably not fueling enough!
On a day-by-day basis, aim for 6-8g/kg of carb throughout your day. If you weigh 78 kgs (172 lbs) then target 460-500g of carb every day. This is a lot of carbohydrates!
High sources of carbohydrates:
- Bananas
- Bread
- Honey
- Maple syrup
- Pasta
- Beans
- Rice
- Oats
- Sweet potatoes
- Granola
Benchmark Race Times & Equivalent Paces
If you are aiming to break 3 hours in the marathon here are some equivalent race times to target leading up to your Marathon.
5k – Sub 19 minutes
10k – Sub 39 minutes
Half Marathon – 1:24-1:27
5k times don’t fully transfer over to the full marathon, you still need to be incorporating long runs to make sure that your long distance aerobic engine can handle the distance of a marathon.
The 10k and Half Marathon times are a much better indication. If you are a bit high on any of the times, ie. 1:27-1:28 Half Marathon, but your target marathon race is more than 4 months away then thats fine. You will have enough time to build into the distance.
Conclusion
Breaking the sub 3 hour barrier in the Marathon requires a solid aerobic base and progressive mileage increases. Aiming for 40-45 miles per week before your marathon block is crucial. Advanced runners will benefit from 60+ mile base. Increasing your easy runs from 4 to 6 miles is an easy way of increasing your weekly mileage.
Workouts should include a mix of speed, medium long runs, and long runs mixed with strength sessions to help target an increase in power and speed.
Fueling is a critical factor, with high carbohydrate intake (6-8g/kg daily) and proper intra-run fueling (30-90g carbs per hour for long runs) ensuring sustained energy and faster recovery.
Benchmark races, such as a sub-1:27 half marathon, provide a good indication of marathon readiness, but endurance and proper long-run training remain essential.
FAQ
- Can I break 3 hours in the marathon on 50 miles per week?
Yes, but it’s challenging. Most runners need at least 60-70 miles per week. A strong aerobic base and structured workouts are key to breaking 3 hours on lower mileage.
- How long should my long runs be for a sub-3-hour marathon?
Your long runs should be either 25% of your weekly mileage or peaking around 2.5 hours in duration.
Breaking 3 
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