Level up your easy runs and add in “run snacks” to increase your volume

Marathon training is all about volume, it’s about building your aerobic engine. An ideal Marathon Pace is slow enough that your body can handle the oxygen required, but fast enough that it still requires intensity.

Becoming successful in the marathon requires a strong aerobic engine, one that can handle the 3+ hours of running. The single biggest factor to how fast someone can run a marathon is based on their running volume.

My very first marathon I ran a 4:45, not fast by any means. I trained for 6 months and ran 1,000 kms over that time, average of 40 kms/week. Now, I run 90-100 kms/week and feel great! I’ve also dropped my marathon time down to 3:01 since then.

Lets dive in to how you can increase your weekly mileage to get faster and in better shape.

Weekly volume

Whenever a friend is new to running the first thing I tell them is to focus weekly volume over day to day running. You don’t need hero workouts, consistently good over occasionally great is what brings marathon success. 

If you’re currently running 30-40 kms/week (20-25 miles), getting to the next level of 40-50 kms (25-30 miles) is important. Think of it as stages, each one adds in additional stress to the body and requires a bit more time and focus.

Typical advice is to hold at a new level of mileage for 3 weeks, and then have a down week where you reduce mileage a little bit to give your body time to absorb the training. 

For me it was getting from 40 kms/week to 60 kms/week. Then it was going from that to 70, and then to 80, and now I’m floating between 90-110 kms all year round. 

The higher your weekly mileage the longer it takes to get to the next stage. It’s harder to go from 80 kms to 90/95 kms than it is to go from 30 to 40/45 kms. This is because you are getting closer to the peak of what your body can handle. During a marathon block we want to maximize our training without getting injured, which means pushing the bounds as far as we can but with the wisdom of not going over the edge.

Weekly Volume Stages:
15-20 kms (10-12 miles) – Weekend Warrior
20-30 kms (12-18 miles) – Casual Runner
40-60 kms (25-37 miles) – Recreational Runner
70-90 kms (43-55 miles) – Serious Amateur
~100+ kms (60 miles) – High mileage runner

Easy runs

My favourite way of increase weekly mileage is to increase your easy runs in stages just like increasing weekly mileage in stages.

Most marathon training plans follow a typical week with 3-4 easy runs, 1 tempo workout, 1 long run.

The easy runs are the foundation to most marathon plans, it’s where the volume comes in. It’s where you body gets the adaptations from. You worked hard on the tempo and long runs, and now you need to recover but still get the mileage in.

When you start, your easy runs are likely around the 3 mile mark, 3-4 times per week. If you want to increase your mileage, increase what you define as an easy run. Go from your baseline of 3 miles (5km) to 4 miles (6.5km), then to 5 miles (8km) and so on.

Easy Run Stages
3 miles -> 4 miles
4 miles -> 5 miles
5 miles -> 6 miles
6 miles -> 7 miles
7 miles -> 8 miles
8 miles -> 9 miles
9 miles -> 10 miles
10 miles -> doubles

Each stage that you progress through, you add in 3-4 miles (5-7 kms) per week depending on how many easy runs you do. 

I’m now at the stage where my easy runs range between 8 miles (13 kms) to 10 miles (16 kms) depending on the day and how much fatigue I’m carrying.

Before you know it, you can go from 3 miles (5km) easy up to 7 miles (11km) easy without much lifestyle change. You’re not adding in additional days of training. Often if you have time to run 3 miles (5km) you can fit in another mile into your day.

Cross training

I’ve recently added a stationary bike to my basement workout area. I’m going on 4 weeks of an additional 1-2 hours of easy training to my week.

Cross training is great because the load on your body is quite a bit easier than running. Where most people struggle to increase volume is with injury concerns. Biking is very easy on your legs and helps strengthen in key areas that running doesn’t. 

Biking increases the strength surrounding your knee in a slightly different way than running while still targeting the aerobic stimulus that you need for marathon training.

If you go by heart rate training, often a fit runner will experience a 10-20 bpm decrease for the same effort on a stationary bike.

If your easy run is often around 130 bpm, an easy bike ride would be around 110-120 bpm for an equivalent ride. From a timeframe perspective, you need to double the time on the bike if you are replacing a run. If you are skipping a 30 minute easy run and swapping in a bike, that would translate to a 1 hour easy bike ride.

Let’s say your running 90 kms (55 miles) per week in 8-9 hours. Adding in an additional 2 hours of stationary biking per week would be equivalent to another 10kms (6 miles) to your load. Effectively translating to 100 kms (61 miles) per week with minor load on your body.

Run snacks

A run snack is a short little run that you fit in throughout your day, not a planned run but a mindset of choosing the healthier path over the lazy path.

Need to drop some mail off at the mailbox? Run the 2 minutes, don’t drive.

Meeting a friend for coffee? You can run 20 minutes instead of driving the 5 minutes and then have to park.

It stems from the old adage of taking the stairs instead of the elevator, but as marathon runners we need to bump up the endurance a bit more than 30 seconds on the stairs. 

Keep a pair of running shoes in your car at all times. Have a bit of extra time throughout your day, lace up your shoes and tack on a 20 minute run. 

Summary

Weekly volume is the biggest predictor of marathon success. Increasing your weekly volume as a runner should be a top priority.

Levelling up your easy runs from a base of 3 miles (5km) to 4 miles, and then to 5 etc. is a great way of increasing your mileage without changing much of your lifestyle.

Adding in cross training so that you can bike in your free time is an easy one too!