Guide
How do you balance lifting and marathon training?
Keep lifting through the build, because it makes you more economical and does not reduce your VO2 max. Protect the long run, and keep heavy legs off the day after any easy or long run of 75 minutes or more.
Keep lifting through the build
Lifting makes runners more economical and does not reduce VO2 max or blood lactate. This is why you keep lifting through the build instead of dropping it.
Blagrove et al. 2018. Sports Med. Strength training and middle and long-distance running performance, systematic review. DOI 10.1007/s40279-017-0835-7
What changes by phase
With a race date set, Loadcast splits the weeks before a marathon into phases and counts back from race day. Lifting runs at full effort in the early build and drops to maintenance in the race-specific build. It stays at maintenance until race week.
In the peak, from 28 days out, you lift on at most 2 days a week. In the taper, from 14 days out, one short lift stays in the week. From 7 days out there is no lifting, and a lifting day becomes an easy run. Percent means the share of your normal session length.
The race-specific build is 45 percent of your build weeks, at most 8 weeks, and it does not exist for a build shorter than 2 weeks.
| Phase | Days to race | Lifting | Run sessions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early build | Before the race-specific build | Full effort | Full, up to hard |
| Race-specific build | Up to 8 weeks, ending day 29 | Maintenance, moderate effort | Full, wide open |
| Peak | 28 to 15 | Maintenance, at most 2 days | 90 percent |
| Taper | 14 to 8 | Maintenance, 1 short day | 60 percent, intensity held |
| Race week | 7 to race day | None | 40 percent, capped at moderate |
Bosquet et al. 2007. Med Sci Sports Exerc. Effects of tapering on performance, meta-analysis. PMID 17762369
Why the taper keeps intensity and cuts volume
Bosquet and colleagues (2007) pooled studies of competitive athletes. The best result came from a two-week taper where total volume fell by 41 to 60 percent and intensity and frequency stayed the same.
Loadcast does not copy that taper. A taper session runs at 60 percent of its length, which is a 40 percent cut per session, and the taper week has one sharper session, no long run and more rest days, so it trains less often than the study. Loadcast keeps the intensity.
The study covers volume and intensity. It does not test lifting. One short lift in the taper and none in the last 7 days is our rule, taken from coaching practice, not a result from that meta-analysis. The phases only apply once you set a race date in the app.
The long run is the session to protect
A long run blunts heavy leg strength for a day or two. Heavy leg work on top of it slows both the lift and your recovery.
Škof & Strojnik 2006. Br J Sports Med. Neuromuscular fatigue after prolonged running at anaerobic threshold. PMC2491987
What to do in a marathon week
In Loadcast, an easy or long run of 75 minutes or more counts as a long run, and a little less if you are older. A tempo or interval run does not. The day after it, heavy legs are swapped for upper body.
- If you ran easy or long for 75 minutes or more yesterday, lift upper body or train easy today.
- If you ran less than that yesterday or ran tempo or intervals, heavy legs stay in the plan.
An example week
This week passes the next-day rules the app runs, with no day moved. The long run is 100 minutes.
- Monday: upper body, 60 minutes.
- Tuesday: tempo run, 50 minutes.
- Wednesday: heavy legs, 60 minutes.
- Thursday: easy run, 45 minutes.
- Friday: rest.
- Saturday: easy run, 45 minutes.
- Sunday: long run, 100 minutes.
- If your long run is Sunday, Monday is upper body or an easy day, never heavy legs.
- If your long run is Saturday, heavy legs move from Sunday to Tuesday or later.
What Loadcast does with this
In the app, the matching rule reads like this.
Your long run is still in your legs, so no heavy leg work today. A long run tires the legs into the next day. Heavy leg work on top slows both strength and recovery. Upper body or easy today. Legs get their strength day once they have recovered.
Every rule with its mechanism is on How Loadcast decides, the studies are on The research behind our content.
Check your own week
Pick what you train each day and see which day breaks your week, and why. Free, no sign-up.