For anything to be of the highest quality -including quality marathon training- it has to be reflected in the satisfaction that it has on whoever wanted to achieve a certain desire by using it. 

For a marathon, or a 10K, training program to be of the highest quality, it has to bring the desired results on a goal race; be it a personal best time, or finishing your first marathon successfully.

 As a Kenyan athlete and coach, experience over time has taught me a lot, and I now view race preparation and training in a different light. I have seen runners who push a lot during their training only to get bad results in their races. I have also seen others being a bit conservative in their training and only pushing hard whenever necessary and getting unexpectedly great results in their races. Obviously, their conservative training became quality marathon training.

With the coming of GPS smartwatches that analyze the training of their wearers, most runners have observed that their VO2 levels usually goes up when they reduce their training loads for some days. This is an indication that it is not always about the more you put in, the more you get out of your quality marathon training.

Below are some of the areas that ensure that a runner gets the best out of their training and that I incorporate into my online training programs for the runners I coach.

Qualities of quality marathon training

Enjoyment

Getting to enjoy what they do is one of the most effective ways in which runners get to put in quality and effective training. Hard work can be achieved, knowingly and unknowingly, when a runner gets to enjoy their training.

As a coach, I at times agree with a runner to join a different group for an almost similar workout if they feel that joining a certain group for a particular day will make their training more enjoyable.

A combination of the right elements

On race day, we can only hope for the right elements to support an ideal race; the weather, good pace-setters and a tailwind.

However, in training, we have to make sure we put in place all the different elements to ensure we get to be able to achieve the desired results in a race. We pay attention to every element that will eventually bring success at the end of the training duration.

In my training programs, there are easy and hard days; long and short runs; hilly and flat courses, among others.

Patience

It takes time to bring the best out of almost any venture in life. It should not be different with running.

Some runners look at the kilometre splits of the best runners in the world in one of the major marathons and wonder if they will ever get close to being as fast given they cannot at the moment maintain the same speed for just 400m.

I often encourage my runners to take one week at a time to ensure quality marathon training.

QUOTE: Whether you are flying the Atlantic, selling sausages, building a skyscraper, driving a truck, or painting a picture, your greatest power comes from the fact that you want tremendously to do that very thing well. And a thing well done usually works out to the benefit of others as well as yourself. This applies to sports, business, and friendship. – Amelia Earhart.

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