“I bet Mo Farah doesn’t can’t squat much!” It’s a refrain I’ve had more than once from fellow runners when we’re discussing strength training for runners and I explain how I train for marathons. I get this response because at least 60 per cent of the work I do each week is in the weights section at the gym and not out on the road. And that makes a lot of runners wriggle uncomfortably in their split shorts.
When I tell them the truth about Mo – the fact that he can squat 90kg – they’re always shocked. For a guy the size of Mo, that’s an impressive weight. The idea that the work you do when you’re not running, is as important, as what you do when you are, doesn’t sit comfortably with most runners. And for a long time it didn’t with me either. After all, I fell in love with running, not grappling with hulking great lumps of metal.
But what I’ve learnt in the last five years is that to be good at what I love, and hit the goals I set myself, I have to do some things I don’t love. I’m not a naturally gifted runner built to run 5:45 minute miles and for me to run at my best there are sacrifices that must be made.
In this post I’ll to try to explain what this means for my training approach, what I and why I do it. I’m not saying it’s right for everyone, or it’s the only way – I’m a big believer in people finding their own methods that work for the goals they set themselves – but it’s worked for me before and that’s why I’m doing it again, chasing all my fastest times from the mile to the marathon, for the Year of the PBs.
My old approach to training for a marathon
For a long time I thought the best way to become a better runner was to run more. I ran a lot and I mainly ran hard, either clocking up big distances or running at high intensity, often both. I ran high mileage and every run was all out. And for a while this served me well. I went from a first-time marathon finish time of 3:45 to a 3:03 two years later in Chicago. But then one fitness test changed everything. I strapped on an oxygen exchange mask at the PaleoGym and rather than revealing me to be in good shape, I discovered that all this hard running had given me the metabolic profile of a 50-year-old obese man.
By constantly revving my engine to the max I’d created a situation where my body would hit it’s anaerobic threshold – the point at which you switch from burning fat as main fuel source to glycogen – just walking around. Even worse, this meant if I stopped running, I’d be very likely to pile on the weight quicker than you could say Big Mac and Fries. Something had to change and with a couple of smart people in my corner I reassessed my whole approach and set about reconfiguring my engine.
The new approach
I started training with Guiseppe Minetti and Ivor Ivanov at the PaleoGym back in 2013 and what they taught me not only changed the way I train for running but it changed my lifestyle too. Since then, they’ve helped me run 31 half marathons in 31 days in December 2013, run my first sub-3-hour marathon in 2014, not just survive the Marathon des Sables but secure a Top 100 finish and complete my fist 100-mile ultra. What they do works. In a nutshell:
- Reduce my running mileage and introduce low-intensity mileage
- Get in the gym and start lifting weights
- Overhaul my nutrition entirely, cutting out sugar, dairy, gluten, grain, legumes, alcohol and eggs. Introducing high quality protein, good fats and nutrient rich vegetables, along with a ‘Foundation Five’ supplements which includes zinc, fish oil, magnesium, HCL and D3
- Recognise that ambitious goals need 100% commitment – nothing worth having comes without sacrifice
More recently I’ve been working with Coach Ivor who has since set up True Performance. Focusing on strength, body composition, nutrition and sleep, Ivor creates a training approach that addresses my particular needs at that moment in time, improving where I’m weak, tweaking my plan based on how my body responds and tinkering with my nutrition to help me achieve the often very specific goals I’ve set out to achieve. But the fundamentals are always the same.
Building a better runner: The aims of the plan
To get lean – drop body fat
The benefits of stripping away excess body fat are fairly obvious. For a start, if you’re carrying less unnecessary weight, physics dictates you’ll be quicker over 26.2 miles, or at least it’ll take less energy at least.
Become better at cardio with lower body fat
A lot of people think you do cardio to be better at burning fat or losing weight but Coach Ivor’s mantra is that ‘you drop body fat to be better at cardio’.
Get the right muscles firing to add power and improve form
Human beings who sit at desks for long periods of time, tend to share a lot of the same physical quirks, lazy glutes fro example. Then there are the problems such as tight calves, lack of mobility in the hop flexors and weak backs, that afflict a lot of runners specifically. So in addition to helping shred fat, the strength training focuses on creating big improvements to the posterior chain and each exercise plays a part in improving my running form, adding extra power.
Taking a phased approach
The other really important aspect of the way I train is that there are different stages to my strength and my running training. Each time I start a new programme shooting for a specific goal, I go back to the basics and then work through a series of phases, each laying the foundation for the next.
If Ivor had his way he’d have me doing six months of strength work to strip me back and rebuild me as a better runner but I’ve not yet found the time between races to do this. And I’m not sure I could stop running for that long without going a bit mad.
The early phases create the strength in the right places, so that when I get to the sessions later in the training plan I can lift heavier, with good technique, without risk of injury and see better improvements.
The latter phases are about building lean muscle, lowering body fat and producing power.
Strength training for runners: My sub-3 marathon sessions
As I mentioned earlier Coach Ivor assesses me before I start these sessions and what you see here isn’t the same as what I did for the my first sub-3 marathon or the Marathon des Sables. Not only am I in a different place physically but also the time frame is shorter for my sub-3 attempt at the Hamburg Marathon and so Ivor has tailored these drills to factor that in. However, these should give you and idea of the kinds of strength drills I’m doing, and there are exercises here that have been common to all of my training schedules since 2013.
Phase 1
During the first phase of training I rotate between these four sessions with around four sessions per week. In terms of weights, I tend to start small and build gradually, ensuring I can complete all the reps for all of the sets at the current weight before I add on small incremental, additional weight.
Phase 2
In this phase, the leg session is tough. The combination of weighted step ups, weighted walking lunges and deadlifts hammers the lower body in a good way. The first phase has given me some of the strength I need to do these well and this is where I start to feel much stronger in the legs. I also feel the benefits for my running form when I get back out out the road.
Phase 3
The final phase is where we get into what I call the serious drills. Squats, deadlifts, leg press and calf raises downstairs, bench presses and pull ups upstairs. By now I should be lean, strong and ready to take on some of the heavier lifting, though as with all of the sessions I ensure I can complete all the reps and sets at the current weight before adding more.
What should your weekly mileage be when you’re training for a marathon?
This is a hotly debated and much studied question and I’m not going to pretend I know all the answers. What I do know from experience is that it is possible to run fast without chasing high mileage and that there’s a danger in following what other runners do, particularly if those other runners happen to be elite, have a different body composition, better technique, different lifestyles that allow for high mileage and recovery better. There’s an awful lot to take into consideration.
Just doing what Mo Farah does won’t make me an Olympic champion, because I’m not Mo Farah. One of the things Ivor has instilled in me is that I need to do what’s right for the version of Kieran Alger that’s here right now. Anyway, here’s what I do.
My cardiovascular fitness is generally in a good place. I can pretty much go out and run 10-20 miles without too much trouble.
In the early phases of my training while there’s a heavier focus on building strength with 3-4 gyms session per week, I’ll do two runs – a hill or interval session on a Saturday and a mid-long low intensity run on a Sunday, somewhere between 10-15 miles – each week.
As the race gets closer, I’ll add a midweek track session to the Saturday hills and the long runs will get longer. I’ll also add in some middle distance tempo runs of around 10-13 miles.
In the final six weeks of my sub-3 at London in 2013 my high mileage week was 55 and that came nine weeks out from race day. On average I was doing 30 miles per week.
Strength training for runners: What’s your view?
Do you do it? Do you avoid it? Like it? Loathe it? Hit me up on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook or share your tips for strength training for runners in the comments below.
Now read this…
Sub-3 Marathon Training Plan: The final six weeks
