John Bingham, author of Marathoning for Mortals, shares his insider secrets for running your first marathon. He talks about creating a marathon training plan, nutrition tips, avoiding injuries, choosing the right clothes and shoes, pitfalls that sideline marathoners on race day, and much more.

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Do you need more advice about running your first marathon?
Read his book, Marathoning for Mortals.

I’m guessing most people don’t just wake up one morning and say, I think I’m going to run 26.2 miles today. What factors should you think about when deciding whether you’re up to the physical and mental demands of running a marathon?

If you want to run a marathon, you have to wake up one morning and really want to run a marathon. There are people who have been running for years and years and years who do 5Ks and 10Ks and maybe even half marathons, and they have a great time running, and they never want to run a marathon, so I think one of the keys is that, because the marathon takes so much time and energy, both physically and mentally and emotionally, you just need to wait until you really want to do it.

When people think of marathons, most think of races in New York City or Chicago or even the legendary Boston Marathon. Which one would you recommend for the beginning marathoner, and are there any you should avoid until you have at least some experience?

Well, we’re very fortunate in terms of how many marathons are out there these days. If it was 20 years ago, we wouldn’t have had much of a selection. In particular, these days, the whole Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series, which are now all over the country and begin in San Diego, they’re in Nashville, there’s San Jose—they’re just all over. One of the most important things to do for a first time marathoner is find an event that is a) big enough that you’re not going to feel left out, and b) that has the kind of finishing time that will allow you to not have any anxiety about it. So my recommendation for that is to, again, one of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon series. I think San Diego is a great one. If you focus in on that, I think you’re better off. In terms of avoiding, there are some wonderful small marathons out there, but if you’re a marathoner like me who is going to finish in over six hours, I don’t want to spend six hours running out there all by myself, so I think there’s kind of a critical mass in terms of numbers, and its probably got to be at least 5,000 and probably closer to 10,000 or 15,000.


How do you go from someone who runs for recreation or general exercise, maybe an occasional 5k, to someone capable of running a full or half marathon? Talk about creating a marathon training plan and the key points that you need to know.

If you wake up one morning and decide, I really want to run a marathon, and you’ve been running for six months or a year or more, it’s really just a matter of working out the details on the long runs. There’s nothing really magic about marathon preparation for average people. I mean, if you’re not going to try to break a world record, it’s simply a matter of getting in the miles, getting in the distance, and sort of gradually bumping up those miles over the course of weeks and months. That’s one of the things that’s very important for people to think about is make sure that there’s adequate time to gradually increase the distance of that long run so that you’re not putting additional stress on your body.

Realistically, how long is it going to take you to prepare? What’s a reasonable time frame for marathon preparation?

It’s not as easy of a question to answer as it might seem like. I get questions all the time from people who have decided that they want to run a marathon, and they want to get started today. And I always encourage people to wait until they’ve been running consistently for about a year, and by that, I mean running three or four times a week and getting in some time on your feet and some distance on your body, and then I think the typical marathon training program is probably about 20 weeks. So the way I look at it, it’s almost 18 months from the sofa to the starting line of a full marathon. If you’ve been running regularly and you’re out there and you’ve been maybe running 5Ks, 10Ks, and half marathons, and you decide to bump it up, it’s still probably going to be at least a 16 week program from the time you decide to run that marathon to the time you line up at the start line.

Give us some marathon training nutrition tips. What kind of diet do you recommend for someone whose trying to maximize performance, and where do you see people making mistakes when it comes to nutrition?

This is a great question, because nutrition always comes up when we start talking about training programs. The biggest nutrition mistake that people make in training for marathons and half marathons is they grossly overestimate the amount of calories burned in the preparation. For example, most of us burn about 100 calories a mile. That’s just kind of a rule of thumb. So if you go out and run a ten miler at 100 calories, you’re going to burn 1,000 calories. It might take someone like me two hours, two hours and fifteen minutes or more to burn that thousand calories. Well, I can eat that thousand calories in about 30 seconds, so you’ve got to be very careful to construct a diet program that is consistent with a real amount of calories. The opposite of that is that people sometimes look at marathons and half marathon training programs as part of a weight loss or diet program. It can’t be that either. You can’t try to lose weight while you’re training for a marathon or a half marathon. The key is to find that balanced nutrition that will give you the fuel you need, and also give you the energy you need for the rest of the day.

Everybody knows a serious runner who has suffered orthopedic or other injuries and problems with their hips and knees and feet. How do you prevent these types of injuries?

I’m glad you asked, because those kinds of injuries, the kinds you are describing, are almost always the result of overuse. And for a new runner, or a new walker, its almost always because their enthusiasm gets ahead of their abilities. If you’re consistent with your running and you’re conservative with your training, there’s really no reason to run into that. You could have been running for 10 or 15 years and then suddenly decide, you know, I want to take 30 minutes off my marathon time. You increase your training, you increase your distance, you increase your intensity, you’re likely to get injured. So the key to avoiding injury is to be conservative, to be gentle on your body—I tell people all the time, you would not take your pet dog out for a run if it was limping, and yet I see people all the time out there kind of scuffling around saying, yeah, my knee hurts, my foot hurts, but I’m going to get in my 5 miler anyway. Treat yourself with gentleness and kindness and patience, and you’re likely to avoid any injuries.

Give us the advice about choosing the right shirts and shorts and socks and shoes for both men and women.

I just did a column about this because I’m a bit obsessive about clothes and things like that. When I buy a new pair of running socks, I number them, so that I know that pair number 27, for example, is 27, my left and right 27 always go together. It’s really equipment, people talk about apparel and running outfits, it’s not that at all. It’s actually your running equipment that you need to get. Again, we’re lucky these days, you know, we live in a time with a lot of technical fabrics, you know the expression that cotton kills is out there. You need to find things, first and foremost, that are comfortable for you. I don’t like running in singlets, there are certain kinds of shorts that just simply don’t work for me, but there is such a wide variety of apparel options now that you don’t need to make yourself uncomfortable, so that’s the first step, to find things that you like and that feel good, and then test them out on your long runs as you’re preparing. Shoes are the other big issue, because there are so many kinds of shoes out there, manufacturers and you’ve got gel and you’ve got anti-pronation and you’ve got midfoot—you’ve got all sorts of possibilities. It’s extremely important to find a high quality running specialty store that will watch you run. They should actually watch you run barefoot, preferably on a treadmill, so they can match the shoe to your particular running style. The shoe that your brother-in-law or that your cousin wears or that your best friend wears, is not the best shoe for you necessarily. My recommendation on that is the same as the eyeglasses—you want to get as little shoe as possible that will correct for whatever you need. You don’t need all the bells and whistles of $200 pair of shoes, it’s not necessarily better than a $100 pair of shoes if you don’t need it.

What are you going to want to eat on race day, and what food should you definitely avoid?

Great question there, too. I get this all the time at race expos, it will be Saturday and the race will be Sunday, and someone will say, well, what do I eat on race morning, and my answer to them is, well, what have you been eating on the mornings of your long runs? The point of the training program is to make every mistake that you can possibly make during your training, so that you don’t make those mistakes on race day. So it’s very important to kind of keep a log, not only of your training, but also of what you’re eating, as you’re building your mileage up to race day. So for example, if you’re going to go out on your long run on Sunday, you’re going to want to keep track of what it is that you’re eating on Saturday and see how the long run went. If you go out and have some giant curry meal on Saturday night and have a lousy run on Sunday morning, chances are, that’s not going to be your race day diet. In general terms, most people need something in their stomachs and eat some kind of mixture of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Believe it or not, Elvis Presley probably had the best pre-race meal, which is a peanut butter and banana sandwich, just a little bit of sugars and carbohydrates with bananas, a little bit of fat with the peanut butter, and a little bread to spread it all on.

When the big moment arrives and you begin the race, take us from the starting line to the finish line. What are the rules of the road for marathon runners?

Good question, too. Most of the races that I run are these giant races, so you’re standing at the starting line with 35,000 people. We were just in Nashville and I was announcing at the start line, and it’s really just kind of an amazing thing to stand up there and look over this sea of 35,000 people. And it’s very easy to get caught up in the excitement of being out there with all of these people. One of the most difficult things to do is to remember that you’re running your race and your race only. With these days, with all of the electric timing, the D-tags and all those kinds of things, your time of course doesn’t start until you cross the starting line. So there’s no need to get anxious about trying to get to the start, hurrying up to get to the start, take your time. One year in the London Marathon, for example, it took me 25 minutes just to get to the starting line. You need to stay calm and let that happen. The biggest mistake that new marathoners make, new half marathoners make, is going out too fast, and all of us will tell people, don’t go out too fast, people invariably go out too fast, under the misguided notion that if they want to run a marathon in say, five hours, that they should get to the half in under two and a half hours. Well, it’s exactly the opposite of that. If you want to run a marathon in five hours, you should probably be getting to the halfway point at 2:35 or so, so that you’ve got something in reserve for the second half of the race. The rules of the road, in those respects, are to just be mindful of the fact that there are a lot of other people out there all trying to do the same things. I think we’re probably annoyed people the most are the folks that get out there with 35,000 people and have the impression that they’re the only ones out there. I’m not a big supporter of people wearing iPods or things like that at a race because I think you miss that opportunity to be a part of something, and also you are potentially sort of in your own world and you could be a distraction to the other folks around you.

What are some of the biggest mistakes that you see runners make during the course of a marathon?

A couple of things, one of which I mentioned, people go out too fast. The other thing is that sometimes people will not do the kind of assessment as they go along that they need to do. Hydration is a big issue, this comes up all the time, you know, the old school thing was you have to drink before you’re thirsty, well, we know that that’s not true. Well-trained athletes and anybody who attempts a half or full is a well-trained athlete, can listen to their body, they can drink for thirst—they overthink the hydration part of it and they can get themselves in trouble by overdrinking. And the other mistake, especially new marathoners and half marathoners make is having too rigid a plan. People talk to me all the time and say, yeah, I’m going to run the first mile in 12 minutes, and I’m going to run the second mile in 11:58 and the third mile I’m going to run in 12 minutes and three—anybody who has run marathons knows that no plan survives the opening gun. It’s much better to be prepared for whatever the day gives you then to go in there with a rigid plan. So the mistake people make is not being able to, or be willing to, adjust to the vagaries of marathon day.

John, what other advice would you like to share for someone who is considering running their first marathon?

The best advice for any first time marathoner is to go in without any expectations at all. Really, all you want to try to do on your first marathon is finish upright under your own power. No time goals, you might want to think about finishing the same day you start, I think that’s probably a reasonable goal, but beyond that, there’s nothing else that you should be trying to do. Just get in one time, cover the distance—the marathon is a funny beast, and the half marathon is in its own way, too, it takes having done several of them before you begin to understand the volume of the distance, before you begin to understand what happens to you mentally, physically, emotionally over that distance, and so I think that the best advice is to just go in with no expectations. It’s like reading a mystery novel—just keep turning the page at every mile and see what’s next.

John “The Penguin” Bingham is a columnist for Competitor.com. He has also authored numerous running books including Marathoning for Mortals: A Regular Person’s Guide to the Joy of Running or Walking a Half-Marathon or Marathon, which he co-authored with his wife Coach Jenny Hadfield.