Runna co-founder and Head Coach Ben Parker’s definitive guide to perfecting the final weeks of marathon training.

Katie O’Malley

(8-minute read)

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With the Marathon just weeks away, Ben shares his top tips to unlocking your potential and pushing through the final training stretch.

Avoid mental fatigue before race day.

By the time runners reach the final weeks of marathon training, physical fatigue is often only part of the picture. After months of early alarms and long runs in the rain, motivation is most likely to dip just as the pressure peaks. It’s a cruel but well-known reality that sees easy runs suddenly start to feel hard, minor twinges raise alarm bells, and confidence start to wobble.

“Happiness is often overlooked in marathon training,” Ben tells lululemon from Runna’s London HQ, noting that many runners wrongly view enjoyment as a byproduct of crossing the finish line. But when training becomes a drain rather than a supplement to your life, it’s a red flag that the balance has tipped too far. “Success for me as a coach is a runner getting to the finish line, and still loving their running, if that’s not the case we need to change something.”

It’s a pattern Ben recognises not just in the runners he has trained, but in himself. The entrepreneur is currently gearing up for the Marathon in spring and aiming for his fastest time in the distance since founding Runna five years ago. Taking his own advice, he’s had to reassess how training can sustainably fit into his busy work and social life.

To prepare for the race, Ben has set himself up for success by taking on a realistic load in his training, opting to start with a 19-week plan at the beginning of the year, consisting of four runs per week–as well as one strength and one mobility session–which he has since tweaked to include a fifth run.

Consistency beats talent.

For Ben, one of the most prevalent myths in running is that success is somehow determined by natural ability. The belief that you’re either born good at running, or you’re not. But even the running coach doesn’t think he’s a natural runner. “I was always the second least fit person in my class at school,” he says.

Fast forward more than a decade and Ben now has 42 marathons and nine Ironman races under his belt. But it’s consistency and dedication, rather than raw running ability, that has got the coach where he is today. “The only reason I’m the best runner in my friendship group is that I’ve done more training than everyone else,” he adds.

This consistency, he believes, is fundamental in the final weeks of a marathon training block, when runners are likely to become their harshest critic. When you miss a session or have a bad training run, it’s easy for self-doubt to creep in, despite months of investing time and energy into your training bank. “Missing one run isn’t going to hurt,” Ben says, adding: “what will is panicking and completely changing the stimulus and risk it all going wrong.”

Instead of changing tactics close to race day, Ben encourages runners to focus on habit stacking that will make consistency easier to sustain. “It’s much better to build up your training and push harder over time than it is to suddenly fail and be forced to make your training easier,” he says. Learning about fuelling and focusing on mobility as part of training will help ease the process when you’re in the final training weeks. The aim, he says, is to make running feel as automatic as possible throughout training, “like brushing your teeth”, especially as race day approaches.

Ben's advice for staying motivated in the final weeks.

Whether motivation is high or starting to dip, it’s time to make running feel easier to show up for.

•  Use accountability to its advantage. “Join a social group or text your friendship group your plan for the week.”
 

•  If you’re doing an easy run, you should be able to run and catch up with someone along the way”—call a friend or parent while you’re running.
 

•  View your training run as a reward. “Go somewhere new or run to your favourite coffee shop.”

To double down or dial back?

As race day approaches, many runners find themselves caught between two competing impulses: to double down on training or pull back and listen to what their body needs. According to Ben, this is the moment where judgement matters most. Four weeks out, he says, is not the time to panic; it’s the time to preserve feeling fresh.

“If you were to panic and think ‘I’m not quite fit enough to run a marathon’ and start dialling up your training, that’s usually a mistake,” he says. Increasing volume or intensity late in a training block rarely delivers meaningful gains, but it does carry risk. “You’ll just make your body more fatigued and tired, and you won’t have enough time to actually benefit from that extra load.”

What runners might interpret as a lack of fitness towards the end of training, he explains, is more accurately cumulative fatigue. That’s why Ben encourages runners to resist the urge to play catch-up if a session is missed or a run unexpectedly feels harder than expected. “Have confidence in everything you’ve done up to that point,” he says. Strategically deciding to protect your energy, both physical and mental, is far more valuable than squeezing in extra miles that can’t realistically move the needle.

After months of building mileage, tapering can feel deeply counterintuitive. “For hyper motivated people, it’s probably the hardest point in training,” says Ben of tapering. With less time out on the road or on the treadmill, he suggests runners redirect their efforts into behaviours that support overall performance in the run up to race day. Focusing on having more sleep, consistent fuelling and mobility work, he says, will do far more in the final weeks than you realise.

Kit, in particular, should be decided well in advance. Wearing anything new on race day is a common mistake, Ben says. It’s why he’s already decided to wear his trusty black Pace Breaker Lined Short 7” on race day.

“Make sure your kit works for you functionally and comfortably, but also makes you proud to wear it.”

Ben’s advice on how to mentally break down a marathon.

Reducing a race to digestible chunks makes a marathon less overwhelming. Here’s how to do it, according to Ben:

•  Reframe the marathon from being a race to a victory lap. “It’s an exciting way to celebrate your hard block of training. Remember that you signed up for this race and you’re as ready as you can be.”

•  Break the distance up into fuelling intervals, rather than kilometres. “Instead of worrying that you’ve got 42 kilometres ahead of you, think that you have 7 kilometres until you need to take a gel, and so on.”

•  Use supporters as mental checkpoints. “Ensure to know where they’re going to be, so you can break the race down into smaller chunks.”

The marathon rewards restraint.

Few pieces of marathon advice are repeated as often as “don’t go out too fast”, yet it’s still where many runners come undone. Adrenaline, a buzzing crowd and fresh legs can convince competitors that they’re invincible. But as Ben says: “No one has ever ruined a marathon by starting too controlled.”

Feeling unusually confident early in the race should be treated as a red flag rather than an invitation to up your pace. Trust the pace you’ve trained for. “Don’t believe you’ve somehow woken up with a different pair of legs than you had two weeks ago,” he warns. “Only if you’ve hit the 30-kilometre mark and feel like you’ve got spare energy should you start to build up your pace.”

Even professional runners aim to maintain a steady pace throughout a race, even if it sometimes feels conservative so “don’t think that you’re the anomaly”, he says. For runners who trust the process and employ restraint over bravado, he believes makes the difference between a runner finishing the marathon and finishing the marathon well.

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Listen to more marathon tips from Ben Parker on The Runna Podcast 'Your Ultimate Marathon Race Day Guide' episode, out now. Download here.