Marathon Prep Mistakes Women Over 45 Don’t See Coming

And, you know, you mentioned travel 'cause you're traveling for Cape Town.

We're gonna answer that.

Mm.

We're talking about marathon prep and, and so all sorts.

But let's dive into the first question, which is from Sue, uh, and Sue's based in Nottingham in the UK, and she says she's in preparation for a marathon.

She's asking, "Do I have to do a 20-mile run?" So Nikki, your thoughts.

Is that a necessity in your marathon training to do this 20-mile run?

Um, I'd say no, it's not.

But most people like to have done one for a confidence, and that's the main thing.

Most people want to do it for just to gain confidence.

It's a sort of rite of passage that they wanna kind of have that done before they go into the marathon so they know they can.

Mm.

My view is, and I haven't done a 20-miler for Cape Town Marathon, and I didn't do a 20-miler for Valencia Marathon, which I did at Christmas time either-

Mm

... is, and what we always say to people, it's actually the weeks of consistent running, um, three or four times a week consistently over that 12, 16-week program that's going to get you to the finish line, and I'm a firm believer in that.

I don't enjoy the 20-milers and long runs particularly.Um, I find them just too grueling on my body, and sometimes for some people who are on the slower side of running, perhaps those 20-milers are gonna take them more like three and a half, four, four and a half hours.

That's a long time on your feet.

Yeah.

And then you've got to recover and then start running again the next week.

So it's sometimes just not worth taking your body into the well that much.

So really, l- less is a little bit more.

I would max out at three hours, um, and whatever...

Well, if that's 16 or 18.

Mm.

I actually just don't look at how many miles, but I know people are quite fixed on that at times.