What can you learn from one of America’s best marathoners?

nate jenkins marathon trainingWhat can one of America’s best marathoners teach you about how to train and prepare to run your best marathon? The short answer—absolutely everything!

In this interview, we’re going to pick the brain of 2:14 marathoner Nate Jenkins. Nate is the epitome of what a runner can do with hard work and intelligent training. A good but not stellar runner in college, Coach Nate focused his training post-collegiately and patiently ascended to one of the top runners in the United States. In 2007, Nate finished 7th at the US Olympic Trials with a time 2:14:56 in a field that is widely considered the best field of American runners ever assembled.

Nate is going to share how he learned to stop burning himself out and getting injured, adapted the training of famous coaches to crush his first marathon, the lessons he’s learned coaching non-elite runners, and the mistakes he’s made to prevent you from repeating them.

Here are the actionable highlights from the interview:

1. Consistency over months is more important than one or two big weeks of training.

Nate was infamous for having one or two awesome weeks of training and then spending the next month injured. In his own words: “I couldn’t resist touching the stove to see if it was still hot.” It wasn’t until Nate finally started working with a coach who convinced him to be patient with his training that he started to see meteoric improvements.

Take Action:
Month after month of consistent training and mileage is better in the long-term than two or three weeks of hard training and then getting injured. Don’t be afraid to start slow, take down weeks when needed, and be patient with your training.

2. Marathon workouts don’t always go perfectly.

The first time Nate trained for a marathon, he struggled to hit the very difficult workouts. While it was disconcerting at first, he adjusted the recovery and was able to race well during his build-up and record a four-minute half marathon PR and debut at 2:15 for the marathon while his time in the half marathon when he started the training cycle was only 1:07:30.

Take Action:
Nate cautions marathoners to not get too worried if they struggle during their marathon training. If you’re building the fatigue from workout to workout, you sometimes cross the line and get a little too tired. Don’t let this fatigue shake your confidence. As Nate says, “I’ve never had a marathon cycle where I hit every single workout.”

3. Keep everything positive.

“You’re as good as your greatest day, even if you haven’t had it yet.” Don’t focus on the bad days; shake them off, learn a lesson, and put it behind you. Making this mental shift helped Nate overcome the fear of the daunting paces he was trying to hit and develop the confidence to race against the best runners in the world.

Take Action:
Keep everything positive. Never say anything bad when talking about an upcoming race, keep your notes in your training log positive, and “fake it until you make it” in regards to confidence.

4. Teach your body to burn more fat while running at marathon pace.

Nate believes that teaching your body how to burn a greater percentage of fat as a fuel source is one of the most critical aspects of running a great marathon. Nate covers exactly how many calories your body will burn, why you can’t put it all back in with energy gels or Gatorade, and what workouts to run to improve your efficiency and ability to burn fat.

Take Action:
You need to teach your body to burn less glycogen and more fat. Simply running long and slow does not accomplish this task as efficiently as specific long runs and workouts designed to target this system. One workout Nate mentions is the alternating tempo, which teaches your body to conserve glycogen by burning more fat.

5. Don’t forget about core strength and speed development work.

Nate feels he left his best marathon times behind him because he didn’t focus on the little things like core and ancillary work. This lack of focus caused a herniated disc and forced Nate out of the marathon. Likewise, Nate feels that missing out on strides and short, explosive speed work once or twice a week prevented him from getting faster at the 5k and 10k distance, which would have made him faster at the marathon.

Take Action:
Sometimes strides, hill sprints, and core work seem like the “extra, if I can get to it” type of work that is easy to skip. Those types of workouts are just as important in the long term as the miles and hard workouts.

This is an awesome interview, especially if you’re trying to improve your marathon PR or training to finally get that Boston Qualifier. Get ready for some specific and actionable lessons you can apply to your training today!

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