London Marathon Training

While Christmas preparations are in full swing, for some, there is another major calendar event on the horizon. The start date for London Marathon training. Depending on experience levels, the average training period for the London Marathon can range from 16 to 20 weeks. With the 2025 London Marathon scheduled for April 27, those following a 20-week training plan will kick off their preparation on December 8, 2024.

Considering this, let’s dive into the history of the London Marathon, what marathon training entails, and my top tip to avoid running injuries during the process.

The London Marathon

The first London Marathon took place in March 1981 and has occurred every year since then. However, it was rescheduled from April to October in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and only allowed for a limited number of participants. The popularity of the event has steadily increased, and the 2025 London Marathon set a world record with 840,318 applicants.

The London Marathon holds the world record for being the biggest single-day fundraising event with the 2024 London Marathon raising £73.5 million for charity. It is one of the Big 7 Marathon Majors (the 7 most popular marathons in the world) and sees participants from all over the globe. It is a standard marathon length of 26.2 miles and is a relatively flat course.

Marathon training

As you can imagine, running 26.2 miles takes quite a toll on your body. Our bodies like consistency but they get stronger if we gradually push them out of their comfort zone. This fine balance between challenging your body and overloading your body is difficult to get right. How you approach training is not a one size fits all situation and what works well for one person will not work for another. Luckily, there are quite a lot of options when it comes to formal structured training plans. They vary quite a lot from plan to plan, so it is worth having a look at a few to see what would work for you.

While you don’t need to run the entire distance when you are training, you do cover a lot of miles. Most structured marathon training plans aim to cover a total running distance between 500-800 miles over a 16 to 20-week period. This can lead to people wearing through 2 pairs of running shoes from the training alone. If you are worried about what effect this could have on your joints, please click here to read my blog from last year for some reassurance.

My number one tip for marathon training

Most people who are training for a running event such as a marathon usually know what they are signing up for. They have usually done their research, and they usually give themselves plenty of time to train. That being said, there is one area that the vast majority of runners that I see often forget. Strength and conditioning. There is a misconception that resistance training or lifting weights is somehow counterintuitive to running. Some people have told me that if they try to lift weights, they will get bulky and slow down. This is not the case. strengthening exercises, when performed correctly can supplement your running training beautifully.

We see a lot of running related injuries in our clinic and whenever I assess a runner, I make the point of assessing all the key muscle groups involved in running. Because of differences in anatomy, different running styles, and different running habits, some muscle groups will be stronger than others. The imbalance between the muscle groups can make you more prone to overuse injury, but it can also reduce your running efficiency. It might sound obvious, but the stronger your legs are, the more capable and happier they are with handling more miles. That being said, your primary training should still be running, but a couple of days a week of strengthening exercises will help you increase your pace and your mileage.

If you are planning on running the 2025 London marathon, or if you want to take your running more seriously, you will likely benefit from our Run Lab assessment service. For more information about the Run Lab, click here.