Fall Marathon season is HERE and this could be new, exciting, and unchartered territory for many runners. Jennifer Heiner has served as the retail director of a running company in New Jersey since 2019. Active within the New York City running community, Jennifer Heiner has helped organize a number of training runs for the New York City Marathon, including the 20-mile Three Bridges Run, where she was also a pace group leader. Training for a 26.2-mile marathon requires organization, persistence, and discipline. The first training element is base mileage, which requires running three to five times per week and gradually increasing weekly mileage.
Over the course of 10 to 20 weeks of training, runners should plan to build their mileage up to around 50 miles per week. Avoid increasing mileage by more than 10 percent per week. Every 7 to 10 days, runners should plan on a long run to help the body adjust to long distances. This distance should increase over time, then drop back down in order to let the body recover. These long runs should be taken at a slower pace in order to help the body adjust and learn to utilize fat for fuel. A peak run, such as the 20-mile Three Bridges Run, ensures the runner is prepared for marathon day. A marathon training schedule should also include rest days, which are essential for muscle recovery and injury prevention.
Recently, Oiselle, a women's based running athletic wear company, shared some posts on social media to help those newer runners to the marathon distance get ready for their big day.
Based in Teaneck, New Jersey, Jennifer Heiner served for several years as a retail director at a New Jersey running company and is an avid runner who has competed in six marathons. Jennifer Heiner volunteers with the New York Road Runners and has helped organized numerous group training runs focused on preparing runners for the New York City Marathon. The New York City Marathon began 50 years ago and is the world’s largest marathon. The race is also the main event of the New York Road Runners (NYRR) organization, a premier community running entity.
Held each year in November, the event draws more than 50,000 professional and amateur runners from more than 125 countries. The 26.2-mile running route passes through five of New York’s neighborhoods, including Queens, Staten Island, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Manhattan. Over 10,000 volunteers and a million spectators watch the marathon’s runners compete from New York’s streets, while millions more watch the event on television.
The New York City Marathon is a part of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, a group of major marathons that take place in New York, Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, and Chicago. After the return of the World Marathon Majors in 2021 following the worldwide lockdown due the Covid pandemic, all 5 races (Toyko was still postponed or cancelled) were held in the fall within 6 weeks of each other, creating a unique challenge for those runners attempting to do some or all of the races in one season.
Abbott posted some interesting stats showing the breakdown of finishers, between gender, age, country of origin, and finish time. When will YOU begin or finish your World Marathon Major Journey?
Earlier today, Kipchoge's world record for the men in the Marathon fell at the hands of Kenyan Kelvin Kiptum. He ran the 2023 Chicago Marathon on October 8, 2023, in a blistering time of 2:00:35. Wow.
Kiptum has run three career marathons — all in the last 10 months — and posted three of the six fastest times in history — 2:01:53 in Valencia, Spain, last December, followed by 2:01:25 in London in April.
He has supplanted the 38-year-old Kipchoge as the world’s best marathoner. Kipchoge, who held that distinction for most of the last decade, bids next year to become the first person to win three Olympic marathons.
Kipchoge is the only person known to have run 26.2 miles in under two hours, but it was not done in a record-eligible race. In 2019, he ran 1:59:40.2 in a special event in Vienna, Austria.
Recent advances in shoe technology coincided with the men’s and women’s marathon world records being broken multiple times in the last four years.
Conner Mantz was the top American man in sixth place in a personal best 2:07:47, improving on his U.S.-leading time since the start of 2022. Mantz is the clear favorite for the Feb. 3 Olympic Trials, where the top three are likely making the team for Paris.
Mantz was followed 13 seconds later by training partner Clayton Young, who lowered his personal best by 3:51 to become the second-fastest U.S. marathoner since the start of 2022.
Galen Rupp, a two-time Olympic medalist, clocked 2:08:48 in his first completed marathon in two years coming off injuries. Rupp, 37, answered any questions about whether he is a bona fide Olympic trials contender.
Hassan added to her legend with a second win in as many marathons with a time only bettered in history by Ethiopian Tigst Assefa’s world record 2:11:53 from two weeks ago.
At the Tokyo Olympics, Hassan became the first woman to win medals in the 1500m (bronze), 5000m (gold) and 10,000m (gold) at the same Games.
Six weeks ago, she again ran the 1500m, 5000m and 10,000m at the world championships, adding a silver and a bronze.
“I don’t know if six weeks is enough [to recover for the marathon],” said Hassan, now the second-fastest woman in history in both the mile and the marathon. “I just love the pain.”
Emily Sisson was the top American woman in seventh in 2:22:09, a year after lowering the American record to 2:18:29 in a runner-up finish in Chicago. Sisson goes into the Olympic Trials as the clear favorite.
Olympic bronze medalist Molly Seidel was the second American, 58 seconds behind Sisson, to re-establish herself in her first completed marathon in nearly two years.
Swiss Catherine Debrunner and Marcel Hug won the women’s and men’s wheelchair races in course record times.
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The 2023 Berlin Marathon just took place a few short weeks ago, where defending champion and world record holder Eliud Kipchoge won for the men. Usually, the story focuses on him. But this time, it was the women’s champion, Tigist Assefa, who stole headlines by beating the women’s world record by over two minutes!
Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa obliterated the women’s marathon world record on Sunday as she won the Berlin Marathon, completing the course in 2:11:53 and shaving more than two minutes off the previous best.
It marked her second consecutive Berlin Marathon title, and a time that was two minutes and 11 seconds faster than Brigid Kosgei’s previous world record set at the 2019 Chicago Marathon, though it is still subject to the usual ratification procedure, according to World Athletics.
Still a relative newcomer to the distance, it was only Assefa’s third ever competitive marathon after she made the switch from middle-distance running.
It was a blistering race from the very start with the leading 12 women all running within world record pace through the opening 15 kilometers.
By the halfway point, Assefa was more than a minute inside world record pace and alone at the head of the race, streaking ahead of the field.
Eventually, she crossed the finish line almost six minutes ahead of Kenya’s Sheila Chepkirui in second and Tanzania’s Magdalena Shauri in third — who set a national record with her time of 2:18:41.
Meanwhile, Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge won a record fifth title in the men’s race, stopping the clock at 2:02:42, the fifth-fastest time of his career.
The two-time Olympic champion was challenged almost all the way by Derseh Kindie but he eventually outpaced the Ethiopian about 31 kilometers into the race and won by 31 seconds.
The speed of this year’s Berlin Marathon was underscored by a record nine men finishing inside 2:05 and a record eight women finishing inside 2:20.
