For many triathletes, training for a stand-a-lone marathon is unfamiliar territory. After all, 26.2 miles is the distance you trudge through after a 2.4 mile swim and a 112 mile bike – not something you race all-out without that extended ‘warm up’ beforehand, right?
But going through a marathon training cycle and having a dedicated focus on running for a while can be really beneficial to your running strength and confidence once you feel ready to get back into long distance triathlon training. However, if you’ve been used to focusing mainly on being able to complete the marathon distance rather than trying to cover 26.2 miles at pace. Knowing where to start with your marathon-specific training can be tricky.
Whether you’re a triathlete interested in taking on a stand-a-lone marathon to see how fast you can run 26.2 miles when you haven’t spent all day swimming and biking beforehand. Or someone looking to layer some speed on top of your endurance to hit the paces required to qualify for the marathon majors. We take a look at some of the best treadmill workouts for marathon training on indoor training apps Zwift and Wahoo to level up your pace for going long.
Why speed work is an important part of marathon training
Obviously a pillar of your marathon training is going to be your long, slow, endurance runs. Putting in the miles and getting time on your feet to prepare your body to cover the distance. But if you want to go beyond completing a marathon and work towards competing (even if that’s you versus the clock rather than against your fellow runners). You’ll need to start working on injecting some pace into your long runs.
Working on top end speed trickles down and makes your steady pace quicker
Simply running faster on your long runs is going to be a recipe for fatigue and injuries. So incorporating targeted speed work sessions such as intervals and tempo runs is a super effective way to work the correct energy systems to stimulate the adaptations you need to be able to run faster, for longer. In simple terms, doing speed work is going to turbo charge your run fitness. That means your comfortable long run pace will naturally get faster, for the same effort.
Helps to maintain good form
Long, slow runs are enjoyable. But when you’re not having to drive yourself forward to generate pace, it can be easy to develop what we triathletes like to call ‘the Ironman shuffle’. But when you’re doing speed work, you’ll naturally run with better form – driving your knees forward, powering through your stride and using your arms to help keep forward momentum. Running fast as part of your overall training schedule will help you to maintain the feel of running with good form, and carry that efficiency into your long runs.
Builds mental toughness
Taking on an event like the marathon, particularly if you’re shooting for a new PR, means your mental game needs to be just as strong as your run fitness. Speed work is hard – physically and mentally. But each session you tick off will help you to build confidence in your abilities and the resilience you need to be able to tap into to keep pushing the pace in the latter stages of your marathon.
Tempo sessions in particular are a useful tool to get your body and your mind used to running at your target race pace – without overloading yourself in training trying to maintain that pace during every long run. Speed work fills your ‘mental filing cabinet’ with evidence that you can push through hard moments and you can hit tough paces. So when you start to doubt yourself around the 20 mile mark on race day, you can remind yourself: ‘yes, I can.’
Keeps your training fun and varied
Speed work is just the right variety of ‘type A’ fun to keep your marathon training enjoyable. As much as you might dread the tough sessions before you lace your running shoes up. Once they’re done, you’ll get a nice rush of extra endorphins. When you inevitably have to spend a lot of time putting in the long, slow miles solo. The short, spicy sessions can be a welcome change in routine. And enjoyment is key to staying consistent in your training.
Best treadmill workouts for marathon training on Zwift and Wahoo
So that’s why you should still be doing speed work even when you’re marathon training. But what precisely should you be doing during these sessions to get the most benefits? Running on the treadmill can be the most effective and convenient way to get speed sessions done. And with new smart treadmills like the Wahoo KICKR RUN offering compatibility with third party apps, you can easily follow targeted workouts without having to waste brain capacity thinking about what to do.
With that in mind, we’ve pulled together our pick of the best treadmill workouts for marathon training on Zwift and Wahoo – two of the most popular indoor training apps – to help you boost your speed as well as your endurance.
Lactate tolerance – early phase marathon training interval sessions
In the early phases of training when you’re just starting to bring speed work into the mix, it’s good to opt for workouts with medium length intervals at a mix of 5km or 10km pace. This will help your body and mind to build tolerance to intensity and get better at clearing lactate to facilitate the longer tempo runs and the higher intensity interval sessions as your training progresses.
Wahoo: 3 x 10 mins @ T pace workout
This workout from Wahoo is useful to prepare your body to take on longer, sustained tempo efforts. With a total of 30 minutes effort in Z4, the 5 minute rest periods give you enough time to recover between the intervals – stimulating your body to clear lactate faster between efforts.
Zwift: Saucony Endorphin Series – James Thie 5 x 3 mins
Working at a slightly faster pace than the 3 by 10 workout, this 5 x 3 minutes workout on Zwift will have you running at around your 5km pace for the efforts, with 90s of recovery in between. This type of session helps to build your threshold capacity, developing your ability to hold a faster pace for a longer duration.
Tempo runs
Tempo runs are a great way to practice holding your target race pace, pushing out of your comfort zone and raising your capacity to run faster. However, many runners make the mistake of trying to execute their tempo runs by running as hard as possible. Especially in the context of marathon training, going too hard on your tempo runs could bring more fatigue than it does fitness gains. Shorter tempo runs might have you working at 5km pace. Meanwhile longer sessions will be about holding your target marathon pace – this should feel fairly easy at the start of the interval, but start to feel harder as the time ticks on.
Zwift: Tempo run with surges
This 30 minute over-under tempo session is ideal for a mid-week treadmill run workout. Alternating between 3 minutes just under 5km pace with 45 second blasts at just over 5km pace, this is a great workout to bump up your threshold pace and build resilience to the micro-surges you might have to do during your marathon to over take other runners.
Wahoo: 2 x 8km tempo
With this workout being over 90 minutes, you’ll want to save it for when you’re a little way into marathon training and you’ve got a good base of aerobic fitness. It’s important to really hold back on the first 8km here and avoid going too hard – you’ll seriously suffer in the second 8km if you overcook it. That’s why this workout from Wahoo is valuable not only for the boost in run fitness, but also the pacing practice.
Hill repeats
Even if your marathon of choice isn’t particularly hilly, incorporating hill work into your routine is still useful to build strength and promote better run form. And with treadmills like the Wahoo KICKR RUN being able to go up to a 15% incline these days, you don’t even need to head out in search of a decent hill – you can easily complete these sessions indoors.
Wahoo: 5 x 3 mins hills
A classic hill set, with efforts long enough to get you working on your pacing and your mental toughness. After a warm up and some activations, this workout from Wahoo will take you through 5 x 3 minute hill repeats with 3 minutes easy recovery in between. Repeat this every few weeks and see if you can challenge yourself with a slightly tougher gradient on the treadmill each time.
Zwift: Hill + Tempo #3
A particularly great workout if you’ve got a hilly marathon where you’ll gain a big advantage if you can crest the hill and hold your pace, this ~40 minute workout on Zwift will build your strength and aerobic capacity. The repeats are 60s up hill followed by 3 minutes at tempo. Be prepared for a tough workout and make sure you’re well hydrated before you get going.
Progressive pace treadmill workouts
Progression runs will help you to work on your pacing skills. In a marathon, going off too hard at the start could see you losing significant amounts of time later in the race. Getting used to holding back and building into your race pace will help you to keep the nerves and adrenaline under control on race day so you can stick to your race plan. These progression runs will also help to boost your run fitness and develop your mental toughness as you practice holding pace under fatigue.
Wahoo: 3 x 1.5km increasing
Being able to run negative splits – getting progressively faster as the race goes on – can be a bit of a super power when it comes to blasting through the field. And this 3 x 1.5km workout in the Wahoo app is the perfect way to work on that super power. After a warm up, you’ll complete 3 x 1.5km intervals – starting at the lower end of Z3 on the first one and working up to Z4 by the final interval.
Zwift: Breakthrough
Practice your sprint finish with the Breakthrough workout on Zwift. 37 minutes long, this is a solid workout to squeeze in before work or during a lunch break. Starting in Z2, you’ll progressively pick up the pace moving up to Z5 with a last minute kick in Z6 before you hit the cool down. Perfect for imagining you’re surging for the line with a few seconds to spare before you miss out on that PR you’ve been targeting!
Long runs with intervals
From time to time, you might want to shake up your long run sessions by adding some interval work in the middle. This will help to break up the monotony of the long, steady miles as you get deeper into marathon training. And it also gives you an opportunity to practice your target race pace and test out different fuelling strategies so you’re dialled on race day.
Zwift: Norseman run workout – Gaustatoppen
Ideal for sandwiching in to a 2hr long run, this 50 minute workout will help the time fly by. Incorporating 15 x 1 minute at 90% of your 10km pace, this session keeps things interesting and gets the legs moving without being too intense to use as part of a longer session. It’s also a good prep session to use ahead of longer tempo-based sets.
Wahoo: Long tempo run
This session is 2hrs 15 minutes long, so it’s important to understand that ‘tempo’ in this context is going to be your target marathon race pace, rather than 5km or 10km pace. After the warm up, you’ll hold tempo pace for 1hr 55 minutes. The idea is to settle into a ‘comfortably uncomfortable’ rhythm – where you’re pushing yourself but not maxing out. You should feel like you could have kept running at the pace when the tempo interval ends, even if you’re glad you don’t have to. This is a useful session to deploy in the latter stages of marathon training a few weeks before taper to quite literally test run your race pace and make sure your nutrition strategy is going to sit well in your stomach at race intensity. Be sure to prioritise your recovery after this session and refuel with a protein + carb drink to replenish your energy stores.
Type A fun
Sometimes it’s “fun” – in the most type A, endorphins once you’re done kind of way – to just hit a session where you get to let loose and see what your legs have got. These workouts are seriously tough, and you wouldn’t want to do them too often during marathon training as the risk of doing so would outweigh the reward. But if you want to get your lungs burning and your blood pumping, these are our favourite ‘type a fun’ treadmill workouts for marathon training on Wahoo and Zwift.
Wahoo: Revolver
Short, but definitely not sweet, Wahoo describe the Revolver as the workout you ‘love to hate’. This workout keeps things simple with a warm up before you hit the main set which is 9 x 1 minute intervals, with 1 minute recovery in between. The workout is only 30 minutes long, which means you can really challenge yourself and push the pace to your limit during the efforts.
Zwift: VO2 Inferno – 2023 Zwift Academy Run
Get ready to feel the burn with this 55 minute-long workout from Zwift. As you’ll guess from the name, this workout is designed to raise your VO2 max. The intervals get progressively shorter as you make your way through the main set, but you’ll have to run faster each time. Taking you up and above your 5km pace. Embrace the sweat and enjoy running fast – it’ll feel like a novelty in the midst of marathon training!
Incorporate some of these treadmill workouts into your marathon training and you’ll be setting yourself up nicely for a new PR. Wondering how you stack up? Check out our guide to ‘what’s a good marathon time‘ – looking at everything from the elite world records to the average, good and exceptional times set by amateurs. And if reading through these workouts has got you thinking it’s time to upgrade to a smart treadmill, check out our treadmill buying guide to help you find the best running machine for your home set up.
