In the early stages of your marathon training schedule and the shorter runs it dictates, there will be no need to take any kind of food with you. As long as you have eaten a couple of hours before you should be fine.

However as you start to increase your distances, you’ll get to a point where you need a lift in energy levels to keep you going.

But it’s not a good idea to eat just anything because certain foods won’t digest properly as you run and then there’s also the problem of carrying it with you until you need to eat it.

Eating proteins are not a good idea as these foods take the longest time to digest in the stomach and the problem with this is that when you exercise blood flow is diverted away from the internal organs to the muscles being used. The working muscles demand for oxygenated blood is far greater than that of your stomach for example.

Incidentally this is the reason why its recommended that you eat a full 2 hours before exercising as this is the average time it takes to fully break down most foods.

Fats aren’t a good idea either as they don’t offer a quick energy boost the way that other foods do and may leave you feeling a little sickly and also the practicality of carrying a piece of cheese for example makes it a bad idea.

No, there is only one food source that I recommend you take with you on longer runs and that is one of almost pure carbohydrate.

Again taking a baked potato or a portion of rice with you isn’t practical (these are classed as complex carbohydrates), so our only option left is simple carbohydrates. Of which sweets or fruit type foods are the best option.

You have 2 choices. Firstly you could grab a handful of something such as jelly babies (or other fruit based sweet which you can find in most health food shops) or you can take a piece of fruit with you such as a Satsuma or banana. The problem with fruit is that it’s a little more bulky than sweets, not as robust and needs peeling half way through your run.

Towards the end of your marathon training schedule I would definitely recommend taking something to eat with you as you run and eat a little of it every 20 – 30 minutes.

If you’ve decide to use jelly babies for example this might mean eating maybe only 2 or 3 at a time, but this will help to keep blood sugar levels up and give you a much needed pick me up at crucial times throughout your marathon training.

Training for a marathon requires a number of different approaches.

Obviously you need to increase the distances that you can run for by building up your speed and stamina by performing progressively longer and longer runs, to get your endurance up to the marathon distance.

But you also need to train smart with your other runs. It’s not wise, especially as a beginner to simply run every session as far as you can at one steady pace. Not only is this monotonous and uninteresting, but it isn’t very efficient at improving your fitness. So these runs will typically be shorter and work your body in slightly more intense and challenging ways than your longer runs.

Finally you also need to cross train. This could be anything that helps to build up your stamina, that also improves your aerobic fitness without placing the stress on the same muscles and joints as your longer running will do. So things such as swimming, cycling, rowing and fitness classes would all be good examples of this.

But the main focus of this article is to explain how hard your longer runs should feel as this is still the most crucial aspect of your training for a marathon.

There are 2 main ways to measure the level of intensity that you’re working at when running.

• One is by using a heart rate monitor
• The other is to use the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) scale.

The RPE scale is a very simple way of self monitoring the level of effort or intensity between 1 – 10 that you are putting in to your training.

I always explain it this way, if you’re sat at home watching TV, completely relaxed then that would be a 1 out of 10.

If you’re pushing yourself as far as you absolutely can and you have to give up straight away because you’re exhausted, that will be 10 out of 10.

The chart below explains it a little clearer.

Generally speaking on your longer runs, you should be working to the point where it feels quite challenging, but you can keep going without too much discomfort. On the RPE scale this should equate to around about 6/10 or 7/10.

So remember when training for a marathon, it isn’t a sprint over a short distance, it’s a very long steady run. Whilst it is important to build up the power and strength in to your legs, heart and lungs as this reduces the risks of injuries and shortens overall training times, it is still the longer runs that will ultimately prepare you to run a marathon.