Advice: training for SwissAlpine Marathon 2012

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swift8 Mar 2012 5:39pm, 30 Mar 2012 17 posts	0 swift8 I have (possibly rather rashly) registered for the K42 SwissAlpine Marathon in Davos this year - July 28th. I have run a few city marathons now and last year ran and enjoyed the Lakelands Marathon at Coniston. I think this one got me thinking about hills. With Lakelands I added an hour to my usual Marathon time, so finished in around 4:30 - then went cycling/camping in the Dales for a week but that's another story. I think the highest point to climb to during this race was about 1000ft. In Switzerland it will be nearer to 9,000ft. I'm expecting to take a lot longer - maybe 5 - 6 hours. So my question is..... how do I train for an event where I will be on my feet for so long? I tend to do what most bods do; longer midweek run, one lot of intervals, a hilly one, a long weekend one, you know the sort of thing. What type of training is going to give me the most amount of stamina in my legs? I'm happy with my breathing when climbing and I've done 20 mile training runs in Switzerland before at a bit of altitude and it felt fine, it's just the legs that I worry will give up on me before I get to the end. Have only just got back into the swing of things training-wise after a first quarter of 2012 hiatus due to all sorts of reasons (though no injuries). I guess I need to be hitting 40 to 50 miles a week? Any advice happily received.
rf_fozzy Mar 2012 5:46pm, 30 Mar 2012 2,223 posts	0 rf_fozzy Do some long fell races/ off-road races in the mountains or hills as part of your training, but otherwise training as normal for a marathon is a good start. I would drop MP sessions in favour of more hills, and certainly do my long runs off-road in the hilliest terrain near you. If you can get up to a hillier area (Dales, Lakes etc) for something like a long weekend to get some long runs in the hills, that would be useful.
Keefy Beefy Apr 2012 10:37am, 2 Apr 2012 7,342 posts	0 Keefy Beefy bumping for swift8