are bulky creatures and marathon runners are frail waifs. Improving your strength will help to improve your miling, but you need to work on the right muscles. As you’ll be on your toes more in the mile than in a long-distance race, it will help to strengthen

to replicate having tired legs at the end of a race. Recover for a couple of minutes then do three short sprints of 50-100m, pumping your arms and resting between. You'll soon be able to 'kick' when you spot the finish line." Jenny Meadows, 800m World bronze

:30 your weekly mileage should be 30-35, and you should be clocking a regular 40 miles a week to start the sub-3:00 schedule. Sub-4:30 runners ought to be able to run comfortably three or four times a week by the start of the schedules; and if you’ve never

. "For Ironman Germany in 2006 and Ironman Switzerland in 2009, I obsessively looked at online course profiles and listened to banter about the races on the Runner's World forums. My training cycle loop has four climbs that matched those in the Ironman

, jogging back down 6M steady 8M. Start easily, then put in bursts of 100-200m, jogging after each until you’ve recovered Rest or 5M easy Rest or jog up to 4M Half-marathon raceWeek 6 5M easy, off-road Hill session: 4 x 90 secs-2 mins hill climb, jogging

to replicate having tired legs at the end of a race. Recover for a couple of minutes then do three short sprints of 50-100m, pumping your arms and resting between. You'll soon be able to 'kick' when you spot the finish line." Jenny Meadows, 800m World bronze

since lunchtime, switch off your computer, begin your commute home and start looking forward to Sunday. Because, of course, Sunday is race day. And to help you achieve your Sunday best, Runner's World has put together a step-by-step guide to the perfect

reasonable. To the rest of the world you are a still nutter, but at least you are amongst friends! I prefer ultras to short races. The people are friendly, you have more time to enjoy the views, and you can walk up the hills! – Richard (Aussie) Crane

of some of the country's finest athletes and a sports scientist, we've come up with a list of the most common training and race-day misdemeanours and the tips you need to tackle or avoid them. These people have experienced them all, so now you don't have

1983 London Marathon winner Mike Gratton has been voluntarily advising runners live on our forums since 2004. This marathon training programme forms the core of his advice for anyone seeking to run seven days a week. It's suitable for men and women