Four Key Sessions To Get You Prepped For Boston

It’s always exciting for me as a coach to comb through the year’s team that is targeting the Boston Marathon and develop a training program for each athlete. Oftentimes, it requires a bit of creativity and strategic planning based on where the athlete lives and what kind of terrain they have available to them. Most of us think of the need for hill work, which is certainly a very critical piece, but it’s also important to get a few sessions in where we’re really loading the quadriceps so the body is ready to remain steady and smart for the first 10k of sustained downhill – but with plenty of juice left for the remaining 20 miles. Boston is also a race where, in my opinion, every athlete is going to benefit from incorporating strength work into their build. It doesn’t have to be crazy, lengthy sessions with a ton of equipment. But a couple days per week of focused lower body work is really going to help safeguard the legs from fatigue come race day and to me, it’s worth prioritizing.

Here are four of my favorite sessions to give to athletes targeting the iconic race:

1. Hill strides. Strides are always a staple in my programming, but for my athletes targeting Boston, many of our flat strides turn to hill strides. I like to program these 1-2 times/week, usually at the end of a shorter easy run the day prior to a midweek quality session or the day prior to the long run. They don’t have to be run at the end of the run though! Take into account your neighborhood route and if there’s a great hill halfway in, get them done then and cruise it in for the remainder of your run.

I give anywhere from 15-30 seconds at 5k effort on 1-2 minutes easy walk/jog recoveries back down. If you’re someone that lives in a pancake flat region, then shoot for 5-6% grade on the treadmill with the option to power hike your recoveries as opposed to bringing the grade back down to 0%.

2. Longer, sustained hills that mimic the infamous Newton Hills. I like to remind athletes that no matter fitness level, we’re looking at about a general maximum of 4-5 minutes for each hill at the very most (with Heartbreak Hill being the longest at a half mile and roughly 3.3% grade). The best way to break them up into attainable bites is to view them like you’re doing hill repeats with a bit of downhill or flat reprieve between each.

I recommend something like 4 x 3-5 minute continuous hills at a moderate effort (marathon effort to 50k effort, which I classify as marathon +15 seconds/mile or so for most athletes training for Boston) on 3-3.5 minute jog recoveries back down. For more advanced athletes, I encourage running these recoveries on the quicker end to turn the session into more of a continuous tempo and better simulate your effort on race day. I like to follow these long sustained hills with something like 8-10 x 1 minute flat intervals at 5k-10k effort on 1-1.5 minute easy jog recoveries.

If you live in an area that doesn’t have a long, sustained hill then this is a great session to do on the treadmill – just be sure you aren’t cranking the grade up too much. We want these to be runnable hills, closely mimicking your race day form, so start at 3% grade and max out at 6% grade or so.

3. Downhill marathon effort tempos. These do not have to be a frequent part of the training block, but 2-3 times strategically placed over the course of 10-16 weeks is perfect. Ideally, if the route can be planned where you’re getting in the downhill work either before (after a short warmup) or after some rolling hills, this best simulates what your legs will encounter on race day.

But I acknowledge that not everyone has a canyon readily available to them that allows for 5-6 miles of continuous downhill. If this is you, then I recommend another staple that I give to all of my trail athletes: downhill strides. Short bursts of exposure to eccentric load on the quadriceps can be just as effective. I like to structure them a few different ways.

The first, is exactly how it sounds: start at the top of a gentle hill and run hard down it for 15-25 seconds. I like to prescribe power hiking back up to the top. Another option is to alternate hill strides and downhill strides: run uphill at 5k effort for 15-20 seconds; hike the recovery since you will cover more ground going downhill, and repeat but going downhill. Alternate until you’ve done a set of 6-10 strides total (3-5 each of uphill and downhill). You don't have to split these strides either. The intent of these is to simply work hard going up and down. Remove the element of pace fixation for short strides such as these.

If you are someone who has zero hills and no access to a treadmill that has a decline option on it, this is where lower body strength work that focuses on the quadriceps complex becomes key.

4. Ladder hill sessions. These are great for training the body to realize that it has more than one speed when going uphill, based on the duration/distance/grade of said hill. While there are technically three major Newton Hills, there are plenty of punchy little climbs after Newton and it’s important to stay engaged, not expecting to be sledding into Boylston Street.

I like to program something like: 3-5 x (90 second hill at threshold-half marathon effort on 90 seconds easy jog recovery/60 second hill at threshold-10k effort on 90 second easy jog recovery/30-40 second hill at 5k effort on 90 second easy jog recovery). You can follow these up with 15-25 minutes on flat/rolling terrain at half marathon effort for a final burn.

Let me know in the comments if you test out any of these strategies in training! Wishing you the best in your build towards the 2023 Boston Marathon OR if you are someone targeting a race this year with plenty of ascending and descending :)