Marathon coaching: How the ‘FAFO’ method upended the best way I take into consideration operating

One month out from the Sydney marathon, I made a decision to attempt a mad science experiment.

Like about 70 per cent of normal runners, I had been battling an overuse injury.

For two years, I hadn’t run greater than 5 kilometres and figured my days of going the gap had been executed.

Then, I acquired an electronic mail suggesting that we don’t all have to run a lot as a result of there was one other approach: one which inverted the standard marathon coaching mannequin and will mitigate damage threat.

Getting sucked into the vortex

For marathon runners, mileage is king.

A research of 119,452 marathon contributors, published in December, discovered that the runners who completed in a time between two and two-and-a-half hours did 3 times the amount – round 107 kilometres per week – as those that completed in four-and-a-half to 5 hours.

It echoed the findings of earlier research that the most effective of the most effective did essentially the most mileage (the lads ran greater than 200 kilometres per week and the ladies ran greater than 166 kilometres).

So, extra is extra then? Alice Baquie, a physiotherapist who works with lots of Australia’s elite distance runners, as soon as thought so.

A former elite gymnast who competed on the nationwide crew, Baquie was used to pushing herself laborious. So when she first encountered run tradition in her late teenagers, it appeared so easy: “I was like, wait, your warm-up is running, then you run, and then your cooldown is running? That is crazy to me.”

But she beloved that it didn’t contain any of the “other boring stuff”. So she smashed the mileage, and began smashing PBs, getting right down to the low 30s within the 10K.

Then she too grew to become a statistic: a sacral stress fracture “basically cracked all the way through” her decrease again, adopted by extra fractures – she estimates near 30 – from making an attempt to grit her enamel and push by means of the ache.

Finally, she stopped operating altogether. And it was practically a decade earlier than she began once more.

During that point, Baquie was working as a sports activities physiotherapist in Melbourne’s Hawthorn. She recognised herself in many purchasers: self-flagellating A-types who had been injured as a result of life – coaching included – meant going tougher, sooner, and longer.

“People were getting sucked into the vortex of chasing kudos on Strava, high mileage, skimping on quality and sleep while juggling work, kids, life,” she says.

She wished to run once more, however questioned if it may extra sustainable. So she started an experiment to coach for her first marathon: how low may she go together with mileage if she supported her physique with energy, mobility and rehab?

The FAFO method to marathon coaching

While excessive mileage does create the sting for elites, Baquie argues that “carnage ensues” when folks with out good biomechanics and restoration attempt to replicate that mannequin.

Our cardiovascular system adapts extra rapidly than our tendons and bones, explains Dr Ben Peterson from the University of Queensland. That means it’s straightforward to ramp up the mileage earlier than our our bodies are robust sufficient to deal with the load.

“When we’re running, our Achilles tendon needs to be able to tolerate loads of sort of between six and eight times our body weight,” explains Peterson, a researcher targeted on running-related accidents. “We need to tailor the strength to the kind of muscles and tendons that we’re using in running.”

So, Baquie adopted a “f— around and find out” (FAFO) method targeted on energy over mileage. Eventually, she devised a physique weight-based, run-specific Pilates program, ForRunners, and ran not more than 4 occasions per week, no additional than 10 kilometres at a time.

In 2024, she ran a three-hour debut marathon.

I used to be intrigued by the proposition that much less operating may also help us go the gap. Also, her Pilates app is now utilized by a number of the nation’s high distance runners.

Olympian Gen Gregson tells me she has grow to be “pretty reliant” on ForRunners: “In an event where the goal is to hold your form as best as possible, the strength gained from Pilates can be the difference in minutes.”

Fellow Olympian and physio Jess Stenson has been incorporating Baquie’s energy and mobility lessons into her coaching regime since 2020. They have helped her to construct the soundness and postural endurance, she says: “That takes away from the need to train as much, and your VO2 may not need to be as high because you’re really efficient.”

Still, they do huge mileage too. And I believe Baquie is a freak of nature. I questioned if her method works for the hoi polloi like me?

The proof to assist it

By the time we navigated emails despatched to spam and time-differences (Baquie is abroad forward of the New York marathon), there have been 4 weeks till the Sydney marathon.

“Let’s F–ing Go,” she stated, emailing me with a plan beginning with 5 brief however brutal Pilates lessons per week and simply three runs.

Within weeks, I felt stronger and progressed from 5 kilometres to 16. Then it was time to taper.

On the day of the marathon, I jogged joyfully to the 30-kilometre mark when the tendinopathy in my ankle flared, and I pulled the pin.

Was it a failure? Perhaps, although energy over mileage obtained me 30 kilometres, an inconceivable distance 4 weeks earlier. And inverting the mannequin made the identical distance really feel simpler than it did the final time I did it.

“There’s definitely evidence to support it,” says Dr Danielle Trowell, a sports activities scientist from Deakin University.

For her PhD, Trowell took two teams of skilled runners and had one group interact in energy coaching twice per week – squats, deadlifts, isometric calf raises and core work – whereas the opposite upped their mileage.

After 10 weeks, solely the energy coaching group had enhancements of their operating efficiency.

The addition of energy probably made them extra fatigue resistant, Trowell suggests.

“When you are stronger, you’re more efficient,” she explains. “So, you can, for example, achieve a faster running pace for less effort. And it builds your resilience to fatigue, so you’re able to hold your good biomechanical technique for longer.”

If we are able to maintain type for longer, we’re much less more likely to injure ourselves. But, the addition of energy to run coaching continues to be so novel that research are few and much between and often not well-designed.

Both Peterson and Trowell encourage energy coaching, targeted on the muscle groups and tendons utilized in operating, however counsel constructing in the direction of lengthy distances for no less than 12 weeks.

And although we could not want 100 kilometres per week, most of us want greater than 10 kilometres, they are saying.

On this level, Baquie agrees.

“But, a lot of the time you can almost halve the mileage that is advised in marathon training, so long as you supplement with other strength,” she says.

“There are many ways to achieve your run goals and the somewhat archaic run program prescription could be questioned, modified and, in many cases, disregarded altogether.”

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