Help running lots, losing nothing!

Honestly, I would not recommend starting a serious or even semi-serious lifting program while training for a marathon. Your legs are going to be stressed enough as you build mileage. Don't make it worse--that's a quick way to injury.

Maybe do some bodyweight work (bodyweight squats, lunges, etc) for the duration of your training plan, then after your month or so recovery from the race, look into one of the 3-day-a-week lifting programs. Bodybuilding.com also has some "weightlifting for runners" plans which, well, look pretty similar to the basic start programs (Stronglifts, Starting Strength, etc).

Yoga or Pilates a couple times a week could also work on strength and flexibility that would ultimately benefit your running.

As for "losing nothing"--as you said, that's a question of eating enough to cancel out the increased calorie burn from your training. Tracking carefully, not just depending on limiting the kinds of things you eat, is probably your best weapon against the tendency of marathon trainees to gain weight over the course of their plan.

I am a bit new to this so I don't mind if you ignore me, but I have read and re-read New Rules of Lifting for Women and I'm sure in there he was saying that strength training while training for a marathon is a bad idea. Something about the muscle fibers for endurance are short and strength fibers are long so doing both at the same time isn't good. HOWEVER I have absolutely no experience with this so by all means take advice from someone who has.

Weight lifting is very beneficial to runners, especially glutes, hips, core stuff.

However.

Don't start it 7 weeks out from a marathon, one month out of taper. You are peaking. This is the maximum amount of stress you're putting on your body. Don't add a whole massive new component at this point. Run the race, do awesome, recover, then look into lifting.

I'm curious what training plan has you only running 25 mpw, seven week out, though?

Let me tell you from experience that if you do not properly replenish the calories burned from long endurance runs you will regret it. You will hit the wall by running out of glycogen stores on one day, and find yourself starving the next and wanting to eat everything in sight! You need to nourish that level of effort, that sort of distance is not for casual dieters, but for someone more athletic who must eat.

bigbeff wrote: »

hi,
I am currently training for a marathon and am running about 25miles a week... This will go up, and I do spinning once a week. I know I'm eating too much to lose, that's under control with clean eating lent. I'm not putting on, I'm stagnant!! But I could do with some weight training to complement my running, will probably only fit in twice a week, but I don't know where to start. Help?

"Clean eating" isn't a magic bullet to lose weight, and neither is running. It's all about CICO.

I did exactly the above, "stuffed my face with everything in sight" when I trained for a marathon last year. good times.

I actually gained weight when I was training for a marathon. This happened because I was eating more than I needed to fuel my body (who wants to bonk on the long runs?).

What you eat and the quantity of what you eat will determine fat loss/gain. If you’re eating at a slight deficit, you’ll begin to lose fat (and maybe some muscle). But training for a marathon on a deficit will be very, very hard (especially on the longer runs). If you’re going to eat at a calorie deficit, you’ll need to work hard on nutrient timing and making sure you’re eating very nutrient dense food.

3dogsrunning, what was the obstacle for you? I regularly do strength training and am adding in running. My plan was to run first, lift after, to preserve good running form.

(I also like that it keeps my heavy training at 3 days per week!)

I suspect my squat and deadlift will suffer a little, in terms of my max weight, but I imagine I'll still see progress there and especially in my upper body.

So hard to lose while training for a marathon... I have tried and failed MANY times. Sometimes you under eat, sometimes you over eat. It's a hard balance when you are constantly hungry yet a 5 mile run is only 500 extra calories. That's not a whole lot. But runners sometimes think it's equivalent to eating much more than that.

Eat less.

My weight loss is different since I've started running—a few weeks of no losses and then a big loss. In those seemingly plateau weeks, though, I still notice inches gone and flab firming up; are you sure you're not experiencing the same?

Also, wearing a HRM has helped me track calorie burn more efficiently. I usually still only eat back half of my exercise calories and even then, that's only if I truly am hungry.

Oh like others have said, the quality of calories really make a difference. I have been extra hungry the last few days and when I look back on my diary this last week I realized I have been slacking on my protein intake.