How to Balance Beachbody Workouts and Marathon Training

Races are coming back!

Today, the New York Marathon announced that it has approval from the city to go on in November! The racing community let out a collective sigh of relief – racing is back!!! 

On April 31st, I got to run my first in person race since January 2020 – the Revel Wasatch Special Edition Half Marathon.

The race wasn’t a traditional race – it was more of a hybrid virtual race but it was still special to be racing again after many, many months of virtual racing! (Read my race report) 

Have you put a race on your calendar yet? I’m signed up for the Surf City Marathon on September 11th and the California International Marathon in December. I plan to train for these races while continuing to do my Beachbody workouts, as I have for the last 10 years!

Tips for Balancing Beachbody Workouts and Marathon Race Training

Here are my top tips for planning your strength workouts or Beachbody programs around your upcoming race training: 

1. Know your priorities. Is your top priority right now performance, weight loss, or muscle building? Yes, all 3 can happen when you combine your training with a Beachbody program, but I suggest understanding which of these 3 is your PRIMARY goal so you can plan your training & nutrition accordingly. 
2. 3-5 months out from your race is the ideal time to go all in on a strength program. Use your base building period (to focus on weight training while slowly building endurance. Before you officially start training is a great time to go all in with a challenging weightlifting Beachbody program or other strength training program and complete it start to finish while you focus on base building mileage (meaning less speed work/intensity). For example, right now I am doing #MBFA in anticipation of starting my marathon training in July. Other programs for this phase that I’d recommend are 4 Week of the Prep or 6 Weeks of the Work or 9 Week Control Freak.
3. Keep your easy days easy during training. One thing to be careful of as you incorporate your strength training workouts into your training is to keep easy days easy and hard days hard. It may be tempting to do a hard workout every single day and spread them out, but your body needs at least 1-2 recovery/easy days per week. I personally like to make Thursday an easy run day with no strength and Sundays a full day of rest. Sometimes this means that I am doing my speed workout Tuesday morning and my leg day either that afternoon or first thing Wednesday. During this period, I generally recommend modifying all Beachbody programs so that you aren’t trying to do 5-7 home workouts on top of all your runs. 

I hope these tips help you balance your training with strength training! Learning how to balance Beachbody workouts and marathon training is the key to reaching your fitness goals.

Every runner and person will be different based on your age, experience, ability to get adequate rest, and much, much more but this is a start.

If you have any questions or need support in any way, please do not hesitate to message me on Instagram or email me! And if you want to take the guesswork out of your training and strength training routine, join us for the Run the World Marathon and Half Training Club!