⏱️ 24 weeks to London: why your training starts now

Hi Reader,

Today is Remembrance Sunday, and we pause to remember all those who gave their lives for our freedom. We will remember them.

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Stepping off the flight from New York this week, marathon running suddenly felt a lot less attractive.

I'd left a city basking in sunshine in the low 20s. I landed in a grey, cold Britain.

I'll come back to that. First, why New York mattered so much this year.

Where it all started

Our group of 350 GB runners has just run the 50th anniversary of the New York five-borough route. That matters, because this is where big city marathon running began.

Fred Lebow of the New York Road Runners took a small race lapping Central Park and sent it from Staten Island through Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx, finishing in the park. He persuaded City Hall to say yes, and city running was born. This year it hit a record 62,000 runners, with tens of thousands of New Yorkers out on the streets watching.

In 1979, Chris Brasher and John Disley went to see it for themselves. They were Olympians and journalists; we'd call them influencers now. They came home determined to create the same thing here. Two years later, the London Marathon was born.

London now expects 100,000 runners over two days. When I started, I raced the 1981 England Champs in the countryside around Rugby against about 70 others, watched by maybe a dozen curious passers-by.

Back to the cold

New York was the last of this year's Majors. And this week marks 24 weeks to go until the London Marathon.

Those cold autumn nights are the start of the winter miles. I've always loved this time of year. It's when I used to get loads of long, steady running done.

Most London plans are 16 weeks, starting around Christmas. That's when most runners suddenly realise they need to get going. A 16-week plan will get you a decent marathon. But 24 weeks is better, because it gives you eight weeks of aerobic base before the marathon block begins.

It's the pyramid approach Arthur Lydiard devised for his New Zealand athletes before the 1960 Rome Olympics, where they won medals at 800m, 5,000m and the marathon. You build aerobic capacity first, then develop endurance through fartlek, hills, tempo, threshold and VO2 intervals. It's still broadly how runners train today.

To work fully, though, it needs 24 weeks.
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​Which means starting now!

Bonus workout: your first base week

• Monday: Rest
• Tuesday: 45 min easy, conversational
• Wednesday: 30 to 40 min easy
• Thursday: 50 min steady, comfortably brisk but still able to talk in short sentences
• Friday: Rest or 30 min easy
• Saturday: 30 min easy
• Sunday: 55 to 70 min long, steady run

No speedwork yet.

This phase is about time on your feet.

Start your 24-week London build

All the best,
​Mike Gratton (Head Coach, Coach the Run) & the team.

p.s. Read my Ask the Coach blog:

​How do I break 4 hours at the London Marathon 2026?​