How to Train for 6 Marathons in 6 Days in 6 States

How to Train for 6 Marathons in 6 Days in 6 States

By Van DeWald, 50 State Marathon Finisher, Marathon Maniac, Half Fanatic

Running a marathon is hard.  Running a marathon two days in a row is a lot harder.  Running a marathon every day, for six days, in six different states, might be epic.  How do you train for something like that?  Well, you run.  A lot.  But it's also important to walk too.  Recovery after each day's run is perhaps a key component. It's a delicate balance of doing enough mileage to complete the distance each day, but also fuel your body properly, recover, and be able to do it again day after day after day.

Where do you begin?  First off, I should say, you should already have a well-established running base to attempt this.  What's an ideal base?  That's going to vary for every individual.  Suffice to say, you need to be able to log some significant mileage in training to successfully be able to do this for your event.  I would also add, going into something like this injured could be asking for more trouble.  If your body is already compromised, subjecting it to high mileage could make things worse. 

When people want to attempt this, they often ask, is there a training schedule for something like this?  How do you train to run marathons multiple days in a row?  I developed my own schedule, but ideally, you'll need to find something that works for you. When training for an ultra marathon, like a 50 mile, 100k, or 100 mile race, you typically run progressively longer back to back runs on Saturday and Sunday, with much lighter mileage during the week.  While that may work for multiple marathons in multiple days, for others, it might not. Back to back long runs certainly help, but does it really mimic your multiday race conditions?  Thus, you may need to develop your own training schedule, and see what works for you.  Remember, the key is to progressively build mileage, while training your body to take the daily rigors of increasingly higher mileage.  Ideally, for me, I wanted to mimic what would happen during my event as much as possible.

Below, you'll find the training schedule that worked for me when I did the New England Series in 2016.  I developed this myself, and you'll see, it's fairly simply, starts low, but progressively builds mileage each week of the schedule.  Note, I already had a significant mileage base going into this, with numerous marathons and ultra marathons, several multi-day events, and several 24-72 hour events that I had previously run.  You should give yourself plenty of time to ramp up!  Start slow. Gradually build your mileage.  Do a walk/run.  Like a normal marathon training schedule, build in cutback weeks to give your body a chance to catch up. 

 

It's also hard to balance the time commitment versus other things that happen in your life.  Sometimes, life gets in the way and you miss a run here or there.  It happens to everyone. I would add, as you build mileage, listen to your body. It will give you subtle clues that you may be ramping up too much.  If you have aches and pains, ease off and give yourself a cutback week, even if it's not on the schedule.  Yes, it's ok to make adjustments!  In fact, it's absolutely necessary.  As you continue to build mileage, you'll find that it does get easier.  What seemed daunting at the beginning is now becoming part of the routine.  Day by day, you'll get stronger, your body will adapt, and with a little bit of luck, you will be able to do this.

How far should you go?  Again, this is going to be something is highly variable for everyone. In a typical marathon training schedule, you progressively build up to a long run of 18 to 22 miles, with a 1 to 3 week taper at the end.  If you're running multiple marathons in multiple days, do you really need to run 20 miles every day in training?  Maybe. But most likely not. However, I firmly believe you will find that you'll be able to complete the events with fewer miles.  For myself, I topped out at 15 miles for 6 successive days as I felt it was enough. Could I have run more?  Sure.  Remember, it's a fine line of preparing your body for the daily demands, but keeping yourself healthy enough to get to the finish line. Could you run less?  Yes.  Some of this is going to be trial and error and you'll just have to figure out how much you need for your own success.

What about pace?  Marathon runners can often become obsessed with running a certain pace, setting new personal records, and advancing your finish position in your age group.  And that's great, it's the competitive nature that drives us to do better.  However, for multiple races in multiple days, my advice would be to not worry about pace and just focus on completing the distance.  These events are about endurance, and not speed.  So, slow down.  Yes, it's ok to run slower than you would be used to, with a lower heart rate, and take a little more time to finish.  Running slower will allow your body to burn more fat than glycogen, perhaps allowing you to go a little further before you hit the wall.  Our bodies are amazing at storing excess fat.  If you can tap into that by running slower, and forcing your body to use it, the longer miles become easier each day.

It's also important to take walk breaks.  Gasp.  Yes, take a walk break, and start doing it from the very beginning of the run.  This is something that you may have to experiment with to find the right ratio that works for you.  Start off with running for 10 minutes, then take a 1 minute walk break.  Try other ratios.  Run for 0.9 miles, then walk for 0.1 mile.  Or change it up, run for 5 minutes, walk for 30 seconds, etc.  Find what works for you.  I honestly believe, that for the average person, walk breaks are essential in multiday marathons.  There are a handful of elite runners out there that could probably run the entire distance every day, but for the average runner, walk breaks are necessary.  Required.  And really, the walk break is just a built in recovery period for your muscles, while you're still doing the event. Taking a walk break changes things up, uses muscles a little differently, gives your heart a chance to slow down a little (or a lot), and also helps to flush your legs with any lactic acid that might be building up.  So run when you can.  But plan for walk breaks.  And plan on incorporating your walk breaks from the very beginning. Don’t wait until you’ve already run 10 miles.  Walk from the very beginning. They are a key component of a successful multiday event in my opinion.  Ultra runners often walk the hills, and run the downs and the flats. That's a great strategy, but is also dictated by the courses that you'll be running on. If you're running entirely flat races, waiting for a hill to take a walk break will never happen.

Fuel is another important component for successful multiday races. In a typical marathon, runners may drink a sports drink, or consume energy gels or chews to help keep their glycogen stores up.  A runner might consume a 100 calorie gel every 45 minutes, or every 3 to 5 miles as an example.   And that's a great strategy that works for a single race.  However, when you're doing multiple marathons in multiple days, I've found that real food often works better.  As in, instead of fueling with only gels or sports drinks, eat real food during the run.  Cookies, potato chips, small sandwiches, fruits, other sweets, etc.  Anything with carbs and sugar. It just seems that gels alone aren't enough to sustain your body for a multiday event.  So eat.  Real food.  In a typical marathon, you burn 4000 calories.  If you consume 5 gels, you've supplemented your intake with only 500 calories.  During a multiday event, you need to focus on topping of your glycogen stores as much as possible so your body has enough energy to do it again day after day.  So you need to eat.  And drink.  You have to have enough energy to be able to run strong each day.  You'll find that it might be hard at first, but it's something you need to practice.  So during your training runs, find what real foods work for you.  Some things might work great, others, not so much.  Just like anything else, you need to figure out these details before your race, so your body knows what to expect. 

Recovery after the run is yet another component that is just as important as any of the others.  It's just another piece of the foundation of success. If you can’t train your legs to perform each day during training, you won't be able to do it during a race.  Remember back to your first marathon? Do you remember how sore you were the next day?  And I'm guessing it was extremely painful to walk, to go down stairs (if not impossible), and to even sit on the toilet to use the restroom.  The thought of running another marathon the day after would have been impossible.  You need to train your legs to be able to move, day after day after day.  While it may seem impossible at the beginning, with proper training, you will adapt.

Immediately after your runs, especially as the mileage progressively builds, a cold water bath helps tremendously.  Just the mention of this makes many runners cringe.  And while it is shocking for a few seconds, it's actually very beneficial for immediate, rapid muscle recovery.  And, it's something very easy to do.  After your run, get in the empty bathtub.  You can do this with our without shorts, and with or without a shirt.  For myself, I strip down naked, and use a towel to drape over my shoulders to keep myself warm.  Turn the cold faucet on, with no hot water at all and let the tub fill up.  As the cold water reaches the bottom of your legs, it will be quite a shock.  Force yourself to endure it.  As the water gets a little deeper, you may start to immediately shiver. That's where a towel on your shoulders or a shirt helps keep you a little warmer.  Let the tub continue to fill, until your legs have been covered.  I'm not going to sugar coat it, the first couple of minutes are going to be brutal.  It will be very cold.  But then your body adapts, and within a couple more minutes, it's fine. Seriously.  And just sit and chill or awhile.  Do this for about 10 minutes, or 15 if you have the time, and then get out and immediately get into a hot shower to warm back up.  Now you may say, this takes too much time, however it really helps immediately stop a lot of the inflammation that you inflicted during the run.  And that's important.  It will help your legs feel much better to be able to run again the next day.  It will probably not reduce all of the inflammation, but it will definitely help.  And the 2 or 3 minutes of very uncomfortably cold conditions at the beginning are worth it.  You don't even need ice.  Just cold tap water for 10 to 15 minutes does wonders.  Try it, you'll discover this for yourself.

After the run, you need to eat.  After you've warmed up from your cold water soak, start refueling, immediately.  Eat something with carbs and protein, ideally in a 4:1 ratio (although not necessary).  This will help to begin refueling your spent glycogen to help your muscles recover quicker.  You don't need to go crazy with food intake, but as mileage progressively builds, you will definitely be needing more and more calories. Remember, you just burned 4000 calories.  You need to replenish that to be able to run well the next day.  For myself, I have found that immediately after a race, I will start grazing.  Eat lunch, and then continue to graze during the afternoon.  Eat a good dinner, and graze a bit more before bedtime.  Eating a huge meal with 4000 calories in one sitting will make you feel sick and bloated.  But if you graze during the remainder of the day, you can pack in the calories without making yourself sick.

And keep moving after your run.  After a typical long run, you might want to hit the couch and not move for the rest of the day.  That's not an ideal strategy for multiple day marathons.  You need to keep those  muscles loose.  That might involve going for an afternoon or evening walk, even if it's just around the block.  Another thing you can is do gentle stretching during the evening to help keep muscles loose.  Stretch the hamstrings, the quads, the calves gently, mainly just to keep them from stiffening up too much.  You might even use a foam roller or rolling-pin style roller to help work out any kinks or trigger points you might have.  Once the muscles tighten up, it will be much harder to run the next day.

And sleep.  Get plenty of rest each night after your run.  Ideally, 8 hours of sleep is recommended.  So got to bed early, which usually means lights out by 8 pm.  I found that after a couple of days, I was quite tired, and sleep came very easily for me. You need to rest your body to be able to do this again day after day after day.

Another beneficial thing, if you have time, once or twice a week, is to take an Epsom salt hot water bath.  Take a hot water bath as you normally would, but add 1-2 cups of Epsom salts to the water.  It refreshes me every time, and the Epsom salts really help with substantial recovery in my opinion. If your budget allows, you might also consider a sports massage once in a while.  Massage has also proven to be an effective means of recovery to help keep your muscles loose.

And that's pretty much it. Running 6 marathons in 6 days in 6 states sounds daunting. And some would say impossible.  You have to run, a lot.  But walking is important too.  Fueling your body is necessary to be able to do this day after day after day.  However, recovery is equally as important, otherwise your legs won't be able to perform.  And rest is important too.  But, with proper training, it can be done!

My 6 in 6 Results

Event	Location	Marathon	Date	Finish Time
New England Series Maine	Sanford, ME	Sanford YMCA	5/15/16	4:34:50
New England Series New Hampshire	Greenfield, NH	Greenfield State Park	5/16/16	4:29:52
New England Series Vermont	Springfield, VT	Toonerville Trail	5/17/16	4:15:19
New England Challenge Rhode Island	Warwick, RI	Red Island Marathon	5/18/16	4:10:48
New England Challenge Connecticut	Hartford, CT	Nutmeg State Marathon	5/19/16	4:17:33
New England Challenge Massachusetts	Westfield, MA	Old Colony Marathon	5/20/16	4:18:36