Less Running = Faster Marathons, per new Boston Marathon Study

Today’s notes and references:

The paper: Training Volume and Training Frequency Changes Associated with Boston Marathon Race Performance

link:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-025-02304-4?cjdata=MXxZfDB8WXww

Other research by the same team:

Gastrointestinal cell injury and perceived symptoms after running the Boston Marathon

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10.3389/fphys.2023.1268306/full

Exertional Heat Stroke at the Boston Marathon: Demographics and the Environment

https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/fulltext/2021/09000/exertional_heat_stroke_at_the_boston_marathon_.3.aspx

The larger study I mention, of 151,000 runners, published Dec 2024:The training intensity distribution of marathon runners across performance levels

https://researchprofiles.herts.ac.uk/en/publications/the-training-intensity-distribution-of-marathon-runners-across-pe

Our video breaking down the previous study:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39QVsDoCK8s

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MARATHON HANDBOOK IG

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00:00 Introducing the study

01:16 Describing the complimentary study

02:21 The hypothesis - base building phase more important?

03:22 Methodology and survey details

05:31 Findings - macrocycle

06:28 Findings - mesocyclone

07:20 The big learning - less runs in mesocycle = faster marathon

08:09 Our 3 takeaways