5 Evidence-Based Ways to Run a Faster Marathon (Without Relying on Super Shoes)
Training season is here. Whether you're eyeing the flat, fast stretches of Toronto Waterfront or preparing for Boston's legendary hills, the goal is the same: a faster finish line and plenty of joy along the way.
Here's the truth: carbon-plated super shoes won't get you there. They're a garnish, not the main course. As physiotherapists and chiropractors who live and breathe running science, we know that breakthroughs come from smart, consistent training, and often, a few strategic tweaks to your approach.
At our Toronto and Hamilton clinics, we work with runners of all levels, from first-timers to Olympians. Today, we're sharing five research-backed strategies that will help you run your strongest marathon yet.
We’ll cover:
Prioritize Recovery as a Performance Metric
Fuel the Work (Move Beyond "Carb-Loading")
Be Intentional About Your Paces
Strength Training: Build a "Stiffer" Spring
Optimize Biomechanics & Gait Efficiency
1. Prioritize Recovery as a Performance Metric
You can only train as hard as you can recover. If you aren't recovering, you aren't adapting—you're just breaking down.
Recovery needs to be just as intentional as your workouts. We don't mean the odd day off from running (though yes, take at least one weekly). We mean being strategic about what recovery actually looks like.
Sleep is Your Most Powerful Recovery Tool
Forget expensive recovery gadgets. Quality sleep is your most potent physiological edge. And it's free.
A 2023 study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found runners sleeping >7 hours nightly had a 50% lower injury risk.
The 18°C Rule: Keep your bedroom cool and ditch screens 60 minutes before bed. This "digital sunset" lowers cortisol and triggers repair. It's even more effective when paired with consistent bed and wake times, even on weekends. Be mindful of what you eat and drink as bedtime approaches, too.
Build a Daily Mobility Routine
Develop a mobility practice that works for you. A few key principles apply: move in a variety of directions, and active stretching is typically preferred over passive. But the key is consistency.
Don't stress about exactly when or how you do it—find a setup that feels realistic and manageable. If you're not sure where to start, one of our favourites is active isolated stretching.
Why consistency matters: Regular mobility work does more than improve flexibility. It serves as a daily check-in, allowing you to notice differences from side to side and day to day. This awareness helps you catch potential issues early, before they become injuries that sideline your training.
Consider Professional Support
Marathon training inevitably pushes boundaries. Consider adding professional support through massage therapy, chiropractic care, or physiotherapy to keep your body performing well. Regular check-ins help identify potential concerns before they become injuries that derail your training.
Big Picture: Notice a tight left calf after tackling those High Park Hills? That's data. Catching that "niggle" now prevents the six-week layoff later. A regular mobility practice is a powerful tool to help you do that detective work.
2. Fuel the Work (Move Beyond "Carb-Loading")
Think of your body like a high-performance car: if you run it on empty, it will eventually come to a hard stop.
Food is fuel. Without it, things don't run smoothly. Sometimes it's hitting the wall on the long run. Other times it's a slow burn that leads to underperforming or injury. Either way, marathon training requires us to be intentional about staying out of a state where energy demands exceed available energy.
A fueled runner is a fast runner.
Match Your Intake to Your Training Load
As your training increases, your calorie intake needs to increase too. Many runners forget this connection, unintentionally creating an energy deficit that slows recovery and increases injury risk.
Key Fueling Strategies
The 60-Minute Rule: If you're out for more than an hour, you must fuel. Current science suggests aiming for 60-90g of carbohydrates per hour for optimal marathon performance. This is non-negotiable and comes with the added bonus of confidence in your fueling strategy come race day.
The Recovery Window: Aim for a protein and carb-rich snack within 20 minutes of finishing and a complete meal within an hour. This halts muscle breakdown and kickstarts glycogen synthesis, helping you recover and gear up for your next workout faster.
Avoid Slipping Into an Energy Deficit: Not eating enough can lead to Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S), significantly increasing your injury risk and increasing the likelihood of underperformance. If you're unsure whether you're fueling properly for your training, consult with a professional familiar with the demands of endurance sport.
3. Be Intentional About Your Paces
Build Your Speed Reserve
To run a faster marathon, you need to increase your "top-end" speed. This makes your goal marathon pace feel easier, a concept known as Speed Reserve.
We can't tell you how many times we hear runners frustrated that they aren't getting faster at the marathon despite running more, but when we dive into their training, we find they're never pushing the envelope in terms of intensity. It seems logical that if you only ever run the same easy 5k loop at an easy pace, it's unreasonable to expect that a big 5k PB is on the horizon for you. The same rule applies to running marathons: if you want to run faster on race day, you need to build your capacity to run faster in your training!
Speed Work Options
Strides
Great for beginners. Add 4-6 × (20-30 second fast burst + 90 seconds easy) to the end of one easy run per week.
Fartleks
Unstructured speed play that builds fitness while keeping training fun.
Example: 10mins warm up + 10x (1min on + 1min off) + 10mins cool down
This can also be as unstructured as "Run hard for the next 3 blocks. Easy run until you feel recovered from that. For the next 6 blocks, alternate 1 hard, 1 easy."
Intervals
Structured repeats at faster than marathon pace.
Example: 10mins warm up + 5x 800m @ 10k effort w/ 90s rest + 10mins cool down
Winter Training Solutions
Don't let an Ontario winter stall your progress. Plowing can be dicey, and both Toronto and Hamilton have pretty sad track access at the best of times, so a move to Hill Repeats is a great option. Hills are "strength training in disguise" and are incredibly effective for building power with less impact than flat-out sprinting.
Other suggestions include:
Treadmill sessions
Gym-based power exercises and plyometrics
Cross-training! Bike on a trainer, swim, cross-country ski, and so on. Build in intervals wherever you land, and you'll see big gains on the run too.
The 5K Pivot
If you've plateaued at the marathon distance, consider a season focusing on the 5K or 10K. Improving your VO2 max at shorter distances provides a massive "trickle-down" effect for your marathon splits.
Slow Down the Easy Days
Raise your hand if you're guilty of running too fast on your easy efforts! We've all been there. Hovering around marathon pace on a random Tuesday 9k might not feel hard, but it's still too much. Actively slow down on easy days so you can show up in big ways for the high-intensity workouts that actually build your fitness.
4. Strength Training: Build a "Stiffer" Spring
Why Strength Matters for Marathoners
Running a marathon requires serious strength. Running is one big exercise of applying force into the ground on repeat. The more force you apply, the faster you run.
If running a marathon is in the neighbourhood of 40,000-50,000 steps, imagine if each of those steps could have a little more force behind them without any more effort! So, whether you are a master's athlete looking to hold on to your speed or a postpartum runner rebuilding your core, resistance training is the non-negotiable foundation.
How Strength Training Improves Running Economy
Heavy resistance training (think squats, deadlifts, and calf raises) improves running economy. You have three key wins here:
The Spring Effect: Strength training teaches your tendons to behave like stiff, reactive springs. This "free" elastic energy allows you to stay much stronger, much longer in the race, as it means that your muscles don't have to work quite as hard to hold a given pace.
Improved Force Production: Running is all about applying force into the ground to propel yourself forward. Simply put, if you can produce more force with each step, you'll travel a little further and faster with each step you take.
Delaying the Shift: When we fatigue, we often shift the workload from our efficient lower-leg "springs" to our "energy-expensive" quads. Strength training delays this shift, helping you avoid that heavy-legged "death march" at kilometre 35.
Building Your Strength Program
A solid strength program should target your entire body, with particular focus on hip stability, posterior chain, and core strength. We created a "Strength Training Blueprint" to help you get started. And if you need more help creating a strength plan specific to you and your marathon goals, that's our specialty.
5. Optimize Biomechanics & Gait Efficiency
Small changes in how you hit the ground add up over 42.2 kilometers. A little focus on running mechanics ensures you run efficiently, reduces injury risk, and helps all that strength you built in the gym actually translate to the road.
The Value of Efficient Running Form
Put Your Strength to Good Use
Try standing with one foot in front of you (reach ~2 feet out). Now try to clench your glutes on the same side as that outstretched leg.
Now, stand normally with that same foot underneath you. Again, try to clench the glute. Much stronger!
This isn't to suggest you should squeeze your glutes as you run, but it demonstrates how a change in position can dramatically affect your ability to tap into your strength. A small tweak in how you move could be the game-changer that allows all that strength work to translate into better running performance.
Don't Slam on the Brakes
The most common gait error we see is overstriding—landing with your foot ahead of your centre of mass. This creates a "braking" or deceleration force with every step you take, and often goes hand in hand with other injury-provoking patterns like hip drop or feet crossing the midline.
In addition to slowing you down with every step, high braking force is one of the strongest biomechanical predictors of injury. Overstriding doesn't just create braking forces—it also increases your ground contact time, compounding the efficiency loss. A few basic cues and strategies can help you avoid this common, goal-crushing error.
Gravity: A Runner's Worst Enemy
Running is an exercise of you against gravity. The faster you can get off the ground, the less your centre of mass falls and the less work you need to do to overcome gravity with each step.
Reducing ground contact time is a key strategy to help prevent common running injuries such as runner's knee, IT band syndrome, shin splints, and plantar fasciitis. By focusing on a few key cues, you can learn to tap into your springiness and strength to keep your ground contact time short, staying healthy and efficient in the process.
Getting Started with Gait Optimization
We know that changing your running gait can feel overwhelming. The internet is full of rabbit holes, and finding the right strategy for you is a nuanced process. Working with a running-focused physiotherapist, chiropractor, or strength and conditioning coach can help you identify and correct movement patterns that may be limiting your performance.
Check out this article to learn how focusing on run technique can help you tap into your strength, run faster, and reach your goals. Reach out to work together on creating a plan that suits your goals beautifully!
Ready to Run Your Strongest Marathon?
At The Runner’s Academy, we aren't just clinicians; we are a community. From our specialized Running Gait Analysis to our Pelvic Health Physiotherapy (crucial for postpartum runners returning to the sport), we provide a holistic, inclusive environment for every body.
Don't wait for an injury to start your performance journey. Let’s work together to ensure your next training block is your most joyful and fastest one yet.
Whether you're training for your first marathon or your fiftieth, we're here to support you.
Schedule a comprehensive running gait assessment
Develop a personalized strength training plan
Address injuries or movement issues
Optimize your marathon training and/or fueling strategy