Earlier on this year I ticked off a massive bucket list item for me which was running the London Marathon. 

It was without a doubt one of the coolest experiences of my life, running through the best city in the world (fight me if you disagree) with everyone in the crowd in your corner, cheering you on every step and stride.

Also getting to raise £1000s for my chosen charity, The Eve Appeal was a real honour and privilege too.

If you're 'a lifter' and you're wanting to do some running, it's often a legit fear that you're going to lose muscle mass and strength.

But I'm telling you it doesn't have to be that way. With a few tweaks and smart considerations to your program you can continue to make strength gains and build muscle mass, even when training for distances as high as a marathon, and beyond. 

Here's how you can lay things out for the best results:

• Structure your training week by week, allowing for increases in volume, but backing off as needed, every ~4-6 weeks to recover before pushing on again.
   
• Keep the majority of your running easy, 70-80% of the time. Accumulate lots of volume in the "Zone 2" heart rate range. If you're interested but unsure what this means, drop me a reply and I'll help.
   
• Understand that within reason, the more training volume you can accumulate and subsequently recover from, the better results you'll get. Therefore remember to take your recovery seriously. Train, eat, sleep, repeat.
   
• Understand that every session has a fatigue cost, and not pushing too hard where it isn't necessary is key to actually being able to push in your hard sessions (intervals, heavy lower body strength work).
   
• Speaking of hard sessions, you only likely need to do 1-2 hard interval or tempo type sessions per week.
   
• Finally, make sure if you're getting in a decent amount of running/endurance volume, you eat plenty. Focused prep and training for a serious endurance event probably is not the time to try and eat in a calorie deficit.

Putting these principles into place allowed me to run the London Marathon in 3:22:50 whilst squatting 200kg in the same week. Not a time that's going to give Kipchoge any sleepless nights, but no slouch either. 

Most importantly though, it allows me to do all the training types that I enjoy and gives me the results that I want and value.

If you are looking to achieve similar results and want to do endurance events or just be fit whilst still doing bits in the gym, let me suggest joining the free 14 Day Hybrid Challenge.

We've had over 60 sign ups since yesterday already, so come and join the team below:

>>> 14 Day Hybrid Challenge

Any questions about the challenge, or anything else, just hit reply.

JB