How to have a breakthrough marathon – from Olympic Trials qualifiers who've done it

The top men and women who competed at the US Olympic Marathon Trials will go on to represent their country at the 2024 Paris Olympics – a monumental opportunity. But, just getting to the start line of the Trials represented a huge accomplishment in itself.

To make it to the Trials, men must have run a marathon in a time of 2:18 or faster – which means hitting a pace of 5:16min/miles. Women, meanwhile, must have completed a marathon in 2:37 or faster, which equates to 6:00min/miles. (A few athletes also qualified for the 2024 Trials by running speedy half marathons – that's 1:03 for men and 1:12 for women.)

Those marathon qualifying times were significantly faster than 2020’s qualifying marks of 2:19 for men and 2:45 for women, which meant that many athletes missed the mark. In fact, just 401 men and women qualified for the Trials this year, compared to more than 700 in 2020. Those who made the cut, then, had to make significant improvements to their running game Runners World, Part of the Hearst UK Wellbeing Network.

While most of us are unable to clock one sub-6-min/mile, let alone 26.2 of them, we can still learn a lot from the Trials qualifiers and mirror the habits that helped them to slash their marathon times. Here are some top tips you can take from them.

When the Olympic Marathon Trials took over the streets of Atlanta in 2020, Kidan Kidane was working as a nurse at Emory University Hospital. Mid-shift, she watched the competitors fly by her window. She had no idea that she’d be among them four years later.

Kidane grew up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, but didn’t start running until she moved to the US as a teenager. She ran track and cross country at Kennesaw State University. After graduating, she completed the 2018 Atlanta Marathon in a time of 2:59:47 – 15 minutes shy of the 2020 Trials qualifying time.

at Portland State University.

In 2022, she moved to Connecticut to study at the Yale School of Nursing. Soon after arriving, she joined the New Haven Road Runners and paired up with some speedy teammates, including Tiger Lu, who introduced her to energy gels and super shoes, Runners World, Part of the Hearst UK Wellbeing Network Boston Marathon. Here, Kidane trained harder and more consistently than ever before. As her times in workouts and races improved, she and her friends began to believe that she could toe the line at the Olympic Marathon Trials.

In April 2023, Kidane completed the 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston in a time of 2:36, despite stopping to be sick twice.

Kidane, now 29, knows she may have natural talent. But it took time, dedication and the power of a team to tap into that potential. 'If I was training alone, I don’t know if I could have done that,' she says. 'Being around other people who believe in themselves changes your mentality.'

While she was still in college, Mary Denholm finished the 2006 Vermont City Marathon in a time of 3:39. Nine years later – following graduation, further study and a busy few years as a lawyer – she returned to marathon running, completing the Via Marathon in Pennsylvania in 3:03.

Boston Marathon 2024: Everything you need to know half marathon in 1:22 – meaning a pace of 6:17 per mile – which whet her appetite for seriously fast running. In 2016, as she watched the Olympic Marathon Trials in Los Angeles on her couch, she looked up the standards for qualifying: 2:45 – or a 6:18 pace – for the A standard and 2:37 for the B standard.

'I really did feel like within four years, I could hold that half time for a full,' says Denholm, now 36 and living in Colorado. As such, within eight years, a sub-2:37 might also be achievable. 'Who knows what the possibilities are?'

While Kidane surprised herself in a single race, Denholm took a longer, step-by-step approach. 'You set this big goal, but then you also set sizeable goals along the way,' she says. 'You’re not trying to eat the whole apple – you’re just taking bites out of the apple.'

Her progression over the years was proof of her patience. She green to qualify for the Olympic Marathon Trials three times before 2020 – including a heartbreakingly close 2:45:13 – before finally beating the time by nearly three minutes at the 2019 California International Marathon (CIM).

After running a PB and finishing 51st at the Trials in 2020, it then took her several more attempts to reach 2:37. A case of Covid How to get started on the running track Berlin Marathon that year, but she did recover in time to return to CIM in December. There, she ran a sub-2:37, Trials-qualifying time of 2:36:28.

Over the course of her marathon improvement, Denholm was grateful for every finish line she crossed. That meant honouring not just the personal bests, but also the days when she faced obstacles or decided to not start or drop out. 'That’s what allows you to be happy the whole time, even though you haven’t achieved your pie-in-the-sky goal,' she says. 'Each race I’ve done has been a celebration of my hard work.'

T-Roy Brown asserts that frequent racing instills a belief that you can handle any scenario that arises. Having run his first marathon in a time of 2:35 in 2015, Brown eventually went on to qualify for the Olympic Marathon Trials with a 2:16, which he clocked at the 2023 Valencia Marathon.

Brown, 31, grew up in Oregon playing team sports. After he failed to get a lacrosse scholarship, he completed two Ironman triathlons and joined the cross country and track teams The science behind running your best marathon.

Now, he lives in Bern, Switzerland, and balances training with a full-time job as a teacher. To prepare for marathons, he does a hard workout on Tuesday and a long run on Sunday. Most Saturdays, he races distances from 8km to the half marathon. 'I probably do 30 races a year – maybe even more,' he says. 'I like racing. It also helps me to stay consistent with training and it’s a good rhythm.'

While studying at Stockton University, Christina Welsh did higher intensity, lower volume training to prepare for distances up to 10,000 meters. For her first two marathons, which she finished in 3:29 and 3:20, she trained in a similar style, topping out at 50 to 60 miles per week. However, she was frequently injured and unsure whether she was reaching her potential.

When she moved to Florida in 2019, she began training with the Forerunners Florida Track Club. The marathoners there introduced her to a different training strategy: higher mileage with fewer speed sessions.

This approach worked for her. In 2020, she dropped more than 16 minutes off her marathon time, running 3:03 at the Space Coast Marathon. Two years and three races later, she placed eighth in the 2022 Houston Marathon with a time of 2:33, an Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier by four minutes.

Welsh's mileage now peaks at around 120 to 130 miles a week. Of course, not everyone can or wants to run that much, but any increase in mileage might work for your marathon training, provided you do it gradually and carefully.

Christina Welsh at the 2022 Houston Marathon where she finished eighth.

For Welsh, 27, the key to increasing mileage was to cut back on harder efforts. She limits her intensity to one long run and another workout per week, with only about 10 percent of her mileage being fast. Even then, her speedier miles are rarely more than 20 seconds under marathon pace. 'Even though my training is a lot higher mileage, it feels a lot more relaxed and chilled,' she says.

Jesse Joseph, another Trials qualifier from Oregon, also increased his mileage over time. Before his first marathon in Los Angeles in 2021, which he completed in 2:22, he logged about 80 miles per week. By the time he qualified for the Trials with a 2:16, secured at the 2023 Eugene Marathon, he’d bumped that up to 100 miles per week.

thats 1:03 for men and 1:12 for women strength training so his body was ready to handle the load. 'Without the strength work, I will get injured by increasing my mileage,' he says.

at Portland State University.

Denholm also started to prioritise strength training after finding out she had a labral tear in her hip in 2022. Doctors told her she wasn’t a candidate for surgery, but to avoid getting to that point, she’d need to take things more seriously at the gym.

So, she hired her fellow coach, Mary Johnson, to design a strength training plan for her. Three days a week during base training, and twice a week when she’s doing more intense running workouts, she now does exercises that target her quads, glutes, hips and core – including single-leg exercises Boston Marathon 2024: Everything you need to know.

'My body’s never felt better while running since I started incorporating strength,' she says. 'I wish I'd done it years ago.'

Jesse Joseph at the 2023 Eugene Marathon gels in total. Now, she fuels up with at least one gel every four miles. 'That definitely made a difference with not feeling too depleted at the end and being able to finish a little stronger,' she says.

Denholm also fuels more than she used to. During CIM, she consumed 114 grams of carbohydrate per hour by combining sports drinks and gels. She trained her gut carefully, weaning herself onto gels on easy long runs and eating them slowly to help her stomach adjust. She then introduced gels to her interval sessions and other high intensity workouts, taking them first during recovery periods and then when she was running fast.

'My message to everyone is that you should fuel as often as you can, because you’ll have better workouts, you’ll recover faster and you’re continuing to train your stomach throughout your training,' she says.

Between his first marathon and his Trials qualifying run, Joseph also began putting more emphasis on eating enough between training sessions to replenish his body. He now eats a bigger breakfast after a morning run – at least two bagels and a after a morning run at least two bagels and a – and rice at every meal. Every morning, he packs snacks like dates, pretzels, pistachios and beef jerky to take with him to the office. 'I set a rule that I have to eat everything that I brought to work by the end of the day,' he says.

Runners hoping to achieve fast marathon times often flock to flatter, speedier courses like those in Chicago and Berlin. But, that isn’t all that matters when it comes to choosing a race, says Joseph. He ran his second marathon in Houston, where many records have fallen, and finished in 2:21:15. While that was a one-minute PB for him at the time, it was still more than three minutes off the Trials qualifying standard.

For his third marathon, where Joseph secured his Trials qualification, he stayed local in Eugene, Oregon, to simplify the logistics. Since he’d also won the half marathon there the year before in a time of 1:06, he also came to the race with confidence.

The support from his training group, too, also gave him a boost for marathon number three. 'I had a ton of friends all over the course,' he says. 'That was a huge morale boost in the middle of the race, to have the Portland running community there.'

How long does it take to train for a marathon pace groups, which can take the guesswork and some of the mental effort out of running a goal time. Brown knew the 2023 Valencia Marathon was his last chance to run a qualifying time for this year’s Trials. So, during the race, he latched onto a pace group for elite women targeting a 2:18 to 2:19 finish.

Even professional pacers aren’t always perfect, though, and in this case they started out too fast. But with their help – and the support of the group of about 50 runners following them – Brown kept up. Even when the pacers eventually slowed down, a pack of men continued working in sync to achieve their goals.

T-Roy Brown during the 2023 Copenhagen Marathon.

'I sort of thought, oh, groups are overrated, because I’ve done well running by myself,' Brown says. 'But I definitely ran way faster than I ever would have expected because the group was so good.'

Racing with a training partner or friend can pay off, too. Denholm also started CIM with a pace group, which splintered as the race progressed. But, throughout, she stayed close to a friend and former teammate, Sofie Schunk, and together they pushed on to hit their marathon targets in the most special, collaborative way.

Denholm hopes her story – and those of the Trials qualifiers like her – encourages other runners of all abilities to chase their dreams as well. 'It’s incredible, the progress that can be made,' she says. 'I’ve seen it as a coach, too. In this sport, there’s so much room for improvement for everyone.'