Before You Add Strength Training, Look at Your Running Week

By Greg Kench · Barbell Empowered

If you are a marathon or ultra runner trying to add strength training, start with the week you already have. The exercise list comes later.

You may have a long run, a harder interval workout, several easier recovery runs, and an upcoming race block. Around those sessions sit your job, family responsibilities, travel, and the ordinary demands that dictate whether a routine survives.

Strength training has to fit into that reality. A gym workout that looks manageable on a blank spreadsheet can easily fail when dropped into an actual week.

This article offers a practical framework for organizing the week. It does not prescribe generic lifting templates or replace individual coaching.

Put the non-negotiables on one page

Write down your normal running week. Mark the key running sessions you most want to arrive fresh for, along with the days when professional or domestic duties strictly limit your time.

Do not just write down the mileage. Note the logistical friction. An early morning run might be short, but it takes place before a ten-hour workday. A gym session requires driving through traffic, waiting for an open squat rack, changing, and driving home.

Those details determine whether a plan is repeatable. They are valuable data, not excuses to hide from your coach.

If you work with a running coach, take their prescribed running plan as the baseline. Strength training must respect that framework. You should not have to spend your season negotiating a tug-of-war between two disconnected training philosophies.

Account for the entire workout window

It is tempting to see an open 60-minute window in your diary and assume that a barbell session fits there.

Before you commit, audit the entire window:

When will you drive to the facility?
Will the gym be crowded?
Can you complete your warm-up and lift without checking your watch every set?
Will you be rushed heading straight into your next commitment?

A viable training slot is one you can execute consistently across a demanding sixteen-week marathon block, not just during an unusually quiet week.

Consider an athlete who can consistently train on a Tuesday evening, but frequently works late on Thursdays. Writing "Thursday 18:00 - Lower Body" on the plan will produce missed sessions, frustration, and inconsistent stimulus. The scheduling friction must be confronted before the exercise program is set.

The solution might mean training once during the week and once on the weekend, switching to home equipment, or adjusting the training format. The routine must serve the athlete's life.

Tell your coach what changes

A training calendar is a working hypothesis. Work schedules change, sleep gets disrupted, races are rescheduled, and long runs get moved due to weather.

When life shifts, communicate immediately with your strength coach. Saying "My 28km long run moved from Sunday to Saturday" gives your coach the information needed to move or modify your leg training. Trying to execute heavy squats 12 hours after a hard long run because the plan said so is a recipe for poor performance.

Keep your feedback direct:

What sets and weights did you complete?
What felt unusually fatiguing?
How did your legs feel during the priority run that followed?

This feedback does not diagnose medical problems; it provides the concrete information needed to adjust your load.

Choose support you will actually use

Some distance runners have the home equipment, lifting background, and discipline to train independently with written programming and video feedback. Others need scheduled live video coaching to ensure technical precision. Others benefit most from private in-person appointments where the coach handles the setup and cues every repetition.

These are operational differences. They matter far more than choosing a tier based on how advanced its title sounds.

At Barbell Empowered:

Online Strength Coaching provides weekly individual programming, video review after every workout, and weekly check-ins.
Live 1-on-1 Online Coaching provides real-time coaching on your lifts in a private 60-minute video session. Sessions are available on request at US$70 each, payable before the session begins. This is a separate booking from monthly Online Coaching and has no quarterly payment option.
Private In-Person Coaching in Alberton provides eight private appointments per calendar month. Applications are welcome; the opening date is to be confirmed and the venue is shared privately with accepted clients.

The right coaching relationship begins with an honest assessment of what help you need and what structure your schedule permits.

A practical starting step

Before altering your calendar, take a sheet of paper and sketch out your current training week. Mark your running sessions, available gym equipment, and unavoidable time constraints.

Then finish this sentence: "The hardest part of fitting strength training into my week is..."

You do not need to solve the puzzle yourself. You just need an honest baseline for a coaching conversation.