Your plan in four answers
Sydney Marathon has not announced its next date, so we have estimated August. Change the date below once you know it.
- Distances
- Marathon
- Terrain
- Hilly
Course
The Sydney Marathon course
The newest of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, run across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and finishing at the Opera House. It is the hilliest of the Majors by a clear margin: the bridge approaches, the climbs through the eastern suburbs, and the rolling stretch late in the race all matter.
Read the full course notes
There is no half marathon on the day, only the marathon and a 5K Mini Marathon, and the finish is one of the best in the sport.
- Terrain
- Hilly
- Distances
- Marathon
- Weather on race day
- Late August is late winter in the southern hemisphere, which means cool and dry: starts in the 50s, highs in the 60s. It is good racing weather, and the reverse of what a northern-hemisphere athlete will have been training in.
What to train for
Hills and a reversed season.
The course needs genuine climbing and descending work, and northern-hemisphere runners have to do their peak build through summer for a race held in another hemisphere's winter.
Plan the heat management of the training block as carefully as the race itself.
Sample week
A sample Sydney Marathon training week
A week from the middle of the build, about six weeks out. Your plan sets the real distances and paces from your own fitness and adjusts them every week as you train.
- Monday
- Rest, or 20 minutes of mobility
- Tuesday Key session
- Hill repeats: 10 × 90 s up a steady grade, jog back down
- Wednesday
- Easy run, 10–11 km
- Thursday Key session
- Goal-pace run, 16 km with 10 km at race pace
- Friday
- Recovery run, 6 km, or cross-train
- Saturday Key session
- Long run, 26–29 km on hilly ground, steady effort on the climbs
- Sunday
- Easy run, 6 km, then 6 relaxed strides
Taper
Tapering for the Sydney Marathon
Start the taper two to three weeks before race day. Cut your weekly volume by about a third, then by half in race week, and keep a few short efforts at race pace so your legs stay sharp. The course is hilly, so keep one short hill session in the first taper week to keep the climbs familiar.
Also in Claude
Ask Claude for this plan
Add AthleteSpace to Claude once, then paste this prompt and put in your own numbers.
Build me a training plan for the TCS Sydney Marathon in August. I run [distance] a week, [days] days a week, easy pace [pace].
Sydney Marathon training questions
How long should I train for the Sydney Marathon?
Most runners give a marathon sixteen to twenty weeks of focused training on top of an existing base. The plan above counts back from your actual race date, so if you have less time than that it builds the best plan the remaining weeks allow rather than pretending you have longer.
Is the Sydney Marathon course hilly?
Hilly. The newest of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, run across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and finishing at the Opera House.
What is the weather usually like at the Sydney Marathon?
Late August is late winter in the southern hemisphere, which means cool and dry: starts in the 50s, highs in the 60s. It is good racing weather, and the reverse of what a northern-hemisphere athlete will have been training in.
When should I start tapering for the Sydney Marathon?
Start the taper two to three weeks before race day. Cut your weekly volume by about a third, then by half in race week, and keep a few short efforts at race pace so your legs stay sharp. The course is hilly, so keep one short hill session in the first taper week to keep the climbs familiar.
Do I need an account to get a Sydney Marathon training plan?
No. The plan above builds in your browser with no account, no email, and no card. Make a free account only if you want to keep it, log your runs against it, and have the coach keep adapting it as your training goes.