There was a time when eight miles felt like an eternity to Weini Kelati. Now, toward the tail end of preparing for her first full marathon, she can find herself 10 miles into a 20-mile workout and realize the distance that once signaled the end of a hard day has now become the halfway point.
This progression says a lot about what marathon preparation requires. The obvious difference between a half marathon and 26.2 miles is distance, but Kelati discovered that building a marathon body involved more than adding more miles to her workload. The body must be conditioned to tolerate additional volume, know how to fuel, how to recover, and eventually trust that the work was enough when fatigue arrives.
Kelati, the American half-marathon record holder, Olympian, and five-time national champion will make her marathon debut at the TCS New York City Marathon on Nov. 1. Speaking with Muscle & Fitness through New York Road Runners, she explained that she had always seen the half marathon as a gateway toward eventually racing 26.2, even giving herself a loose requirement of completing four or five before considering making the move.
“I think first I was nervous,” Kelati said. “I was like, ‘Oh my goodness. This is going to be hard because I used to be at low mileage.’”
What surprised her most isn’t how difficult the transition was, but how quickly the human body can begin adjusting to something once intimidating as simply another day in training.
Redefining Normal for the Body
During Kelati’s half-marathon preparation, she said her highest weekly mileage reached around 75 miles. For this build, she knew that number would have to climb into the 90s. The increase initially made her nervous. Once she started, however, something unexpected happened: She began enjoying it.
The biggest adjustment was redefining what constitutes a long effort. In the lead-up to a 10K or half-marathon, a six- or eight-mile tempo run could represent one of the bigger sustained sessions on her schedule. Marathon preparation introduced two different types of long runs, including easier road efforts and workouts, which she can cover approximately 20 miles at a specific pace.
“I’m not the type of person who rushes into something,” Kelati said. “I always take a lot baby steps to get used to something.”
That patience allowed her body to establish a new baseline without making every unfamiliar distance feel like a test. Her weekly structure wasn’t radically different from half-marathon training, either. The biggest change is that familiar paces and workouts extended further, asking her to sustain what she already knew for considerably longer.
The result was a changed internal relationship with distance.
“When you get to eight miles, you start saying, ‘Oh, I’m already halfway,’ instead of saying, ‘Oh, I used to stop here,” Kelati says. “The mind and the body change the way I have to handle it.”
Marathon Training Won’t Let Kelati Run on Empty
The added mileage exposed an area Kelati admits hasn’t always been a strength for her: nutrition.
At shorter distances, she could get away with habits that weren’t conducive with marathon preparation. For years, she could wake up and run without eating anything because consuming food before a morning session wasn’t something she enjoyed.
The marathon build forced her to adjust that part of her routine. When there is a large increase in workload, personal preferences eventually run into physical necessity.
“You have to help the body as much as it’s working,” Kelati said. “During the marathon training, you have to fuel your body. You have to get ready for the next hard run.”
She learned that fueling for her bigger sessions didn’t mean forcing down a huge meal. If appetite was an issue, she would have smaller meals spaced throughout the day. This same logic changed her behavior after a run.
Meals were the common recovery method for Kelati, but the increased workload led her to incorporate recovery drinks and pay closer attention to getting nutrition back into her body sooner.
Kelati’s favorite recovery method didn’t require scheduling or involve any expensive equipment.
“I love taking naps after every single run,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how hard or easy the run I do, I just have to take a little nap every day and, of course, more than eight hours of sleep during the night.”
Kelati fully believes giving her body adequate downtime has been an important reason she was able to absorb demanding training and be able to show up the following morning and ask her body to perform again.
Training the Mind for a Foreign Distance
There is one part of marathon preparation Kelati couldn’t completely simulate.
She could run 20 miles in training, nap after training, and ask experienced marathoners what waits beyond the distances she already knows.
Until New York, however, she won’t know exactly how her own body and mind will respond to racing 26.2 miles. That uncertainty doesn’t seem to bother her as much as thinking about the entire distance at once.
“I don’t like counting the miles,” Kelati said. “It seems pretty long for me to think about it while you’re standing on the start line or you just started. You’re in the first mile, and you’re just like, ‘Oh, we have like 25 miles to go.’”
Instead, she intends on remaining completely in the moment.
“I just like to be in the present and focus one mile at a time,” she said.
Insights have helped. Kelati did the same thing before moving into half marathons, quizzing runners about which points of the race are the most challenging so she could have some idea of what awaited her. This time, the answer is a different number.
“They keep saying, ‘You’re going to start racing when you get to 30K,’” she says. “It can be different, but also it’ll give you what to expect or what’s coming when you get to that distance and how you’re going to handle it.”
Discomfort will eventually arrive, and Kelati’s strategy is a simple one. She reminds herself that the pain is temporary and that she’d rather find out what she’s capable of than finish wondering whether she would have given more.
It’s a mindset that comes from weeks of watching her body handle workloads she once was uncertain about. Kelati says one of the things she’s most proud of during this build has been how naturally she adapted to the training her coach put in front of her. Each completed run and training session has chipped away the stone of uncertainty that existed when 26.2 was still just a thought.
“When you try to do something new, you always have these thoughts that can prevent you from doing something,” Kelati said. “But then once you just start doing it, I feel like we can do anything when we believe.”
When Kelati reaches the start line in Staten Island, there will be lots of thoughts in her head. All the early morning runs, how well she’s done in races in New York, and all the months spent gradually extending what her body can tolerate.
She will let those thoughts flow. Her goal for that morning speaks to her readiness.
“I want to feel good just standing there and say, ‘Today is a great day,’” Kelati said. ‘“I feel good. Let’s do this.’”
Follow Weini on Instagram @weini_kelati
