13 October 2026

Sydney marathon training is mostly easy running, and a free community run club is one of the simplest ways to get those easy kilometres done week after week. Two fixed sessions of short laps, one at sunrise and one under the lights, can hold the base of your build up while the ballot does its thing.

The ballot is open, so the base starts now

Ballots for big city marathons open earlier than most people expect, and the one for the Sydney Marathon opened in late September. Whether your name comes up or not, the months in between ask for the same thing: run easy, run often, and build the habit that a marathon build up is actually made of.

That is worth knowing before you start planning for a race you might not get into. The boring truth is that the training that matters most happens long before you know your start line exists. Big marathon races are harder to get into than ever, so the smart move is to treat the base phase as worth doing on its own, ballot or no ballot.

How the club fits Sydney marathon training

A marathon build up is not a highlight reel of hero sessions. It is a long stretch of weeks where most of the kilometres are run at a comfortable, conversational pace, on legs that are a little tired from the day before. Those easy runs are the ones people skip when they train alone, and they are the ones that decide whether the big sessions actually stick.

That is where a run club earns its place. If you already have a Sydney marathon training plan, the club's laps slot straight in as the easy runs. If you do not have a plan yet, showing up twice a week is the first building block of one anyway. Either way, the days you would otherwise talk yourself out of are the days someone is waiting at the oval.

Easy running has quietly become the thing everyone is talking about, and for good reason. Running easy on purpose is how you go further without breaking, and it is easier to actually keep an easy pace when you are chatting your way around a lap than when you are alone with a watch.

Why short laps make honest easy runs

The club keeps its runs to short laps on purpose. Thursday mornings you can take one lap of 2.5 km, or two. Tuesday nights you can take one lap of 3 km, or two. These are options, not a running total: one lap is a full run in itself, and nobody is counting your kilometres for you.

Laps suit a build up better than they might look on paper. You can start a lap feeling ordinary and finish it feeling good, and you decide each loop whether today is one or two. The distance flexes with the training week, which is what easy running is supposed to do. And because the group spreads out by pace, you run at the pace your marathon legs need, not the pace your watch dares you to hit.

A training week with the club in it

Here is what a week in a build up can look like once two club sessions are anchored in place:

• Monday: rest, or an easy walk to loosen the legs.
• Tuesday night (every second week): the Tuesday Night Run at Castle Hill Showground, one lap of 3 km or two.
• Wednesday: a recovery jog, some strength work, or nothing at all.
• Thursday morning: the Thursday Morning Run at Glenhaven Oval, one lap of 2.5 km or two.
• Weekend: your long run, grown slowly week by week.
• The days in between: life. Two club sessions and one long run is already a real training week.

The two club runs sit nicely apart, so you are never deciding between them:

The long run stays yours

One honest note: the long run is the session a marathon asks for most, and it stays yours to plan. The club does not run your weekend long run for you. What it does is make the rest of the week reliable, so that when the long run grows from an hour to two and beyond, you are not also carrying every other session alone.

Grow it slowly, one week at a time, and let the club laps be the sessions that never move. A build up that has a fixed Thursday morning and a fixed Tuesday night in it is far harder to talk yourself out of than one built on good intentions.

How to get started this week

Everything runs through HRC+, the club's free membership. Make an account, register for the runs you want to join, and turn up at the meet time. Running with the club is free, every run is registered in HRC+, and the runs page has what is coming up.

The next two on the calendar are the Thursday Morning Run on 15 October at Glenhaven Oval, and the Tuesday Night Run on 20 October at Castle Hill Showground. Pick one, register in HRC+, and let the base phase take care of itself.