On December 14, 2025, I crossed the finish line of the BMW Dallas Marathon – my first full-length marathon – in 5 hours and 26 minutes. Not a competitive time, not a dramatic breakthrough, but a deeply personal milestone: I wanted to run 40 kilometers before turning 40, and I did it.

What began in Canadian-level frigidity – the kind of cold that reminds me why I moved to Texas in the first place – quickly turned into a math game that was equal parts mental and physical. By kilometer 30, it was down to “Just make it to that lamppost up there,” because thinking about the remaining 12 kilometers felt insurmountable. The icy wind cut straight through my too-thin, southern layers, which clung to my back as the afternoon heat bounced off the pavement when the sun finally decided to show up. By the last mile, every step vibrated up into my teeth, and nothing – absolutely nothing – compares to the sense of relief that comes with finally crossing the finish line.

What makes this relevant to Starting Strength isn’t the distance, but the method. This experience convinced me that strength training and marathon preparation are not competing priorities. They’re interdependent when you understand how to manage training stress.

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I didn’t train for this marathon the way most runners do. I didn’t run five days a week. I didn’t log 40-mile weeks. I didn’t follow a traditional endurance training plan at all.

Instead, I trained through the lens of the Two-Factor Model of Sports Performance – the same model that Starting Strength uses to describe how athletes improve in any sport: by driving long-term physical adaptation, while managing short-term fatigue. This model applies to barbells. It applies to swimming. It applies to combatives (including military training). And yes, it applies to running 42 kilometers.

Yet in the Starting Strength community, we often talk about running as if it sits outside the laws of physiology. I have heard coaches warn novices not to run. The inexperienced or unknowledgeable tell hobby runners they have to pick one: get strong OR run. We treat endurance training as if it is fundamentally incompatible with barbell training.

I think we can do better than that. And more importantly, I think the model already gives us the tools to do better. Running Isn’t the Problem. Misapplied Advice Is.

Mark Rippetoe’s article Why You Should Not Be Running is possibly one of the most widely circulated pieces in the Starting Strength ecosystem – and one of the most misapplied. The article is written for people whose primary training goal is to get strong. Those trainees often add excessive, unstructured running that interferes with recovery. In that context, “stop running” is valid and appropriate.

But many newcomers and inexperienced coaches take that advice as universal doctrine: If you run at all, you can’t get strong. If you want to get strong, you must stop running. That interpretation is too blunt for the real world.

Years ago, in a completely different context, I saw firsthand what happens when the “don’t run” message gets stripped of nuance and applied as universal law. An inexperienced “coach” confidently told me that running was unnecessary, that it wouldn’t prepare me for the physical demands of carrying 120 pounds of kit, and that strength work alone would be sufficient. It wasn’t. The reality was that the job still required the very skills that endurance training develops: the ability to move under load, repeatedly, over distance, for time.

In hindsight, it wasn’t the Starting Strength model that failed me; it was the way its ideas were flattened into absolutes. That experience cemented something important for me: athletes need models, not slogans, and endurance athletes (recreational or otherwise) in particular need clarity about how strength and running interact, not reflexive dismissal of one in favor of the other.

The Two-Factor Model provides that clarity. It explains when running helps, when it hurts, how much is too much, and how strength training can enhance endurance performance rather than compete with it.

What I Actually Did: A Two-Run, Two-Lift Week

My training plan was simple:

• One long run every weekend, progressively extended from 10 kilometers to 28 kilometers (this was the longest run I did pre-race).
• One short weekday run, focused on speed drills in the beginning, pacing practice towards the end.
• Two lifting sessions per week following a rotating volume–intensity split.

The lifting template was designed by my coach (and husband), Michael Jones, SSC, who planned each phase of my lifting based on my injury history, recovery capacity, and the constraints imposed by tearing a calf muscle in August.

His programming for me consisted of conjugate training for the squat, bench, and deadlift. I trained volume early in the week, practicing the next coming maximal effort event that occurred later in the week, notwithstanding my deadlift. For the deadlift, I rack-pulled five doubles, heavy, with minimal rest early in the week, followed by a maximal effort deadlift variation later in the week. My coach did this to keep the stress more manageable than what he suspected a volume deadlift workout would produce, while still keeping force production high.

My press followed a volume and intensity split. Intensity press was made up of a very heavy maximal effort single followed by many back off singles within 5-10% of the heavier single; my volume oscillated between fives or triples, really whatever was hot to strike for the day.

We used four variations of each the squat, bench and deadlift because my running training made me an “artificial late-intermediate/advanced strength athlete.” We also took this liberality to keep stress lower than it would have been with, say, two movement pattern variations. Here is a visual of what my lift days looked like:

Week 1

• Monday: Volume Squat, Volume Press
• Thursday: ME Squat, Intensity Press

Week 2

• Monday: Rack Pull 5x2, Volume Bench
• Thursday: ME Deadlift, ME Bench

I was not reaching for marathon PR territory, though I likely could have following this method. I wasn’t peaking my lifts, though I did match some previous PRs in bench and rack-pulls towards the end of the cycle. I wasn’t chasing glory – just the ability to walk normally the day after the race. My goal was sustainability: a model-driven approach to completing a marathon without destroying my injury-prone body in the process. And it worked.

Why Less Running… Works

Traditional marathon plans rely heavily on high mileage because they mistake activity for productive stress. Running more does make you better, until the fatigue becomes so chronic that it blunts adaptation.

The Two-Factor Model breaks this down cleanly:

1. Physical adaptation accumulates with training.
2. Fatigue interferes with displaying physical adaptation in a testing event.
3. Productive training balances both.

Most recreational runners (myself included, not that long ago) drown in fatigue and wonder why their endurance/speed/etc. isn’t improving. By contrast, barbell training is a low-volume, high-intensity, high-adaptation stressor. It allows athletes to maintain and even build force production without accumulating the chronic fatigue induced by excessive mileage.

This matters because running economy – how efficiently you move – is heavily influenced by strength. Stronger athletes absorb and redirect force better. They maintain posture longer. They resist mechanical collapse under fatigue. They get hurt less. Lifting made me a more durable runner.

And because I wasn’t constantly exhausted, every run had training value. There was one weekday run – a short 6km after a rough shift at work – where my legs felt like someone had poured wet cement into them. A year ago, I would have pushed harder and called it discipline. This time, I cut the run short, ate dinner, and slept. The next day, I hit my intensity bench press PR. That’s the Two-Factor Model in real life: you stop worshipping mileage and start training like an adult.

The Injury Problem That Strength Solves

I have old military injuries. Lower back. Right hip. Both ankles. I added a torn calf to that cacophony of ailments in early August. If I had tried to follow a four- or five-day running program with a torn calf, a busy family and a full-time job, I would have broken down — not maybe, definitely. Strength training changed that.

By driving force production up and fatigue down, I created a physiological buffer that allowed me to train with fewer miles, less wear and tear, and more resilience. I wasn’t just “fit enough to finish.” I was strong enough to hold my form when it mattered most — in the last 10 kilometers, when the wheels come off for so many recreational runners.

When I crossed the finish line in downtown Dallas, I was tired, and emotional, but not wrecked. I was proud, but not broken. I recovered faster than expected. And – most importantly – I finished uninjured.

That alone makes the model worth applying.

For the “Pick One” Crowd

When someone walks into a Starting Strength gym and says they want to run a marathon and get strong, the response is often some version of:

• “You can’t do both.”
• “Pick a primary goal.”
• “If you’re running, you’re sabotaging your lifts.”

The last one is true under normal circumstances. And these platitudes are understandable — beginners do need to prioritize. And poor programming can make strength and running compete with each other.

But with the Two-Factor Model, the decision doesn’t have to be binary. It’s a question of intelligent stress management. You can get strong. You can run. You just can’t pretend the laws of physiological adaptation don’t apply. Strength and endurance rely on different biological systems, but they’re not mutually exclusive – they just demand smarter planning.

For Coaches: A Path Forward

Coaches in the SS community have an opportunity here. Instead of shutting down runners or treating their sport as a moral failing (and potentially losing clients!), we can:

• Teach them the model
• Keep their mileage productive, not excessive
• Integrate lifting intelligently
• Prevent injuries
• Support bucket-list goals, military requirements, or nuanced life-needs without derision

This approach doesn’t dilute Starting Strength – it expands its usefulness. Strong runners are better runners. Strong humans are better athletes. And endurance athletes who learn to train with intention become better at everything they do.

If Running a Marathon Is on Your Bucket List, do it. Don’t wait for permission. Don’t assume you have to run 40 miles a week. Don’t assume you must abandon strength training. Train for strength. Run intentionally. Use the model. Manage fatigue. Work with a coach who understands both strength and endurance demands.

I didn’t run this marathon to win it. I ran it to prove something to myself, to honor the endurance conditioning I loved during my military career, and to challenge my body in a new way. And the truth is, I could not have done it the way I did without the barbell.

Strength made the difference. The model made it sustainable. And the combination made forty-two kilometers not just possible, but meaningful.

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