My name is Marnie Ponton, I am a distance runner, who loves HokaOneOne shoes and have recently joined Team Telford Elite.
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Although I’ve run all my life, I took a long hiatus from running in my late 20s to focus on career and starting a family. 3 years ago, I joined a local Crossfit gym (CrossFit Urge) to get fit again, and in the process realised that my competitive itch was still there, and I really wanted to get back into running.
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I’ve spent the last 2 years getting back into training and racing, however at the start of this year I made a difficult decision to change my programing. I needed to take my running up a level so asked if Dick Telford if he could coach me; luckily for me he agreed. For the past 4 months I’ve been under his guidance, with big improvements from 10km to half marathon, but my training is very much focussed on the Marathon.
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Key Sessions
The key component to my training since joining Team Telford has been on volume, over the past few months I have built up to 175km a week, with the plan to continue to build further.
![](https://www.runnerstribe.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/city2surf18.jpeg)
Tuesday Track is always done on a grass track, the tracks aren’t usually in the best conditions so I wear the Hoka Jaws obstacle shoe, I do a lot of variances but a typical session of late is 5x1600m repeats on a 6min cycle, done in the middle of a 25km run.
Thursdays are often spent hill running. I live in the Blue Mountains, so I am spoilt for choice. Once again I do a session in the middle of 25km and it generally consists of 25min of long hills and 15min of hill sprints.
The classic Sunday long run is always a key session for any distance runner. I mostly run a lot by myself, I often run by feel, I have been working up from 25km to 35km. I aim for a faster finish when running on flat road, or if on hilly trail, I run my long run as a fartlek, working up and over the hills.