How the ‘FAFO’ approach upended the way I think about running

One month out from the Sydney marathon, I decided to try a mad science experiment.

Like about 70 per cent of regular runners, I had been battling an overuse injury. For two years, I hadn’t run more than five kilometres and figured my days of going the distance were done.

Then, I received an email suggesting that we don’t all need to run so much because there was another way: one that inverted the traditional marathon training model and could mitigate injury risk.

For marathon runners, mileage is king.

A study of 119,452 marathon participants, published in December, found that the runners who finished in a time between two and two-and-a-half hours did three times the volume – around 107 kilometres per week – as those who finished in four-and-a-half to five hours.

It echoed the findings of earlier research that the best of the best did the most mileage (the men ran more than 200 kilometres a week and the women ran more than 166 kilometres).

So, more is more then? Alice Baquie, a physiotherapist who works with many of Australia’s elite distance runners, once thought so.

A former elite gymnast who competed on the national team, Baquie was used to pushing herself hard. So when she first encountered run culture in her late teens, it seemed so simple: “I was like, wait, your warm-up is running, then you run, and then your cooldown is running? That is crazy to me.”

But she loved that it didn’t involve any of the “other boring stuff”.

So, she smashed the mileage, and started smashing PBs, getting down to the low 30s in the 10K.

Then she too became a statistic: a sacral stress fracture “basically cracked all the way through” her lower back, followed by more fractures – she estimates close to 30 – from trying to grit her teeth and push through the pain.

Finally, she stopped running altogether. And it was nearly a decade before she started again.

During that time, Baquie was working as a sports physiotherapist in Melbourne’s Hawthorne. She recognised herself in many clients: self-flagellating A-types who were injured because life – training included – meant going harder, faster, and longer.

“People were getting sucked into the vortex of chasing kudos on Strava, high mileage, skimping on quality and sleep while juggling work, kids, life,” she says.

She wanted to run again, but wondered if it could more sustainable. So she began an experiment to train for her first marathon: how low could she go with mileage if she supported her body with strength, mobility and rehab?

While high mileage does create the edge for elites, Baquie argues that “carnage ensues” when people without perfect biomechanics and recovery try to replicate that model.

Our cardiovascular system adapts more quickly than our tendons and bones, explains Dr Ben Peterson from the University of Queensland. That means it’s easy to ramp up the mileage before our bodies are strong enough to handle the load.

“When we’re running, our Achilles tendon needs to be able to tolerate loads of sort of between six and eight times our body weight,” explains Peterson, a researcher focused on running-related injuries. “We need to tailor the strength to the kind of muscles and tendons that we’re using in running.”

So, Baquie adopted a “f--k around and find out” (FAFO) approach focused on strength over mileage. Eventually, she devised a body weight-based, run-specific Pilates program, ForRunners, and ran no more than four times a week, no further than 10 kilometres at a time.

In 2024, she ran a three-hour debut marathon.

I was intrigued by the proposition that less running can help us go the distance. Also, her Pilates app is now used by some of the country’s top distance runners.

Olympian Gen Gregson tells me she has become “pretty reliant” on ForRunners: “In an event where the goal is to hold your form as best as possible, the strength gained from Pilates can be the difference in minutes.”

Fellow Olympian and physio Jess Stenson has been incorporating Baquie’s strength and mobility classes into her training regime since 2020. They have helped her to build the stability and postural endurance, she says:

“That takes away from the need to train as much, and your VO2 may not need to be as high because you’re really efficient.”

Still, they do big mileage too. And I suspect Baquie is a freak of nature. I wondered if her approach works for the hoi polloi like me?

By the time we navigated emails sent to spam and time-differences (Baquie is overseas ahead of the New York marathon), there were four weeks until the Sydney marathon.

“Let’s F–ing Go,” she said, emailing me with a plan starting with five short but brutal Pilates-classes a week and just three runs.

Within weeks, I felt stronger and progressed from five kilometres to 16. Then it was time to taper.

On the day of the marathon, I jogged joyfully to the 30 kilometre mark when the tendinopathy in my ankle flared, and I pulled the pin.

Was it a failure? Perhaps, though strength over mileage got me 30 kilometres, an inconceivable distance four weeks earlier. And inverting the model made the same distance feel easier than it did the last time I did it.

“There’s definitely evidence to support it,” says Dr Danielle Trowell, a sport’s scientist from Deakin University.

For her PhD, Trowell took two groups of trained runners and had one group engage in strength training twice a week – squats, deadlifts, isometric calf raises and core work – while the other upped their mileage.

After 10 weeks, only the strength training group had improvements in their running performance.

The addition of strength likely made them more fatigue resistant, Trowell suggests.

“When you are stronger, you’re more efficient,” she explains. “So, you can, for example, achieve a faster running pace for a less effort. And it builds your resilience to fatigue, so you’re able to hold your good biomechanical technique for longer.”

If we can hold form for longer, we’re less likely to injure ourselves. But, the addition of strength to run training is still so novel that studies are few and far between and often not well-designed.

Both Peterson and Trowell encourage strength training, focused on the muscles and tendons used in running, but suggest building towards long distances for at least 12 weeks.

And though we may not need 100 kilometres a week, most of us need more than 10 kilometres, they say.

On this point, Baquie agrees.

“But, a lot of the time you can almost halve the mileage that is advised in marathon training, so long as you supplement with other strength,” she says.

“There are many ways to achieve your run goals and the somewhat archaic run program prescription could be questioned, modified and, in many cases, disregarded altogether.”

Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday.

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.