does building leg muscle enable you to run further?

[juicychops]

ive got back into running over the last month after a 5 month break in preparation for the London Marathon next year. I did 7.5 miles on Monday (woohoo furthest yet) but where ive not been back running long my legs are a bit flabby still and not very muscly.

Im trying to up my protein to build up some muscle as i feel like my legs are a bit weak at the moment but is this the right way to go?

if so, whats the quickest most effective way to build my legs up in order to do faster longer runs?

my aim is that by xmas i will be doing 3 x 8mile runs per week

I would ahve thought by doing longer and longer runs to build up your aerobic stamina. Leg strength should follow, non?

Hills. Lots and lots of hills. Sprints are good too as they engage muscles that don't always get used.

ok cool ta. i was just hoping for short cuts!!

As well as hill and efforts, some sort of strength training that engages hamstrings and quads. It is well known that running trains your quads - uinless you train your hamstrings as well then potentially you end up with muscles that are balanced. Lots of squats and lunges and variations on (walking lunges; jumping lunges, jumping squats.) This increase the explosive power in your legs.

Have you seen how skinny legged the fastest marathon runners are? In fact having the teeniest-tiniest calves as possible is the ideal for marathon runners (you're swinging that weight below the knee a lot, the less the weight the easier you run)

Running doesn't need strong muscles, and really doesn't want large muscles, so any traditional gym bunny like training that focuses on building size is a bad idea. You really just want aerobic work like cybbo says. If you can add more training then other aerobic sports that let your legs recover from the pounding of running would be good - cycling, rowing etc.

longer distance running will be working the slow twitch fibres, these are not the ones that contribute particularly to muscle size.
The capacity of your cardio vascular system is more likely to be a limiting factor

The exercises notyummy mentions are brilliant for injury prevention too.

Hi juicychops there's an interesting article in the current issue of Bodyfit magazine, with a circuit of resistance exercises for runners, written by Matt Roberts, who highly recommends them for, as other posters have said, preventing injury and also improving stamina (doesn't say speed though )

"...Strength can be improved significantly and while there can be concerns from runners about gaining muscle mass and making the legs feel 'heavy', the gains you'll see as a result of the extra power are bigger than any potential negatives that extra muscle could possibly bring"...."don't duck these sessions, they will genuinely transform your running"

HTH

That was just an extract btw, not whole thing!