Could you finish Harry Styles’s hard marathon session?

Last week, British pop singer Harry Styles took the world by surprise when he was spotted at the 2025 Berlin Marathon, setting a new 25-minute personal best time of 2:59:13—joining the exclusive club of celebrity sub-three-hour marathoners. The running nerd in us instantly wanted to know what his training looked like despite his (probably) hectic schedule.

my favorite athlete harry styles running the berlin marathon pic.twitter.com/fkmALFz2LM

— anna bea (@axlsugar) September 21, 2025

Styles’s secret? He was trained by David Thibo, a professional fighter and former member of the British Special Forces. “When I first started training Harry, I wasn’t thinking ‘marathon finisher’—but peak performance was always the goal,” Thibo said on social media. “Whether (training) for a world tour, a film role, or a marathon, the same principles apply: structure, smart recovery, and long-term resilience.”

So, what does Styles’ marathon training look like? According to Thibo, there was one key weekly hard session:

“A 10- to 20-minute slow jog to ease into the workout, followed by a fast one-mile run to test his speed. The mile was followed by a bodyweight challenge of 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups and 100 air squats—all to be completed within eight minutes.”

After the series of bodyweight exercises, Thibo would have Styles do some hill sprints to build more speed and power, followed by a cool-down run and stretching. 

For his Tokyo Marathon build in the spring, Thibo noted that Styles had clocked a fastest mile of 5:13 (3:14/km pace), a clear sign there was more untapped potential in his legs. His sub-three-hour performance in Berlin proved exactly that.

But not every day in Styles’s training plan was about hard efforts. Styles’s program was like any solid marathon plan, blending his recovery runs with tougher sessions. Styles regularly logged 10 to 20 km runs around London’s Regent’s Park, complemented by core work and mobility training to keep him strong and injury-free.

Harry Styles clocks a speedy 2:59:13 at Berlin Marathon

Thibo said he broke down his training program into specific phases or cycles to ensure Styles made continuous progress while minimizing his risk of overtraining or injury. “Every workout was thoughtfully placed within the overall training plan,” Thibo explains. “I find proper periodization to be crucial for sustained progress.”