Graduated before Christmas - Now training for London Marathon!

[Music-Man]

Hi. Can anyone suggested the best plan to follow For marathon training after graduating C25K. I’ve run a marathon before but stop running due to health reasons eventually returning unfit and feeling new to running. Anyone done a marathon after C25K and what plan did you follow?

[MissUnderstanding Administrator Graduate]

This is where all the expertise is!

healthunlocked.com/marathon...

Good luck!

[MissUnderstanding Administrator Graduate]

Replied in a hurry earlier…didn’t catch that you haven’t posted about your graduation before. Massive congratulations! That’s a fantastic achievement! 🥳🏃‍♀️🎉

You can request your all important graduate badge here… 🏅

healthunlocked.com/couchto5...

I’ll post the link to our standard post graduation run advice. Obviously you’ve got a very ambitious plan to train for London that’s not what most of us do straight after finishing c25k! That’s why the really friendly and knowledgeable marathon support community might be better equipped to advise you on training. Hopefully you’re consolidating right now and it’ll be a gradual build to get you over the line on race day. Whether you run it all, run/walk or even walked it all, it’ll be an amazing thing to do.

healthunlocked.com/couchto5...

[Cmoi Graduate]

Hi     Music-Man , definitely come over to the marathon forum linked to by    MissUnderstanding !

Are you already signed up for the 2023 London Marathon? If so, that's a pretty big ask. Apart from the fact that you're a recent graduate, the race is under 15 weeks away and most marathon plans last at least 16 weeks.

You might want to look at a walk-run plan. Pushing to complete all the runs of a run-only plan could end up in an overuse injury, which would be such a shame.

I confess I'm in no position to preach, having completed a fairly technical 46km trail event fifteen months after completing C25K, but I'd already got several HMs under my belt before I started training, and on the day I took it very easy. My only aim was to get round, and to have fun, and that's what I did.

Good luck!

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Hi I trained for a marathon 1 year after graduating and ended up with an overuse injury during the training. Marathon training is tough on your body and I think my body was telling me that it just wasn't ready. If your set on it then I'd recommend adding strength and flexibility training to your plan, this may help prevent over use injury. Good luck with your training..

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Also, if you can try to get in a regular sports massage, sadly as we age it takes longer for our muscles to adapt to hard training and a regular sports massage really helps. During marathon training I have 1 per month and in the latter half when the long runs increase I have 2 per month

[Music-Man]

Thanks for your help. I’m on week 3 of the TCS training plan and run 8 miles on Sunday. I started to feel tired at mile 6 and remembered Laura’s advice (C25K trainer) to slow down. It worked! 6 miles today and tomorrow plus 9 on Sunday. Who would have thought this was possible at the beginning of C25K.

[MissUnderstanding Administrator Graduate in reply to Music-Man]

Is that the beginner’s plan? I can’t see one that fits with what you’re doing. Did you look at the marathon forum yet? That’s a great place for support. Good luck.

For any newbies, this isn’t a typical path to take after graduation. Running on consecutive days isn’t recommended until at least six months after you start running regularly, ideally more.