Ok, this seems inevitable so I may as well face into it and just accept that I will be running a marathon at some point in the future. So I may as well get on with it and figure out how i'm going to achieve this safely. Also as I have a HM in October, it may be useful training to be running longer distances so the HM seems more like a training run. Anyways, as a place to start I need to simply ask the question.. how does one go about training for such a herculean task?
I guess it would be safe to say I have 4-6mths or more to accomplish this. I have entered the ballot for the London Marathon so fingers crossed for that, but I'd love to do a more local a less organised event and maybe even a trail Marathon.
Thanks in advance for any advice given.
Written by
pinkaardvark
Half Marathon
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There are loads of training plans out there - just find one you like the look of. Some cap long runs by time, some by distance. For my part, I needed one that focussed on distance ( it means I spent a long time training! It all depends on how fast you are!). There are some free guardian running apps that you can use to help on a midweek run ( not for the long run) to simulate the type of feelings you will go through. Have fun!
Yes I have seen a lot that focus on time more than distance, not sure how I feel a bout that as so used to achieving distance targets. But I have little experience trying to run at different paces so maybe that's what I need to learn. I will just pick one I like the look of it and crack on then, i'm guessing I don't need to go right back to the start as some of them start with running for 10 minutes.
Congrats! I started training for my first marathon about 6 months before, with London just 4 months after that one again. It was a bit too long to focus on the distance, as I was pretty fed up with it at the end. So my advice would be to train for your HM as usual, then put in a 12-16 week training period for your marathon.
I generally trained by distance, but stopped doing that at the end, as I'm a slower runner, and going out for a couple of 3+ hour runs was pretty soul destroying. I also read a lot about how running for more than 3 hours isn't very good for you, which supported my decision. It certainly helped my motivation to know that when I hit 1.5 hours on my longest runs, I was halfway there, no matter what, which made it easier to complete the run.
Lovely! I think you have already got some very good ideas there - a HM is great for a training run, and if you have a trail marathon under your belt before the London One (fingers crossed!), you will feel invincible!
Great plan! I have always found rigid plans quite hard but we are all different. I know Myasics is rated very highly here. When I did my first marathon I wrote this which may/ may not be helpful!!
That's great ju-ju, thankyou. I probably am very similar in that i'm not a fan of rigid plans, but I do respect the core tenet of you need to put the miles in, so I think I will approach this as you have done and commit to do the mileage and record as I go but not beat myself up if things go awry. I'm very tempted at the moment to book a place on the North norfolk trail marathon Sept 22 which would give me a nice 3 month window to train.
I too have found suitable marathon training plans hard to find because they all assume you are starting from a low base and training towards one specific race. In my case I've done a HM in May and now need to try to find a plan that assumes HM fitness as a starter. Failing that I think I will just do a 5km jog, a 10k run and a long run of 8-12-16-20-24-28-32k leading up to the race. I will do a couple of HM events to suffice for some of the long runs.
I have gone with the medibank intermediate 12 week plan. They have a beginner and an advanced plan so you can switch it around to find the level that is right if one week is too hard I guess.
The beginner 12 week one is only 4 runs a week plus 1 hour interval training. The advanced is 5 but one of them is speed play based ie intervals, hill sprints etc.
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