JustSomeEm wrote: »

This thread has made me want to start training for a full marathon... I'm fully crazy. I just did a half a few months ago and swore I'd never run again when I was done. Yup... I be crazy. *runs off to find a beginner marathon training plan*

lol yep once the pain and bad memory wears off it doesnt seem so bad haha

I'm signed up for R'n'R NOLA too, although just the HM....I want to party a bit while I'm there

I am going to offer this advice for what it is worth. Do not wait till 16 or 18 weeks before your marathon to start building up mileage. If you know you have many many months away for your marathon and you are pretty much healthy today, then start building up that mileage now. You will thank me later.

Keep everything at a slow pace as you build mileage. No intervals, no tempos, or hill sprints. Just run at your easy conversational pace and slowly build up that weekly mileage as well as your long run. Build up your long run in a way that your long run distance is no more than 25-35% of your weekly mileage. if you need to take a cutback week, take one. If you need to repeat the same mileage again for the week, then feel free to do so.

There are a few of problems I feel with the strict adherance to the 18 week plans.
1) What happends if you miss a week here or there? All of a sudden, you are 3 weeks away from your marathon and you are stressed out because life got in the way of your training and you only did a 15 mile long run when by now you should have done 18 or 20. How do you catch up? You catch up by getting ahead of the game early. The longer you can stretch out that 18 week schedule the less pressure there is to actually keep that schedule. So if I have 6 months till my marathon and I actually start the plan today, then I can stretch that 18 week plan into 27 weeks. I can repeat weeks. I can skip a week for a long run and not feel pressured into making up the difference some how.
2) The 18 weeks, I personally feel does not give your body enough time to actually adapt to the increase mileage. I compare it to like cramming for your finals in that last weekend. To go from 20 miles per week to 45 miles per week in only 18 weeks? For some people that is not enough time for the body to get stronger to handle those miles, and they either end up getting hurt during training or end up with an injury right after their race.
By starting the plan sooner rather than later allows you to take extra cut back weeks if your body is telling you that it needs more rest.
3) Also, the normal 18 week plans don't give you enough time spent at the longer distances. These plans are designed more to allow you to survive a marathon, not train you to be efficient at that distance. So by the time you get to your 18 mile or 20 mile long runs, they will take you 3-1/2 to 4 hours to complete. If you take your time building up to that distance, you will have more time to build your aerobic base, and therefore by the time you do get to 18-20 mile long runs, they should take you less time.
4) A lot of plans, because you have to build up your long run by 18 weeks, violate the long run limited to 25-35% of your weekly mileage. If your longest run is 20 miles in training, you should also be running 60-80 miles per week as well. Most plans don't have you running that much. Most plans have you running only 40 and maybe even less miles per week even with a 20 mile long run. This is a big mistake and increases your chances for injury. More miles per week to support your long run reduces your risk to injury. Because when you **slowly** build your weekly mileage, you not only build on your aerobic base, but you are allowing your body to physically adapt and get stronger to handle the bigger distances. You need to spread this mileage out over the week and not dump it on 1 single run.

BTW, I am only criticizing most of the free beginner online marathon plans that i found in the past. I never paid for a custom plan, and I personally really don't have any experience with the more experienced level marathon plans.

Now some reasons why you may not follow my advice:

1) You decided that you just had to sign up for that marathon and you only have 18 or 20 weeks to train for it.
2) Your spouse (or other life commitment) has graciously allowed you to train for this marathon in only 18 weeks.
3) You think I am a knuckle head and don't know what i am talking about.
4) I need to follow something. I don't have the ability to just adapt something on my own. I need something to strictly tell me what to do. And this 18 week plan I found is the only thing that makes sense to me.

In the case of #4: This can still work.

#1 You don't have to start at week #1. If you are currently running more than what Week #1 tells you to do, then find the week to start on that matches closely what you are already doing now and start there.
#2 You don't have to skip to the next week if you feel like you are not ready to. You can repeat weeks or even go back a week. This is a very good reason as to why don't wait to start the plan. If you have more than 20 weeks time to train, use that time starting NOW! Don't wait to start. If you start when they tell you to start, then you have no choice but to progress onto the next week when they tell you to.
#3 If you never ran the distance the plan is telling you (if you never ran 30 miles in a week before), you have no business running any faster than easy conversational pace. So you don't have to run tempos, or intervals, or hill sprints, or repeats. Fartleks and some strides are ok. But mostly easy running. Work on building the distance. After you ran the distance, then you can work on your specific workouts. So find a plan that only focuses on mileage and if they dictate in the plan a certain speed, just remember to only run at conversational. Only run faster if you are already used to the distance.

Ofcourse if you already ran 2 or 3 marathons before or you are already running 30+ miles a week, and you already done the comprable marathon training distance, you will then want to work on more than just the distance this time around. Tempos and interval training will be more valuable to you than they will to a beginner. Just because you never actually ran a marathon before does not necessarily make you a beginner marathoner (from a plan's prospective).

Just my $0.02

I agree with Stoshew re. beginner plans - they're designed to get you from nothing to being able to complete a marathon, but I think no-one[ should use them who isn't a beginner. And if you start building up mileage way in advance, you won't be a beginner and you can find a better plan that is aimed at people who are already running the weekly miles you're running. If you're an actual beginner, fair enough. But if you've been running for a little while, have done some halves, continued running regularly in between and are just a beginner at marathons then you don't need something labelled 'beginner'.

glevinso wrote: »

Wow. @Stoshew71 nailed it. Excellent post/advice.

Marathons are horrible. I hate them personally. Ironman? I love it. I don't mind running 26.2 in an Ironman. 26.2 standalone? That effing hurts.

Many people decide they want to tackle a marathon early in their running "careers", and I was one of them. I dutifully downloaded the Hal Higdon plan and stuck to it as best I could. Yes it got me to the finish line of my first marathon in about 4:30ish. Had I known then what I know now I probably would have waited another year to try to run that first marathon.

A year after that first one, I did another and came in just under 3:30. Yes an entire hour improvement in a year. What did that tell me? It told me that I probably wasn't ready to tackle the distance that first time. Even that 3:28 I ran still wasn't my best potential, but at least I felt ready for that one. I remember running strong through 20 miles and then falling apart a bit. It wasn't the best execution.

You need to you quite a lot more miles on your body before really being "ready". Don't take this to mean I don't think any "beginner" shouldn't attempt a marathon if they want to. I certainly don't think that. I guess what I am trying to say is there is no reason to actually be in a hurry to do one. Put all those miles on your body first, then dive into training for a marathon at something other than the beginner level.

I think I finally have figured out this marathon thing after 10 of them (if you can count IM runs). And now that I have I am happy to say I don't "have to" do one in 2016... but I have my sights set for a specific one in early 2017

It's so funny. I don't get it but you certainly aren't the first one I've heard say that. A friend who has placed in her AG at Kona has said the same thing.

I'm debating my first marathon this year. It would be in September, I am planning to do a HIM in early July. I'm not sure that leaves me enought time to build up enough mileage.

glevinso wrote: »

There is something about running at marathon pace for an extended time that just hurts. You can't run at "marathon pace" during an Ironman for obvious reasons. At my last Ironman I ran 3:24, which works out to about a 7:45/mi pace. My usual easy run pace is more like 7:20-7:30, so 7:45 felt almost like a walk in the park. So although I was out there for 10 hours working hard, the pace I was running was easy on my body, so I didn't feel beat up afterwards.

Meanwhile my last marathon I ran in 3:04 which is right on 7:00 pace. I can run 7:00/mi for an hour or so with no lingering effects. I can maybe run for 2 hours at that pace and be fine. But 3 hours? Ouch. I was a total disaster for a week after that. I could barely get out of bed.

Yeah, I am not even close to the point where I have an "easy" pace I can hold for that length of time. I suspected it had to do with the level you are both at.

http://www.halhigdon.com/training/51137/Marathon-Novice-1-Training-Program

Max out at 20. When you run the last 6 you'll be fine. You can always change it up how you want if you have that desire to go 24, 26 or 50 miles for a long run. Or just stick to what the experts recomend.

I quite like running at marathon pace and don't find it as hard as trying to hold a faster pace in a half-marathon. I also don't find it beats me up that much afterwards; after my first marathon I was uncomfortable walking downstairs for a few days, but after the next two I was pretty much okay. Recovering speed and general fitness takes longer though. However, I think it depends how much you are used to running high-ish mileage all the time. For triathletes who sometimes do a standalone marathon, I'm guessing that the running volume is much lower EXCEPT when specifically marathon training, which isn't enough to get your body really used to it. Not a bad thing (different training priorities), just means it's harder to do and to recover from.

Both? I planned (and trained) to run 7:26 pace one time but instead ran 7:06.