The February 2016 Running Challenge

MobyCarp wrote: »

Stoshew71 wrote: »

punkrockgoth wrote: »

I am currently trying to train for a marathon in June but running into a lot of issues, mostly around overtraining. I'm having a hard time getting in enough mileage to properly train without overtraining, so I'm really not sure how to progress from here. I'm at the point where I'm training so much my weight loss has stalled and I really need that weight loss to help me improve my speed. Long story short, I need to rethink my approach to maximize results and minimize injury.

My January goal was 69 miles. I got 39 done.

For February, my goal is 45 miles. This allows me to get in a weekly long run and get in some shorter workouts too while allowing lots of space for cross training and weights.

@punkrockgoth How far is your current long run? How many miles in a week are you up to and how many runs per week are you at right now? You have plenty of time till June (about 4 or 5 months) to slowly build up the mileage. Are you doing anything other than running (like any other cross-training)?

As far as losing weight, MFP is a great place and looking at your diary it looks you are doing a great job tracking. So it's a matter of cleaning up what is going in.

We are all here to help.

@punkrockgoth - What Stan said deserves to be quoted.

A lot of marathon training hype focuses on the long run, and the long run is very important. But it's not the only thing going on. A lot less hype is put on the total mileage base, but a strong base is what will get you through without injury.

The base is a tricky thing to develop. There are canned recommendations, such as the oft-cited recommendation not to increase your weekly mileage by more than 10%. What's cited less often is, don't increase your weekly mileage every week. The important thing is to run until the load doesn't make you feel beat up, then increase a bit, and hold steady until you're sure the increased load is sustainable. Lather, rinse, repeat.

If you feel like you're overtraining, chances are one or both of two things is going on: Either you're running too fast too much, or you're running more miles than you should for your current level of conditioning. There are things to do to support running - cross-training cardio, some strength training to support your core and your running chain, and eating to support your training. But the most important thing is to not overdo things. That means not running as fast as you can for most of your miles, and not increasing your miles too much too fast.

Unfortunately, no one can tell you how fast you can safely increase your base load of miles. You have to find out for yourself. Worse, the way you typically find out how much is too much is by having to take unplanned time off.

Unlike Stan, I suspect that June is probably too soon for you to run a full marathon. If I understand your post correctly, you ran 39 miles in January and hope to run 45 miles in February. That's a good plan for increasing base miles, and probably consistent with what you need to do; but that type of sustainable increase won't take you from 10 miles a week on the average to being able to run a marathon in 6 months. A half marathon should be within reach, but a full marathon may be a bit aggressive for where you're coming from.