Of course, recounting last night's marathoning dream makes me think about my upcoming marathon-training.
As I've expressed multiple times before on this blog, I'm going to try to do everything I can do to be adequately prepared for my first marathon. I'm giving myself until the end of 2009 to train, which is one heck of a lot of time. I plan to run/race several smaller distances (5K, 8K, 10K, 15K, 20K, half-marathon, etc.) over the next two years. I also plan to do some 15 mile & 20 mile runs as well, and would like to even run a complete marathon distance (atleast once!) well before I enter an official marathon race. (I know it's not absolutely necessary to run the full 26.2 miles in order to be prepared for a marathon, but I might do it just for the heck of it. This is something I've been known to do in the past: In college, I once walked 30+ miles from my dorm to downtown Boston & back, just for the heck of it.)
As I originally started from a point of zero-level fitness back in July 2007, I'm hoping that this'll give me plenty of time to adequately train & complete the marathon in a fairly respectable time. If by the end of this year, I'm not at the point where I want to be, then I will shift plans accordingly. One thing I'm determined to do is to take the proper amount of time to be ready, as I want to be able to do the best possible job that I can for my very first marathon, as well as make it a pleasant & (happily!) memorable experience.
Most experienced marathon runners & coaches will tell you that if you are coming from a point of zero-level fitness, it's not advisable to attempt training for a marathon in periods of a year or less, i.e., like Team Nova did (i.e., in 9 months) for their PBS Marathon Challenge. I agree 100% with the experts; I think it's pure folly, & have actually seen what happens to novice runners who undertrain for the marathon with my own eyes. And it's usually not very pretty, my friends.
For those of you who've seen or know something about the documentary to which I'm referring, you'll recall that several participants experienced painful injuries at various points along the way, during their marathon training. Of course, this wasn't pure coincidence! The body needs time to acclimate to longer distances, and hurrying it along is a good way to set oneself up for injury! A nine-month to a year time frame for marathon-training is simply unrealistic & inadvisable for people who are starting out with completely sedentary lifestyles or who've never run before in their lives!
As Blaine Moore said in his recently recorded conference call, "Just because you can do a marathon in that time frame doesn't mean you should."
Most experts generally recommend that people run for a few years (& try racing the smaller distances first) before attempting a marathon. Firstly, you need to gain the experience (& thus also hopefully the wisdom) that months & years of running will provide -- for so many different reasons, and second, you need to have a strong base of mileage from which to start for your marathon-training, to have enough fitness to properly prepared for the challenge to come & also to avoid injury. For those just starting out, a minimum of 30-40 miles per week seems to be the general base mileage recommendation, before one should even begin to think about running a marathon! For those of you who would like more information on this subject, Blaine Moore talks extensively about this subject in his recently-recorded conference call, which was conducted last Saturday. If I remember correctly, he said that many of the seasoned runners he knows who are training for marathons have closer to 80-90 miles (in in some cases 100 miles!) per week (which I think was actually the figure during the final few weeks of training). Wow!
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Now that I've hopefully knocked some sense into those of you who've never run a marathon before but might've been planning to do so in under a year, I'd like to hear from those of you who are new to marathoning, i.e., you've either never run a marathon before & are currently training or thinking about training for one, or you've got a race or two under your belt, but are still relatively new to marathoning.
What are your marathoning/running aspirations & training plans? How much mileage do you plan to run, or are currently running, in order to get ready for your marathon-training?
If you're currently training to run a marathon, how many months or years of running experience do you currently have under your belt?
How long of a marathon-training period are you giving yourself? Do you feel you've given yourself a realistic time-frame in which to train?
If you've got a full-time job in an office-setting &/or have small children, how do you plan to squeeze in all of your runs?
For those of you who work from home, do you ever go for your training runs in the middle of day?
Would love to hear about your plans, so feel free to post your marathon-training comments here.
Of course, recounting last night's marathoning dream makes me think about my upcoming marathon-training.
As I've expressed multiple times before on this blog, I'm going to try to do everything I can do to be adequately prepared for my first marathon. I'm giving myself until the end of 2009 to train, which is one heck of a lot of time. I plan to run/race several smaller distances (5K, 8K, 10K, 15K, 20K, half-marathon, etc.) over the next two years. I also plan to do some 15 mile & 20 mile runs as well, and would like to even run a complete marathon distance (atleast once!) well before I enter an official marathon race. (I know it's not absolutely necessary to run the full 26.2 miles in order to be prepared for a marathon, but I might do it just for the heck of it. This is something I've been known to do in the past: In college, I once walked 30+ miles from my dorm to downtown Boston & back, just for the heck of it.)
As I originally started from a point of zero-level fitness back in July 2007, I'm hoping that this'll give me plenty of time to adequately train & complete the marathon in a fairly respectable time. If by the end of this year, I'm not at the point where I want to be, then I will shift plans accordingly. One thing I'm determined to do is to take the proper amount of time to be ready, as I want to be able to do the best possible job that I can for my very first marathon, as well as make it a pleasant & (happily!) memorable experience.
Most experienced marathon runners & coaches will tell you that if you are coming from a point of zero-level fitness, it's not advisable to attempt training for a marathon in periods of a year or less, i.e., like Team Nova did (i.e., in 9 months) for their PBS Marathon Challenge. I agree 100% with the experts; I think it's pure folly, & have actually seen what happens to novice runners who undertrain for the marathon with my own eyes. And it's usually not very pretty, my friends.
For those of you who've seen or know something about the documentary to which I'm referring, you'll recall that several participants experienced painful injuries at various points along the way, during their marathon training. Of course, this wasn't pure coincidence! The body needs time to acclimate to longer distances, and hurrying it along is a good way to set oneself up for injury! A nine-month to a year time frame for marathon-training is simply unrealistic & inadvisable for people who are starting out with completely sedentary lifestyles or who've never run before in their lives!
As Blaine Moore said in his recently recorded conference call, "Just because you can do a marathon in that time frame doesn't mean you should."
Most experts generally recommend that people run for a few years (& try racing the smaller distances first) before attempting a marathon. Firstly, you need to gain the experience (& thus also hopefully the wisdom) that months & years of running will provide -- for so many different reasons, and second, you need to have a strong base of mileage from which to start for your marathon-training, to have enough fitness to properly prepared for the challenge to come & also to avoid injury. For those just starting out, a minimum of 30-40 miles per week seems to be the general base mileage recommendation, before one should even begin to think about running a marathon! For those of you who would like more information on this subject, Blaine Moore talks extensively about this subject in his recently-recorded conference call, which was conducted last Saturday. If I remember correctly, he said that many of the seasoned runners he knows who are training for marathons have closer to 80-90 miles (in in some cases 100 miles!) per week (which I think was actually the figure during the final few weeks of training). Wow!
Now that I've hopefully knocked some sense into those of you who've never run a marathon before but might've been planning to do so in under a year, I'd like to hear from those of you who are new to marathoning, i.e., you've either never run a marathon before & are currently training or thinking about training for one, or you've got a race or two under your belt, but are still relatively new to marathoning.
What are your marathoning/running aspirations & training plans? How much mileage do you plan to run, or are currently running, in order to get ready for your marathon-training?
If you're currently training to run a marathon, how many months or years of running experience do you currently have under your belt?
How long of a marathon-training period are you giving yourself? Do you feel you've given yourself a realistic time-frame in which to train?
If you've got a full-time job in an office-setting &/or have small children, how do you plan to squeeze in all of your runs?
For those of you who work from home, do you ever go for your training runs in the middle of day?
Would love to hear about your plans, so feel free to post your marathon-training comments here.