I am running my first marathon in 7 1/2 weeks (Chicago marathon). I am reasonably fit and completed a 1/2 Ironman (Racine) in late July. I ran the 1/2 marathon in that race in 8:23 pace (1:49) in 99 deg. weather. My longest training run has been about 15 miles. I have been running 2-3 times per week.
Does anyone have a good marathon training program to follow? Any other advice/tips? Do I have enough time to get in the necessary training? My goal is to finish and run at about 8:00-8:15 pace (roughly a 3:45 marathon).
I’m no coach…but have several marathon programs. PM me.
If it were me, I’d increase my frequency of running up to 5x per week. 1 long session, 1 medium and the rest tempo runs with .75 mile bursts. 2 a days work well also.
At your current fitness, doesn’t seem like it should much a problem. I’d really encourage you to ramp up over the next few weeks and get a 22er under your belt…at 9:45 pace.
Run the Moo course while we’re out biking! (sounds like you’re in the area)
I think running 4 times a week is enough, and will keep you from injury. The main ingredient of most marathon training programs – build your long runs up to at least 20 miles, but don’t run your max mileage every week. where you’re at now you could do 18 miles this weekend, then next weekend do 10-13, the weekend after that do 20, then 10-13, then 20 or more, etc… you’ll want at least 3 runs of 20 or more. as long as those long runs are under your belt but not too close together you’ll be good.
If you can fit an 18 miler in sometime during those two weeks, I’d say do it at a very slow speed. Jeff Galloway writes books and has a website where his main thing is that you get benefits of endurance training no matter how slow you go – he advocates alternating a run/walk in fact, even for fast folks. Google him and you’ll find his website. He’d probably say for your 18 miler you should do 5 min of running alternating with 1 min walking the whole time.
Kinda in the same boat but have way more time to train (marathon in april 06). Thanks.