What’s the shortest period of time in which you have trained for a marathon?
For various reasons, I’m coming off about 6 months of little to no training. I’d like to run in the upcoming Houston marathon (in about 9 weeks). I’d just like to finish, not race. Am I just asking for an injury trying to get ready in that short a time period?
I’m doing Houston too.
It depends on how much you can easily run right now. If you can do a steady hour and a half run, you will have enough time to get ready for Houston. The biggest thing is not to over train.
I did Houston last year as my first marathon. While I wasn’t fast, I really enjoyed it and hate to miss it this year.
Go long, and go slow. You should be fine. There’s a lot of memory in one’s legs. Just say NO to any speed work. And really listen to your body. Any thing funky, pull the rip-cord. But I’d bet with a 1.5-2 hr run during the week, and a 2-2.5 hour run the next several weekends, you’ll be fine.
Oh, make sure you’ve got new-ish footware. Make sure you take plenty of food so you don’t bonk and lose form. If possible, start your first few weeks back on trails to save your legs the beating cement puts on them. Plus it the right time of year for the trails. Soul time.
Good luck!
Well you have time to get up to the distance. I’d say make sure your long training run doesn’t exceed two and half hours. If you are not looking to break any speed records, you’ll be just fine. Just don’t increase it too much each week.
How often are you plan on running? I’d recommend three times a week. Two short ones (4-7 miles) and one long one (time only, not miles).
Just try to get it so that you can do that two and half hour run near the end of Dec or first week in Jan. If you pace it right, you won’t over train and you’ll have an enjoyable marathon.
I think the plan would be to get 3-4 short runs in during the week and a long run in on Saturday.
My first marathon was in 1991 and I did 3 weeks of training for it. I was coming off a triathlon season in which I had done my first ever half-ironman so I was pretty fit but the run in the half was my only run longer than 10 miles that summer. A friend of mine was racing the Toronto marathon the first weekend in October so 3 of us that were in the track club with him decided to jump into the race as a “silly spur of the moment” type of thing. My three week prep was a 15 mile long run one week, a 20 miler the next, a 13 mile run the weekend before and then into the marathon the following week. I was smoking it until the last 5k which was run around 8 min/mile pace and I ended up going 2:32 and spending an hour in the medical tent with hypothermia. My running background and a summer of cross training made all the difference since the next time I tried one I actually prepared for it and tried to race and ended up with seized quads and walking for the final hour and it was 3:26! I guess training for them isn’t a good idea 
3 weeks… plus several months for injury rehab. i’ll share my story w/ you: several months out from this race, i had a relatively decent fitness base, but had not run more than 20 miles in a week. i was toying around w/ the idea, and i had a friend run the marine corps marathon a few weeks b/f the richmond marathon. i did a few training runs w/ her and so i knew what kind of shape she was in and how i compared relatively. after she did the MC marathon, i talked to her and she convinced me to do richmond. being an ignorant, invincible college kid, i decided, what the hell, and signed up for it. my longest run was MAYBE 13 miles and that was many weeks out from the marathon. once i signed up, i ran maybe 4 hours a week leading up to it, and very very little the week before. the race went AWESOME and i finished in 3:31. however, the little soreness i felt in my left knee around mile 17 decided to become full on ITBS and stayed w/ me for MONTHS after. i am finally begininning to get back into some sort of a running program after being injured off and on for the past year. (the richmond marathon is tomorrow 
and i’m signed up but b/c of other injuries cant do it:( ) but… it can be done. it just depends on how resilient your body is. in regards to myself, my body is not resilient at all. it’s taken me about 2 months to build up to 16 mpw. if i had it to do again, i would, b/c the marathon is one of my biggest athletic accompolishments to date. anyways, my .02. good luck on whatever yuo decide to do