When It’s Time to Scrap Your Marathon

Audio Transcript

Coach Hayley: Hey everyone. I hope you are having a great day and thanks for joining me for today’s episode. If you have a burning question that you would like one of our expert coaches to answer on the show, head over and submit it at runnersconnect.net/daily.

We’d love to help you improve so don’t hesitate to ask us what you need to know. Today we have a great question from Bob. He asks, “If I’ve missed three long runs ranging from distances of 10-14 miles in a row and training for a marathon at the end of January, should I consider myself screwed and scrap the idea of running the event to find different race?

Is it still early enough in the training cycle that I can redeem myself? I’m a new runner and I’ve only been up at this for about one point five years but have completed one lap and safe on at least five half marathons.

Hayley: Hey Bob. Thanks for your question. I’m sure that something that a lot of runners will find interesting to the entity.

Following a training plan rarely goes 100% how you want to. Illness, injuries, work, family, all these things can derail your training schedule. One or two miss workouts is unlikely to make a big difference.

However, long runs in a marathon specific program, can be an exception to this. Whether you should still run the marathon depends on many different factors.

It sounds like you’ve got around eight weeks to continue your build up. That’s five to six weeks of hard training with a two to three-week taper that gives you the time for around six more long runs. Whether this is enough depends on several factors.

First off, think about this. Are you unlikely to get uninterrupted six to eight-week period into the marathon from now? If you think that it’s likely that you’ll end up missing more long runs and work outs, I’d go for that later race.

However, if you know that you now going to be able to dedicate yourself 100% then execute the long runs and workouts in the next six to eight without a hitch, that’s a vote for running the marathon.

Second, what are you hoping to get out of this marathon in January? Are you looking to P.R or get a go time or are you looking to just get around?

If you’re looking to P.R. or achieve a goal, I’ll probably stress going for a slightly later marathon. To optimize performance, you want to have done a couple of longer runs by now.

I like runners to get in at least two to three weeks of 16-mile-long runs as a minimum, so you need to build up to 16 as well and it’s unlikely that you get to the stage if you train built at eight or ten so far.

If your goal is just to make it for a marathon distance in January though, then I’ll say it might be okay for you to go for it.

Your success in January also depends on your current level of fitness right now. Before the miss workouts, I recommend that you get most of your runs in.

Do you feel that you’re in pretty good shape even with the missed long runs? If you’re able to run eight to ten miles without too much problem right now, there is time to build up the distance a little more.

You could run the next six weeks that’s 10,12,14,16 and back down to 12 and then another 16 miles for the long runs.

If you’re able to do that as well as complete any race specific workouts on your plan, race day atmosphere and taper see round those final ten miles. However other factors you need to consider include how injury prone you are.

That’s a pretty steep ramp up to get you to that 16-mile target. If you’re struggling with a problem area now or you’ve been particularly prone to injury in the past, it might not be the best thing to push for that January marathon, it presents a risk.

Running a marathon without a sort of build-up is a risk. Ramping up the mileage for a marathon will add to the load. Finally think about, why this marathon?

Are you particularly keen to do this one? Would you lose anything by waiting to go to your proper marathon build up?

If you haven’t invested much, you don’t feel particularly fit right now and this run isn’t a favorite of yours, why take the risk? Perhaps the marathon has a half [event 00:04:01] same day you trained for instead.

However, if you can really be looking forward to this when you’ve got loads of mates doing it and you were in pretty good shape before you missed the long runs, then go for it.

I really hope this helps your decision.

I can’t make that for you and there are so many factors at play. However, I would say that to go for the marathon in January, you want to be sure that you have to follow your training plan from now until race day.

You’d also want to be fairly injury free in the past and at a decent level of fitness right now minus those long runs. If in doubt, why not wait for a couple of months? There’s nothing worse than struggling to run a marathon that you haven’t adequately prepared for.

Thanks for asking that question Bob. I’m sure this can be applied to a lot of runners who haven’t be able to follow the training plan 100%.

For those of you listening to have your own questions, head over to runnerconnect.net/daily and click the record button to send your questions over.

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