Help! It's driving me crazy! (Read 939 times)

December of 2008? That's like a lifetime from now. And anyway you do have a year of running behind you...it's just waaaaaay behind you. Do you want to run a marathon? Why?

Could you finish a marathon in 8-9 months, if you're already running 5 miles at a time? Sure. Why not? But I agree with those people advising you to wait. I think you'll be more likely to train smart, to stay healthy, and to enjoy your training; more likely to build a solid base, too. Most of all, I think that if you could ask your future self, you'd find out that you had a better time running the actual marathon - and became a lot more likely to keep running, and run more marathons in the future. A lot of people do a little quasi-training, run one marathon, and then quit. Not saying it'll happen to you ... but I think if you slowly build up, run your half this year, then do a full next year ... that risk gets a lot lower. Then again - it was running a marathon I was completely unprepared for that got me back into running. So who knows? But I'd still wait. What's your rush? Just my seven pesos.

i ran my first marathon after about 6 months of running. Was i underprepared for it ? Heck yeah...5 hours of pain, but i had so much fun that i was already contemplating plans for the next one in the last few painful miles. But having that big goal and the fear and respect for the marathon worked for me as far as keeping me motivated to keep running. So it can be done if you're not too ambitious as far as finishing time and just focusing on learning about the marathon and having fun. One thing i find is that you need to be flexible with your marathon-specific training and listen to your body...squeeze in extra day-offs here and there when you feel like you need it helps a lot.

Do it. Or at least train for it. If it's not going to work out closer to the time, then you'll know. Like Steve, I ran a marathon after only running for 5 months. Do I regret it? No. Was it hard? Yes. Will I do another someday? Most likely. If you listen to your body, you'll be fine. Take easy days and days off when you need them. You got it. The full. Steve, i've never noticed quite how long your surfboard was. Wow.

Mike, I was in a similar situation. I was given Hal Higdon's "Marathon" as a book for x-mas in 2005. Finally got around to reading it last summer and I became inspired, and started running. However with no real goal in mind, I found it all too easy to not run. So I decided the best way for me to stay motivated, with a little push from my sister, was to sign up for a Marathon. So in Sept 06 I signed up and started to build a base by running about 10 miles / wk until my official Marathon training started at the end of Jan. I am now on week 9 of 18 using Hal's Novice schedule. I just completed a Half Marathon trainng run Sat and feel really good about where I am in regards to the training. I also signed up for a HM (3 1/2 weeks away) as a training race which falls in perfectly for the Marathon. I am very concerned about over-training, as you read often on this and other runners forums about naive runners like me getting injured. I believe this is due to the fact that once you get past the early pains of running, the cardio picks up a lot quicker than the muscles and joints, and people over-train and get hurt. (the main reason for building a good base). So if you are conscious to keep your pace down, stretch before & after your runs, and realize that rest is almost as important as the run, you should be able to ramp up for a marathon this year. You'll read there are quite a few in here who have gone against the sound advice of waiting and still had great experiences training for and completing a marathon. There are a few too, who probably wished they'd have taken that sound advice and waited... I hope I am of the first group and have a great experience, i'll let you know June 4th.