Forums >Racing>Advice Sought re. Running a 12/2/12 or 1/20/13 Marathon
Background, I have been planning on running a local marathon mid December that was recently canceled. My race options are running either two weeks earlier or 5 weeks later.
If my training had not been interrupted by two niggling injuries last week and two weeks prior to that, i would register for the 12/2 marathon without a second thought. My preference is to run the earlier race as it is smaller and entails less of a hassle factor, and 5 years ago I blew up in that race and finished ignominiously. My goal is a 3:30.
i finished a 10 (actually 10.1) mile race Sunday in1:11:43, 7:07 per mile. That gave me some comfort coming off the 2nd injury I mentioned and also made me think I could be ready for the 12/2 race in five weeks. With the exception of speed work, which I had just started to focus on prior to injury no. 1, my training has been pretty consistent all year.
Thoughts and advice appreciated.
Thanks.
If my training had not been interrupted by two niggling injuries last week and two weeks prior to that, , and 5 years ago I blew up in that race and finished ignominiously. My goal is a 3:30.
If my training had not been interrupted by two niggling injuries last week and two weeks prior to that,
, and 5 years ago I blew up in that race and finished ignominiously. My goal is a 3:30.
Couple of questions:
Can you explain what "niggling" injuries means? Where and what and to what extent?
and
I'm not sure I've ever heard "ignominiously" used before. Does that mean it was a stupendous finish or a stupid finish?
Here's my 2 cents. You've been logging the miles. Your training with the exception of whatever these injuries has been pretty consistent through the past few months. I'd probably go for it.
My caution would be to go out a bit easier for those first 10-13 and see how you feel - then turn it up if there's no "niggling" happening.
It sounds like this is what you are leaning towards anyway... go for it!
Good luck to ya!
+1 to what MolsenRunner wrote. I think you could go either way. I'm not great with math, but moving it up means you would only have something like 3 weeks of hard training before you would start your taper, right? If you haven't gotten in any really long runs, that could be a problem. Not sure you'd want to significantly up your long runs if you're trying to nurse an injury. But, I saw some 15 milers in there, so a couple of 18s might not be that bad. I don't know. Toss a coin?
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The Xfactor is your injuries but I'd probably run the earlier race (but I'm biased to liking smaller, local races rather than bigger events anyway), if the small race was the later one there'd be no doubt I'd pick that one. That 10mile race is an excellent tune-up race for a marathon on 12/2.
Thanks Molsen, Julia and Ken.
I have an 18+ mile run in mid August, but 10 of those miles were with a much slower runner. However, I did a morning 16+ 12 days ago solo at a good clip (then I tacked on an easy 3 miler that same evening and, voila, my knee swelled up and put me down for a few days). If doing the 12/2 race, my plan would be 2 long runs, next weekend and two weeks after that, (plus track work each week) then taper. I'm leaning more strongly to the earlier race now, based in no small part on your advice, so long as my knee is completely cleared up by Sunday.