How old should you be running a marathon? (Read 909 times)

my dad and i want to run a marathon together and he thinks this is his only time to be able to run one. i run crosscountry at my highschool and im 16. is that to young to put that much strain on my body? a fellow crosscountry runner says i shouldnt but im not sure. the marathons in may and crosscountry doesnt start till august but im afriad i will hurt myself. should i go for it? or wait till im older...

Can you run a marathon? Probably. Should you run a marathon? Doubtfully. You probably aren't done growing, looking at your training log (which may or may not be accurate but I assume you are running similar or less mileage than I did at your age) it doesn't look like you have the base for marathon training, and I think that a bad experience now could easily turn you off from the sport. If you want a lot of different opinions on this, check out this thread: Running a Marathon at 17... Here's my response from that thread modified a bit to fit what little I know from this thread: Normally, my question would be how long you've been running, but looking at your training log and your profile, I have to recommend against it. You are only 16 years old, and you probably aren't done growing yet (even though you may be done growing up you still probably aren't done growing out). I personally wouldn't recommend racing over 8 or 10 miles, and wouldn't recommend easy training runs over 10 miles for at least a couple of years (this is based on what is in your current training log.) I ran my first marathon my junior year in college, about a month before I turned 21, and my second marathon wasn't until I was almost 24. One of my college teammates who is a few years younger than I am waited until he was 23 or 24 to run his first marathon. He ran a 2:39. We can't convince him to run another one until he's 26, he says. I don't think that you need to wait that long, but I definitely advise against running one at 16 or 17 or 18. If you do run a marathon in the next few years, then I recommend only doing one and waiting until post-college to start running them regularly. Are you planning to run in college? Because my guess is that you will be too busy training for 5k or 8k races to really think about running a marathon anyway.

Is the marathon THIS may? Aside from your age, I agree with Blaine --- I don't think you have a strong enough base to run a marathon. MTA: Zoomie said it better

You probably could train for and run a marathon but you run the risk of doing permanent damage to your still developing knees or worse. Marathon running is an adult activity for many reasons and the following article will explain some of them: IMMDA ADVISORY STATEMENT ON CHILDREN AND MARATHONING How Young is Too Young Tom

I don't know how accurate this is, but I remember reading an article 10 or 12 years ago that claimed that 10-12 year olds make the best marathoners because their bodies are as developed as they are going to get before hitting the last major growth spurt, meaning that they can exert the most energy with the least fuel.

What about training? Even presuming that's true, what 10 year old has the discipline to put in the mileage?

my training log is very inaccurate but i still agree that i probably shouldnt be running it. thanks. also i run crosscountry in the fall so i dont log my milage. i only logged my mileage a little bit during the summer for my coach.now since its beginning to be track season i need to log my mileage again. i have been running crosscountry for 4 years. also i would not be running it for time at all just to say i finished would be nice. im really leaning toward not runnning it but training for a half which i could acutally do semi-well at . o and my dad ran a 1/2 in the fall and hes set on running the marathon, which i think would be good for him.

I don't know about regulations but here in the Uk to run a marathon you have to be 18 (for a half its 17) this is for the safety and welfare of the runner. Plenty of time to run marathons, keep doing the shorter races this is the best way and gradually advance as you get older

my dad and i want to run a marathon together and he thinks this is his only time to be able to run one.

I think I'll play Devil's advocate just for fun. Everyone is right, of course. Mostly. Kind of. There's plenty of research to back up the suggestion that long mileage may not be good for growing young'uns. (Then again ... I'd love to see a long-term longitudinal study with one group of average sedentary teenagers and one group of hardcore 15-year old marathoners ... I suspect that at age 40, it wouldn't be the marathoners with most of the health problems ... but I digress ... I do that a lot ...) The truth is your body at 16 is amazingly resilient. There's a reason world class athletes in skating and gymnastics and similar sports are close to that age. I'm just guessing, but I'd bet for most people especially a trained athlete like you - running a marathon at your age wouldn't hurt a bit. In fact, I'm pretty sure that YOU are far less likely to hurt yourself than I was when I did my first with basically no training at 28 ... and then again at 36. That was probably far dumber than you'd be to run it. Besides, its not the marathon that might do the damage, I don't think - I think it's the hard training. So how much training would you do? How fast is your Dad? The answer really does vary. If you're going to try to run a 3:00 marathon and do all the training that goes with it, maybe you shouldn't. On the other hand, if your Dad's running a gentle 5-hour race, you could probably jog beside him tomorrow and not break a sweat. But setting all that aside, I noticed nobody even remarked on the most important part of your question. This part: "he thinks this is his only time to be able to run one." I think the actual answer depends on how true that part is. If you can wait, you probably should wait. It can't hurt. But if that's actually true, if this is your only chance to run a marathon with your father, I'd run it if I were you. The tiny chance of injury (your drive to the marathon will be a whole heck of a lot riskier statistically, I bet) is outweighed a million times by the memory you'd make. Just my two cents on a lazy Thursday afternoon. Now here's some good advice: take all of the above, including me, with a big grain of salt, and go talk to your Dad, your coach, your trainer, and your (sports) doctor.