Marathons

[Mr.f]

Has anyone here ever done a marathon?
Thinking about doing one, wondering if anyone knows of a good book or website with advice for starting one from the beginning.

[Aberdonian Stu]

Depends on what you're aiming for. I'm doing my fourth this year and I'm far from what one might describe as an athlete.

Doing the race itself is straightforward. It hurts like hell but even someone unfit can pound out the miles so long as they don't wreck themselves by overdoing it.

Bald Student would probably be better placed to give advice as he's actually done marathons in reasonably fast times.

[Student Mullet]

Has anyone here ever done a marathon?
Thinking about doing one, wondering if anyone knows of a good book or website with advice for starting one from the beginning.

How far can you run at the moment?

[bennocelt]

heh I am interested in this too.
I do a bit if running on the threadmill, and was a runner in my teens, but i imagine road running puts a lot more stress on your feet - so is it possible to run a marathon without any or much practice on the roads? - ie just be fit and practice in the gym?

[noby]

I think they're called Snickers now. (someone had to say it, best to get it out of the way early)

Is there a local athletics club you could join? I know our local club are very active in this. Regular group runs during the week, building up to a target marathon. Steady running, not for supreme athletes, but it means your routine is somewhat set, and running with a group passes the time quicker.

I've not done one myself, and not sure if I want to. The Ballycotton 10 is about my limit.

[Sligo Hornet]

I used to regularly run Half Marathons, at least one per month, but only ever ran 3 Marathons.The difference in training is massive ( if you intend to actually RUN the distance )

My best for the Half was 1hr 26 min, but for Marathon 3hrs 24min

Mind you that was a "long time ago";)

Good luck

[Bald Student]

heh I am interested in this too.
I do a bit if running on the threadmill, and was a runner in my teens, but i imagine road running puts a lot more stress on your feet - so is it possible to run a marathon without any or much practice on the roads? - ie just be fit and practice in the gym?

A 3 hour run on a threadmill can get quite boring. You can get the same benefit from doing your training on grass and only running the race itself on roads.

[NeilMcD]

I do not know anything about this but during the Olympics they were saying in relation to Paula Rathcliffe that there is no replacment for the hard yards done on the roads and that the bones and muscles need to have experienced that leading up to the race.

[Aberdonian Stu]

A 3 hour run on a threadmill can get quite boring.

A 20 minute run on a treadmill can be quite boring, never mind three hours. I think they're great for what they are but it's easier to train outdoors for longer, weather permitting, than on a treadmill.

[Bald Student]

there is no replacment for the hard yards done on the roadsI think the hard yards are the key thing here rather than the roads.

[Mr.f]

How far can you run at the moment?

Well I do a bit of refeering and can last a 90 minute senior's match with no problem at all, what that translates in terms of distance I wouldn't have a clue.

[Student Mullet]

Well I do a bit of refeering and can last a 90 minute senior's match with no problem at all, what that translates in terms of distance I wouldn't have a clue.

Cool. My advice then, if you want to run the race well, is to give yourself about 24 weeks of training. The first 8 weeks are building up the miles. 4 miles a day on 4 weekday evenings and 6 miles on Saturday or Sunday. The next 4 weeks go up to 6 miles on 4 days and an 8 mile run at the weekend.

After that you have 2 objectives. The most important is to build up the length of your long run. I find that I can normally add 2 miles a week. The other aim is to build up your speed, this takes 2 other runs per week. One is to build up your cardiovascular fitness and the other is to improve what's called your lactate threshold, which is basically how fast your muscles can process lactate acid.

The cardiovascular session should start with something like a 6x400m sprint with a 1 or 2 min jog in between to recover. Eventually you can build that up to 8x800m or 4x1600m. If your reffing at the moment then you should find that easy enough.

The lactate session is normally a medium length run. About half the length of your main long run for the week but at full race pace. It's designed to get your legs used to running at this speed without cramping up.

You'll find plenty of different training schedules on the web and they're all variations of those 3 hard runs per week with short recovery jogs on a few of the other days.

A few other bits of advice:
All that above adds up to a lot of training. Most people could walk a marathon with very little preparation or jog half and walk half with a little training. So you can decide yourself whether you want to go all out with the training or whatever.
It's important that if you miss a day's training (except for the long run) that you don't try to make up for it, just abandon that day. Skipping a day every now and then won't make any difference in the end but over-training can cause you to end up missing a week or two if you wear yourself out.
I find that once my long run gets longer than about 13 miles I can't keep up the schedule of 3 long runs a week and I switch to 3 long runs every ten days.
Put bandages on your nipples.

[Student Mullet]

Also: "what that translates in terms of distance I wouldn't have a clue." Unfortunately it doesn't translate into much. Sprinting and stopping like in a match doesn't cross over much with the steady repetitive action of road running.

Train on grass and get a good pair of runners from someone who knows what he's talking about. If you live near Dublin, I'd recommend a shop called Amphibian King in Bray. Otherwise the running can be very harn on your knees.

[razor]

When I ran dublin a few years ago I used Hal Higdons site.http://www.halhigdon.com/index.html

[monutdfc]

There's a new specialist athletics shop on Parnell St beside Cycleways.
Arnott's Sports Dept can be good for proper runners too, some of the staff there are either athletes or coaches

[bennocelt]

When is the Dublin marathon on anyway?:)

[inexile]

bank holiday monday coming up around end of october early november

[DmanDmythDledge]

Put bandages on your nipples.
:D PMSL! Why the **** does that do?

[pete]

bank holiday monday coming up around end of october early november

I hear that is a good time for a marathon as allows to train through the summer months instead of the alternative.

[Student Mullet]

:D PMSL! Why the **** does that do?

Go for a 4 hour run and you'll find out. If you don't have that much time, give me a piece of sandpaper and 5 mins.

[bennocelt]

bank holiday monday coming up around end of october early november


and how do you go about signing up for it?
:)

[Shelsman]

Go for a 4 hour run and you'll find out. If you don't have that much time, give me a piece of sandpaper and 5 mins.

Priceless. :p

POTM !

[razor]

Go for a 4 hour run and you'll find out. If you don't have that much time, give me a piece of sandpaper and 5 mins.Ain't that the truth, some lads I know use this (http://www.bodyglide.com/) but vaseline does the trick too.
Tried the plaster on the nips thing but they just fell off with the sweat.