Marathon Question

[Deleted User]

Folks,

perhaps your advice and wisdom could help me with a little problem. I'm running the Berlin marathon in less than a month, but in the last month the wheels have completely fallen off due to ankle injury, physio visits and now blisters like Everest!! Prior to all of this I was going great guns and was psyching myself up for a sub 3 attempt, (pancake flat, fast wide streets) but now I'm modifying my target considerably.

I still want to have a crack at sub 3 and so was thinking of running a marathon after Berlin (probably the Leicester one in Nov (anyone else run it, got thoughts about the course?)) but don't know if this gives me enough recovery time and time to build up my stamina again to the required level, or should I leave it for this year and really focus on FLM 2003?

Answers/thoughts on a postcard to the usual address....

[Deleted User]

Bob Glover recommends 6 months and Paula Radcliffe seems to be following that advice, Ironman does one most weekends, a fellow who lived on my patch used to run over 20 marathons a year, but is now banged up for murder - no connection, of course.

Even with a good training base, hich you must have if you're contemplating sub-3, it takes the best part of a month to repair the damage after a marathon. Then you need at least a few weeks to retrieve your speed and endurance before tapering again....and you've had a torrent of injuries, so your body may already be screaming "enough!" at you.

FWIW (and here I'm being a boring doc and not a gung-ho runner), I'd suggest following Paula's example and going for a good London time. If you feel you must do a marathon before then, January would be quite soon enough.

But I'm always happy to be proved wrong.

Cheers, V-rap.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for the advice, I guess I'm just feeling a bit disappointed about having to revise my aims.

Its interesting that you mention my body might be saying enough V-rap, because I have been running more or less constantly (apart from one day off a week, and the 2 weeks off after Berlin last year and London this year), so I had been thinking of taking a complete month off after Berlin also.

Mind you I'd miss the Great Bentley 10 miler and thats a nice course hmmmm decisions, decisions

Nessie

Why not use Berlin as a training run, rather than a race, then you should be recovered enough for Leicester or a later one?

[Deleted User]

Parky, sorry to hear the training's gone to pot - I too am running Berlin but have had one bad dose of flu, 2 colds, food poisoning, 1 minor hamstring injury and now 1 less minor foot injury! I was going for sub- 4hours which I'm still clinging on to! Nessie's advice sounds good, or it sounds like some time off wouldn't be a bad thing anyway. Good luck in Berlin anyway, you'll be way ahead of me!

Happy running!

[Deleted User]

Furryness, I wouldn't bet on me being that far ahead, as my training took a real nosedive (it didn't help that I went to V2002 in Chelmsford and spent 2 days drinking way way way too much for me!). Good luck in Berlin and don't forget to get your beer at the end! How civilised is that? :-)

Nessie, thanks for that but the problem is whenever I'm in a race, the adrenalin sort of takes over and I just can't think of it as a training run. I think I've become abit obsessional about it to be honest.

[Deleted User]

Parky,

I wouldn't try and race the two marathons so close together. I have raced two 4 weeks apart, and the second one was torture. As for Leicester the course is pretty tough as well, lack of croud support and in November so it would be much, much harder than Berlin.

You would be better to find a decent half marathon a few months after to fill the void between Berlin and London and get back to the training.

Gareth

drew

Parky, don't "kill" yourself at Berlin. Use it as a building block for FLM. The risk with going hard at Berlin or also doing Leicester is the fact that you may pick up an injury which knocks back your training for 1 or 2 months.

Another point - don't take a full month off training. Why waste all that hard work you've been doing this year. Take it easy for a few weeks but a complete break will require a "starting from scratch" approach.

[Deleted User]

All useful advice folks. I think I'll do Berlin and take it easy. I won't do anything else, and following your advice Drew, have my usual two weeks off after and then do some 10k's/10m and 1/2s until the end of the year. Having a month off is wishful thinking really, I don't know about you but I do get really frustrated and bored with my two weeks off. If I had a month off I'd be climbing the walls!!!

In January of course it all starts again...

[Deleted User]

If you go to the Trentham runners website there is a guy there who ran three marathons on three days - one of them Snowdonia!