To early for a full marathon??

I am in the middle of a marathon training plan (3:30 plan) for may first marathon, I have run quite a few HM.

I have seen a race coming up in 5 weeks (Blackpool) which is 6 weeks before my scheduled marathon for the training plan, I would really like to do this early marathon but is this a stupid thing to try??

My training is going well keeping to all sessions and pace-apart from to fast LSR!. To date my last few LSR have been 13 /13 / 15/ 16 miles and the next 3 would be 18 /20 /22 giving me a 2 week tapper.

I would be happy running at closer to 3:45 if needed but any less and I would rather wait.

 

Comments

  • Yes a stupid thing to do. You'd need to taper down. Then you'd need two weeks to recover after. So that's four weeks of decent training you could have done. If I were you - I'd wait.
  • Let's rephrase your question and see if this gives you a different perspective.

    Does anyone else here recommend me ripping up my training plan and skipping over a third of it through it and giving myself a 50/50 shot of doing a time I am really going to be disappointed in, all for the sake of waiting a few weeks and nailing it?

    Normally I am from the go on give it a whirl school of thought to most things, this is your first marathon so it's a PB in the bag but I suspect that even if you hit sub 3:45 you'd still think "hmmm what was I capable of if I'd carried on training?" 

    Worst case scenario you bonk during your race and would be gutted. On a positive note, if your training is going really well and that is what is giving you the temptation to try this then think what you are capable of once your training has all been done. 

  • Also-ranAlso-ran ✭✭✭
    Running eye. Could be done but the pace would need to be a lot lot slower otherwise you'll destroy your May plans. I had a run further than marathon distance last week in training, and kept it 45 mins slower than race pace, but I am well conditioned to running 20+ weekly ( probably done 10 this year).



    Running a marathon hard (15mins slower is still hard) will require a few weeks of recovery. Much better would be long slow runs and focusing on May
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