Am I doing it right? (training for running marathon)

[GrumpyOldGuy]

My personal opinion is the following Cat girl, I base this on my years of running marathons, its not at all scientific but after many, many unhappy experiences over the years, I found this generally works for me.

 

Before you worry about distance you need to decide how you intend training, in my opinion there's only two ways to train, and essentially run a marathon - according to your body or according to your watch.

 

If you are going to train according to your body you need to monitor effort, if you are training according to your watch you need to monitor pace. Usually only the front runners use pace as a guide, the rest of us plonkers run according to effort.

 

However, in both instances you have to have a final goal time, its absolutely vital, unfortunately running is unlike cycling, in that you need to train at the pace you intend running the event, you simply cant train at a 10 minutes a kilometer pace and hope to run on the day at 8 minutes a kilometer, you will exhaust yourself and possibly cramp or worse.

 

Once you have a goal time adjust your effort during training to be able to run your goal time.

 

I dont know the cut off times but I guess its roughly 7 hours? If your effort fits your final goal time of, lets say 7 hours, you should be training at about 9 minutes per kilometer average effort, give or take.

 

Running a marathon is a sustained but constant effort, dont start out fast and then think "I'll slow down on the second half", decide on your effort and stick to that from start to finish.

If anything see how you feel with say, 10km to go, and if you feel good, increase the effort only then

 

As far as distances go I would aim to be able to do roughly the following about 8 weeks from the race day.

 

Mon - 8km, Tues - 5 km, Wed - Rest, Thursday - 8km, Friday - 5km fast, Sat - Rest, Sun - 15 km. You need to be able to do the approx. marathon distance in a week and still feel comfortable, if you can do that, you will sail the event.

 

Have fun and let us know how it progresses.

[CatGirl]

thanks yall,

 

ek sal my bes probeer..tussen al die swottings en van die naweek aan is dit assignment time..ek het 8 om in te handig en straight daarna is eksamen vanaf 22 october tot 9 november...eish..ek sal mooi moet beplan..

 

oja and i intend on running at the pace i am running now which is right for me..ek kannie vinniger nie ha ha ha

I run 6:23 a km

[JGR]

The amount of training would also depend on your base and time you have available. if you can only run 4x then one long slow run (slower the better to get your body used to the time on the road). Increase this gradually over the upcoming weeks and maybe tail back every 5th or so week. Do a tempo run and a mid distance race pace run. Then alternate the the 4th session between hill repeats, intervals, a bit of cross training for balance/mixing it up. Strech a lot

[CatGirl]

thanks i try and do the stretching thing..oja...i started taking slow release magnesium ook..waneer ek oorslaan na mtb then im cramp ridden altyd..