Training for a marathon

I've been a sprinter all my life. Played football (tailback) and track (100m, 200m, 400m), so this long distance thing is very new to me. I love challenging myself and I think this would be a huge accomplishment for me.

Even seeing the gains I've made in the last 2 weeks is impressive for me since I am returning after a 6 week recovery for surgery (mouth). 2 weeks ago i ran 3.2 miles at an 8 minute pace and just today I ran 6 miles at an 8 minute pace.

So is there anyone else that is a short distance runner that has gone this route? I would love some tips as to breaking my endurance barrier

/diary

nice, i'm training for a half marathon myself.. i'm a bit behind you though, I'm running 3.0 miles at 8.5 minute pace, and 6.0 miles at about 9 minutes.

only advice i can give is slower does not equal failure. hardest thing for short runners to adjust to is the speed. give it time, and you'll do great. looks like you are off to a fantastic start

I've switched from being a sprinter (400m) to more distance focused now. I don’t do anything as severe as a marathon though. I love doing martial arts now so I work mostly towards having a lot of staying power combined with explosiveness. I have too much bulk to do any sort of serious distance race. I'm considering doing a fun 10k this fall as a way to motivate myself to run a bit longer on my running days.

I've ran two marathons. I played football/hockey/wrestled my whole life so I was more of a sprinter. I had some good short distance times in high school (4:58 mile, 11:42 / 2 miles, etc) but never did anything over 6-7 miles. I got out of shape during college, but my senior year I decided I wanted to run a marathon.

I started slow- 3-4 mile runs, 5 days a week with 2 days of weights and interval training (stairs and sprints). After a month, I began working in a longer run on Wednesday (5-6 miles) and a long run on Saturday (7 miles).

Over the course of the next few months, I added to the Saturday run (1 mile per week up to 18 miles) but kept the Wednesday run between 6-8 miles, Monday/Sunday runs around 4 miles, while lifting (circuit training) 2 days per week.

In the next year I ran two marathons. Since, I haven't done much long distance, but I plan on running another in the next 12 months.

Tips: Run your longer runs at a pace about 30 seconds/ mile slower than you want to run in the race. Also, don't miss out on interval training, it helps near miles 20-25. Weight training is important, but do circuit training. Flexibility is important. If you start to feel an injury, don't risk it...take time off to let it heal. I made the mistake of continuing to train with a fractured L4 Vertebrate and it set me back 2 months. If I would have stopped the first day the pain showed up, I'd have been back in two weeks or less.

I can offer more advice that worked for me, this is just off the top of my head.

PS: my 3/4 mile training runs were around 6:00 minute miles. My 8-10 miles were around 7:00 minute miles. My marathon? Around 8:30 / miles! I was on a 7:30 pace until mile 19, then I slowed down and had to walk a few times between miles 23-25!

Training schedule half marathon - Scotiabank Vancouver Half-Marathon and 5k Run / Walk (http://www.canadarunningseries.c om/svhm/svhmTRAIN_half.htm)

rough training schedule they have out for the half marathon i'm doing, i'm keeping up so far, might make some changes though

I have run 6 marathons (4 as part of Ironman triathlons). The key to running a good marathon is efficiency. You need to run loooong and slow for a number of months to build your engine. When I say run slow, I mean just that. RUN but slow. Jogging is not running. You need to work on your actual running form. Pretty much, the bulk of my training is run at 70% of my max heart rate. Probably 5% of my training is sharpening of 80-90% efforts to take the efficiency to higher speeds. In my opinion, you are best served to run 40-60 minutes as much as you can early in your prep. Ru that time properly. There is very little use in going longer than that if your form goes to crap and you are just plodding or marking time.

I've got a 10 mile race coming up on the 26th, so yesterday I went for a 10 mile run just to see how I could handle it... 8:12 pace and I felt pretty good the entire time. I could have pushed it harder I think, but didn't want to destroy myself for no reason

My feet hate me for all the running I've been doing. I should buy stock in pfizer and johnson&johnson (neosporin + band-aids)