Weight training while training for a marathon.

Supercell

I'm curious to see what people here think about lifting at all whilst training to to run a marathon.
My current major fitness goal for 2009 is to run the Dublin City Marathon in around 3 hours which is a massive ask in itself.
Now obviously all the training thats ahead of me is probably going to eat away at fat and muscle alike and probably the lighter the better is the way to go.
However is it possible to be lean rather than just plain weak above the hips with strong legs and still have competitive marathon times?
I was thinking of maybe two weight sessions of moderate intensity (moderate weights, high reps) per week sounds like it might be useful.

Any thoughts?

Khannie

It's possible...sure......

As for a competitive time....well....carrying extra muscle's definitely not gonna help things. Distance runners are very slim because it's advantageous to be like that. Marathon running's at the fairly extreme end of endurance running (i.e. it's specialised) and trying to shift an extra 3 or 4 KG 25 miles in a short time....well....it's costly.

What height / weight are you currently?

edit: And are you currently fairly lean?

Supercell

Khannie wrote: »

It's possible...sure......

As for a competitive time....well....carrying extra muscle's definitely not gonna help things. Distance runners are very slim because it's advantageous to be like that. Marathon running's at the fairly extreme end of endurance running (i.e. it's specialised) and trying to shift an extra 3 or 4 KG 25 miles in a short time....well....it's costly.

What height / weight are you currently?

edit: And are you currently fairly lean?

I'm a blob..well not really ..what I would like to have is the physique of the guy in the vid but also to run pretty fast in a marathon.

Possible or not?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_Nvnp0MUAI

Khannie

Yikes....that's a fairly visually offensive vid.

Personally, I doubt it. I think his height to weight ratio is gonna preclude a decent marathon time. I'm not basing that on anything /really/ scientific though. It's just speculation.

My thinking goes like this:
it's gonna cost a lot of extra effort to carry that muscle 25 miles
training your body for covering distance = opposite goal to strength / mass

You might be better off asking in the athletics forum if they've seen anyone with that build who can cover long distance at a reasonable pace (if you don't get the answer you're looking for on here).

silverside

running doesnt make you weak as such, you can still have good muscle definition, good local muscular endurance etc.

however it would be unusual to see someone running a 3 hour marathon who does much weight training, or who looks "well built". I'm a club runner and anyone i know who does 3 hours has running as their main sport, the people who do judo as well are much slower.

i think cross training (running/swimming or running/circuits) would be your best bet. or look at triathlon-type training?

what are your current times for 10k / 10 mile?

estariol

Would have to say not posiible to do 3 hour with that kinda muscle mass imho. Primarily a triathlete (with bit and pieces of other sports) would prob compare somewhat with the physique in the video and have struggled to do a decent marathon time (notwithstanding subluxated patella and a concussion from a bicycle crash the day before DCM)

10K - 40-45 mins
21K - 90-100 mins
42K - 270mins (although shoud have been about 220)

In short at 66kg for my 5 8 frame I could never do anywhere near 3 hours with my current lean mass.

Supercell

Interesting stuff, thanks guys.
Anyone wanna buy some weights?

Hail 2 Da Chimp

Hey supercell, I've done the half marathon and some other road and hill racing, while still training in weights.
I'd say there's very little harm in doing a bit of resistance training after one of your short runs, maybe throwing in a few benching / military presses / bent over row reps.
The main down points I would see are:
> How many times per week are you running?
> How long are your runs lasting / session?
> How much time do you want to dedicate to resistance training?
As far as I know you have a home gym, so I doubt 10-20 mins of benching after one of your lighter running session would do any major harm. You'll probably not make any huge strenght gains and will most likely still lose weight but it would probably keep you ticking over until you finish the marathon...

At the end of the day you're looking to complete in 3 hours so as long as you're happy with your running training and you feel like hammering out a few reps on the bench - go for it.

My 2c.