Marathons with no other race expirience

ntlbell

So I'm strongly considering signing up for the Dublin marathon as there's something gnawing away at me to complete one.

I have been "jogging" _seriously_ since march or so and I've built up to 30 miles a week I was following hal's novice training even tho at the time I had no real intention of entering a marathon.

Something I noticed today and never noticed before at the start he said you should be running for at least a year and be doing 25-30 miles a week and running 3-5 days a week.

I have never ran any "races" so I was considering pumping up the training doing the 10 mile race in august.

My fitness level's were not great when I started but I can comfortably run for 2 hours plus now.

My question is am i aiming to high to be ready for a marathon in October having no previous experience? will the last few months training + training from now till October and the 10 mile race be enough to get me into a position to finish one? I'm not overly concerned about the time I'd just like to get to the finish line but under 4.30 would be nice tho

hunnymonster

There are two topics that come up time and time again when we talk about marathons on boards.ie. The first is the quantity versus quality one where people want to run lots of marathons, and run them all fast, the two are not really compatible. T

he second big debate is "how soon can I run a marathon?" which is pretty much what you are asking. Again, the short answer is yes, there is no problem to run Dublin this year
1.but you might enjoy it more,
2.you'll certainly recover more quickly and
3.you'll probably perform better if you waited.
That said, if you want to experience a marathon, then hell yes, go for it.

I've never hidden that I ran my first marathon 3 months after running my first step. At the time I thought my 3 day limping around afterwards was a sign of achievement, now I realise it was a bit foolish and I risked all kinds of damage, I did it though and crossing the line in Dublin 2004 is still one of my proudest moments.

robinph

The lack of race experience may be solved by making use of the pacer groups that Boards is putting together as a way of keeping to your intended pace and not over doing it at the start.

TFBubendorfer

The general consensus is clearly that you should be an experienced runner before you run your first marathon, but let's face it, most fun runners in the Dublin marathon are pretty new to running.

I don't mean that as a criticism, I have personally run 3 marathons before my first shorter race. It's not exactly the way you're supposed to develop, but I doubt it did me any harm. My first marathons might have been more painful as a result, but I got over that.

Racing Flat

If you've been consistently running 30 miles a week, a marathon in late October should be well within your reach. However, I'd recommend doing more than 1 race, just to get used to it. And 10miles is fairly long for your first one. Why not do 3, a 5k/5mile; a 10k/10mile and a half marathon. The marathon series is ideal really with a 5 mile in July, a 10mile in Augist and a half in September.

Best of luck with it.

ntlbell

Racing Flat wrote: »

If you've been consistently running 30 miles a week, a marathon in late October should be well within your reach. However, I'd recommend doing more than 1 race, just to get used to it. And 10miles is fairly long for your first one. Why not do 3, a 5k/5mile; a 10k/10mile and a half marathon. The marathon series is ideal really with a 5 mile in July, a 10mile in Augist and a half in September.

Best of luck with it.

the marathon series would of been perfect but I'm out of the country for everything bar the 10 and the marathon

I'll have a look in the sticky to see if there's anything i can get to

ta to everyone for the info