How Many Marathon's?

DULLAHAN2

Just going through some threads and there is a few people that go overseas to do marathons and it got me thinking is there a limit of marathons that people can do in a year say. I know there is people who have done so many in a a given time period for charity and the like but they do them in times of 5-6 hours. i always taught there was a grace period of recovery to the next one.

My Question is how many marathons can someone do in a year competivly trying to beat there pb?

Slogger Jogger

Everyone is different and various experts would give different advice. In my case I've done 5 a year a few times and each time I've still PBed each year. In theory if I specialised and just did 1 or 2 marathons a year I'd have PBed more, but hey, I've had more fun this way.

Krusty_Clown

Just my opinion, but I would think the max number you could run competitively and continue to PB, would be two per year, evenly distributed, without any other major goals (10 mile, 1/2 marathon, xc).

Sure, some people will benefit from higher mileage in their early marathon running years and could hit multiple PBs in a year, but after the initial year the lack of focussed training would see those PBs/gains diminish. The books seem to point out one marathon per year as being the recommended number.

*Edit*: Slogger_Jogger being the exception to every rule (including the number of pairs of shoes a 'normal' person should own).

asimonov

Hey DULLAHAN2

Its a good question, as per the SJ and KC everyone is different. If i was pushed i think two is the maximum you could race a year but one is optimal.

There was a good thread on this
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055534548 last year that covered the number of marathons, junk miles and best training - might be of interest.

DULLAHAN2

asimonov wrote: »

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055534548

Thanks Asimonov i am new to this running lark and that was a great read, really enjoyed it.