Half Marathon with 5 weeks training?

bman

Hi,

I'm thinking of doing the Achill half marathon which is on July 2nd (~5 weeks time).

I used to run but never really got back into it after I broke my leg 2 years ago. I go to the gym quite a bit so muscle strength is pretty decent. I've been doing short runs (2-4 miles although on a very hilly course) intermittently over the past few months. I did a 5.5 - 6 mile run last night and didn't keel over after it

Am I kidding myself thinking I can do a half marathon in 5 weeks? If not, then what should my training routine be?

Any advise greatly appreciated

NoQuarter

you could easily achieve that, just be careful of injury, have a good few full rest days in there!

menoscemo

bman wrote: »

Hi,

I'm thinking of doing the Achill half marathon which is on July 2nd (~5 weeks time).

I used to run but never really got back into it after I broke my leg 2 years ago. I go to the gym quite a bit so muscle strength is pretty decent. I've been doing short runs (2-4 miles although on a very hilly course) intermittently over the past few months. I did a 5.5 - 6 mile run last night and didn't keel over after it

Am I kidding myself thinking I can do a half marathon in 5 weeks? If not, then what should my training routine be?

Any advise greatly appreciated

If you are reasonably fit, it should be no problem. A friend of mine recently did a half marathon on about 4 weeks training from a similar base. I'd advise over the next few weekends to do long runs of 7 then 9 the 11 and then drop back down the distance the weekend before the race to insure adequate recovery. Take the Long Runs very slow- the imprtance is just to get time on the feet and get used to the distance. If you want to practise speed or race pace, do so in your shorter midweek runs.

Best of luck.

pconn062

I thinks it possible, you just won't enjoy it as much as you would if you had 12 weeks training done!:) The key is the long run, try to get at least one or two 10 milers in, and an 11 or 12 mile run if possible, it will help,enormously with your confidence as well.

ecoli

Can it be done? Yes

Should it be done? No

Upsides of doing it?
Motivation to train to be able to cope with the distance, tremendous achievement if you finish, training will improve fitness and health

Downsides of doing it?
Injury Risk due to increase in training load over short space of time, its gonna hurt, most likely will not motivate you to ever race again due to the pain of the race (unless you are into that kinda thing:D)


I dont really get why people dont give these kinda things the respect they deserve. You would not enter a motor race after 5 weeks of driving lessons? so why treat a race differently? The distance should be given the respect it deserves. If you want a race to aim for start small and work your way up. Why not a local 5k? In the long run you will enjoy races more having the fitness to push past simply making it to the finish line

bman

Hey,

Thought I'd report back after this "experiment" Made it through in a time of 1:53:13. Was delighted with this! Was hoping for about 2:10 but my training went pretty poor for the second last week so didn't think I'd even get that.

For anyone that might want to do something similar my training involved a 5 and 7.5 mile run every week (apart from the second last!) with one 10 mile run about a week before the race.

The race was tough and my legs were a bit sore for about 2 days after, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. I reckon a flatter course would have made the task much easier; Achill is very hilly!

Thanks again to all the posters on this thread.

TFBubendorfer

That's a very respectable time, especially for such limited training. Congratulations!

huskerdu

Congratulations. That is a good time for the training you put in.
As you said - you have a good level of fitness and leg strength, but were lacking
running training.

The problem with giving advice to posts like yours is that some people
ask similar questions and consider themselves to be pretty fit but are very
very far from being able to run for 2 hours and the experience is awful , they get an injury and it puts them off running for ever.