is it possible to indirectly train for a marathon?

silverharp

Ive set some fitness goals for myself this year, one being a hill walking one and am planning to do a 3ish day walk from Dublin down to Lug and back to Blessington or the full Wicklow Way but either way 70 to 80 miles and a second one being a cycling one again so again a 75ish mile day cycle say Dublin to Glendalough and back to Dublin in a circular route.
I'd probably peak around Aug from a fitness point of view so would it be too late to switch over to marathon training? During all this I would be running anyway but not normally more than 10 miles. I'm not interested in a finishing time but clearly wouldnt want to risk injury from a stress fracture or the like if the body requires a longer build up to take the road running. And if it doable what would I need to do in the lat month or 6 weeks?

Krusty_Clown

To be honest, I would suggest that you would be more than capable of walking a marathon (~6 hours), but if you want to run a marathon, it's all about specificity, and 10 miles a week isn't enough specificity.

Why not train for a marathon and leverage that fitness into your WW and cycling events? Looking at something like the Hal Higdon's novice program, the mileage 12 weeks out wouldn't be significantly higher than you are doing at the moment, but increments gradually up until the marathon.

bambergbike

If you want to run a marathon but know that a fair bit of your training in the first eight months of the year is either going to be low impact (bike) or off-road (hikes), would it make any sense to look for an autumn/winter marathon that doesn't involve a tonne of road running?

silverharp

bambergbike wrote: »

If you want to run a marathon but know that a fair bit of your training in the first eight months of the year is either going to be low impact (bike) or off-road (hikes), would it make any sense to look for an autumn/winter marathon that doesn't involve a tonne of road running?

I was thinking of the Dublin Marathon in Oct as I do most of my cycling over the summer, so I reckon I'd at peak general fitness in Aug/Sep, I hadnt thought of an offroad marathon , I'd like the off road bit just not an extreme one this time anyway.

Krusty_Clown wrote:

Why not train for a marathon and leverage that fitness into your WW and cycling events? Looking at something like the Hal Higdon's novice program, the mileage 12 weeks out wouldn't be significantly higher than you are doing at the moment, but increments gradually up until the marathon.

Ill have a look at that thanks, 12 weeks out wouldnt be too bad and there is a certain overlap