Revising marathon plans; advice needed

Amadeus 2014

Greetings all!

Quick bit of advice sought, if possible? Once upon a time I used to do a fair bit of running and back in 2011 I ran 2:58. Took too long off and ran 3:01 after a disrupted training program in Spring 2012. Change of country and job left me with next to no time to train and so I more or less stopped running until this summer when I started doing 4 - 6 milers a couple of times a week and I kicked off an 18 week program with the aim of racing Rotterdam in April and trying to PB in Amsterdam in the autumn. Training went swimmingly at first and I clocked 120 miles in two weeks with pace and stamina coming back well and my first 20 miler under my belt.

And of course I copped an overuse injury.

Cue two weeks of next to no running and when I went back (gently) a couple of weeks back things felt no better than ok and this week my other leg is giving early signs of the same problem so I have backed off again.

So any chance of a "good" time in April have pretty much gone. As I see it I have three choices:

1 - Do what training I can, treat Rotterdam as a supported training run and base build with a view to a PB in autumn

2 - Shift my focus to a half, build speed and then go for the full in the autumn (maybe still doing Rotterdam)

3 - Join my local club and follow their advice

I've already paid my entry fee and I don't want to bin the race totally if I can but I want to be sensible about it all. What do the wise old heads here advise?

Many thanks!

RayCun

--amadeus-- ?

BeepBeep67

Is this 'Amadeus - Amadeus' that used to frequent these parts many a moon ago?
If so, how would you have answered this question if asked on the forum a few years ago?

Clearlier

Amadeus 2014 wrote: »

Greetings all!

Quick bit of advice sought, if possible? Once upon a time I used to do a fair bit of running and back in 2011 I ran 2:58. Took too long off and ran 3:01 after a disrupted training program in Spring 2012. Change of country and job left me with next to no time to train and so I more or less stopped running until this summer when I started doing 4 - 6 milers a couple of times a week and I kicked off an 18 week program with the aim of racing Rotterdam in April and trying to PB in Amsterdam in the autumn. Training went swimmingly at first and I clocked 120 miles in two weeks with pace and stamina coming back well and my first 20 miler under my belt.

And of course I copped an overuse injury.

Cue two weeks of next to no running and when I went back (gently) a couple of weeks back things felt no better than ok and this week my other leg is giving early signs of the same problem so I have backed off again.

So any chance of a "good" time in April have pretty much gone. As I see it I have three choices:

1 - Do what training I can, treat Rotterdam as a supported training run and base build with a view to a PB in autumn

2 - Shift my focus to a half, build speed and then go for the full in the autumn (maybe still doing Rotterdam)

3 - Join my local club and follow their advice

I've already paid my entry fee and I don't want to bin the race totally if I can but I want to be sensible about it all. What do the wise old heads here advise?

Many thanks!

It kind of depends upon what your main target is. If it's Amsterdam then Rotterdam isn't going to help but if you can avoid injury it shouldn't have too much of an impact.

You could investigate Hadd type training (I think that it's good for getting people back into the shape that they were in). Depending on how long you spent on Hadd you could follow it up with a speedwork block and then maybe 10-12 weeks of marathon specific work.

You'll obviously need to sort out whatever overuse injury you have as well and be careful not to teach your body the 'wrong' way to run by pushing through when you should back off.

Amadeus 2014

RayCun wrote: »

--amadeus-- ?

BeepBeep67 wrote: »

Is this 'Amadeus - Amadeus' that used to frequent these parts many a moon ago?
If so, how would you have answered this question if asked on the forum a few years ago?

Impossible, there couldn't be two people as blessed with style, wit, grace and athletic ability surely?!

How I would have answered if someone asked me this is a different thing to the advice you would give yourself - it's easy to tell someone else not to run...

Thanks for the link Clearlier, I'm not familier with Hadd so I'll give that a read. Main goal is to go sub 3 again so Amsterdam is the A race as my most realistic first chance, what I'm trying to work out is the most efficient way to get there that will also keep me motivated enough to run (ie starting to train for A'dam now is unrealistic as it's too far away to be a motivator)