mad555

iTrader: (1)

I have be stupid enough to be talked into running a half/full marathon next year.Now talking to 2 runners with marathon experience they say this is easy to do in 3 months for a half marathon starting from scratch is this true?Luckily the marathon is not to May.
Please help!!!

astraboy

good luck, the first person to run 26 miles died from the effort!
astraboy.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

i cant even run up the stairs with out passing out

Maz

iTrader: (34)

Quit them cigs lass!

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

its my blood pressure. when i get up and walk across the room i cant see till i reach the other side

mad555

iTrader: (1)

So far have been told train Mon/Wed/Fri nights and again on sunday morning starting off at a mile then building up gradually.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

when you see people out running they always look miserable

^OPM^

thats cos ur an old unfit wench

hades

Apart from the "get yourself good running shoes" advice, I'd also say get yourself a heart rate monitor. To get the best benefit from any training, you need to train at the right level/work rate, and a heart rate monitor is the way to do that. There's plenty of stuff on the internet about heart rate training zones, and if that doesn't help, look up some of the work/training stuff done by Arthur Lydiard.

hades

P.S. never done a half marathon etc myself, but (admittedly starting from a position of being reasonably fit, but not being a runner) earlier this year it took me under a month to build up to running 5 miles in about 40 minutes. After that, it's just a case of getting miles in your legs and training for long enough times (distances) to get your body doing the right things for endurance.

SJ_Skyline

Last half marathon I ran was the Great North Run in 2005 (02:06), I would have liked to break 2 hours but that's the way it goes. Ditto the advice on shoes, make sure they check out your running stance so that the trainers help your style. I overpronate quite a lot so the trainers I use have more padding on the inside of the foot to help correct this.

As far as training, I went from nothing to half marathon in 9 months. I started out going as far as I could at 10km/h on the treadmill and built this up to running for a full hour without stopping. I then increased the pace to 11km/h and mixed that with outdoor running building up to 8 miles and then to 10 miles. You will notice a massive difference between running on the treadmill and on tarmac, as after a while, tarmac hurts

Got my name in for the ballot for the London Marathon next year so fingers crossed. I've been told that the first half is 20 miles and the second half is 6 miles... After how I felt after 13 miles with my kidneys and other body parts shutting down I can just imaging the pain

Best of luck

Freak

Tell me about it! I can run three times as far on grass/whatever, as I can on tarmac! Its kind of a problem as Im doing the london and NY marathons next yr!

hades

That's pretty impressive times; I'd be very happy to get within 20 minutes of that marathon if I ever took things up really seriously, and be pleasantly surprised to get within an hour of it at current fitness levels.

However, I'd still recommend monitoring heart rate when training as:
(a) most beginners (to exercise in general) tend to try and train too hard and so train less effectively and
(b) it gives you some baseline so you can do things consistently and monitor your improvements.
I'm not advocating anything sophisticated, just trying to make sure you train in the right heart rate zones (i.e. 60-70% and 70-80%)

I started checking the heart rate stuff on recommendation of a friend who's completed the great north run in under 1:08 (i.e. also pretty useful runner), and it certainly worked well for me.

SJ_Skyline

I'll be happy with under 4 hours thankyou very much!

^OPM^

If you have a Lloyds chemist near you they have a special offer on heart rate monitors at mo-got one for sale at £9.99 usual price £29.99 from what i can find out seems a good buy.