I watched both the men’s and women’s marathon races in the Olympics last week. A non-runner has a hard time wondering how anyone could be watching a group of athletes running down the road for over two hours and watching a repetition of legs moving back and forth to be exciting. I suppose it is an interest from having run several marathons to enjoy watching the strategies and effort put in by the runners. It is watching a group of maybe 25 runners running down the road. A few miles farther the group is now 18 runners, then 12 runners, then 5 runners, and finally one lone runner kicking to the finish line. For the men running so effortlessly and then have the announcer mention that at mile 18 the lead runners ran a 5K distance in 14:28 minutes. That is well under running a five-minute mile for over 26 miles. It is hard to imagine going that fast for that far. The women runners are close to that and are somewhere in the five minutes time frame.
While marathon season is still a few months away this is about the time a runner needs to start training to run a marathon. For most runners trying to build up the endurance to run a marathon takes about 12 weeks. That puts the marathon date into the middle of November or early December which is usually the start of marathon season in Texas.
For a runner thinking of running a marathon and looking for a program to follow the result is a wide variety of offerings. From Galloway recommending running 30 mile runs so that the runner knows they can run 26.2 miles, to other programs suggest running 10K races for speed with a long-distance run of around 15 miles as a good method. The logic behind this method is if you run a 10K fast and then slow the pace down for the marathon you can run 26.2 miles. Then you will find any number of combinations between these two extremes that runners, especially those that have run several marathons that fit their style the best.
It took several marathons to settle into a program that worked for me. Since the temperatures now are almost too hot for a long run I had a gradual buildup of miles for my long run. I had read some reports that between the long run and the total miles you ran each week the long run was the most important. I remember running about 70 miles or more during the week as I got closer to the marathon. Before that, the total miles were closer to 40- 45 miles. I would just add a few miles every week and most of that came from adding the extra miles to the long run on weekends.
I usually found that my first long run was always hard, so I ran the same distance a second time and found it to be much easier before I added miles. My build up in the long runs went like this: 8, 8, 10, 10, 12, 12, 15, 15, 18, 18, 20, 20-22, and the last week the longest was usually around 12 miles. The one thing I included to help lower my times in a marathon was to run a fast 10K on Saturday and then do the long run on Sunday. Once I was running the long run around 18 miles I would add a middle distance run of 10 – 12 miles in the middle of the week usually on a Wednesday. For some reason, this method worked well for me. I also put in some rest days – either not running, or doing a slow 3 – 4 mile run, to let my legs recover from the added miles on weekends.
The number of runners that run marathons in comparison to all the runners who like the 5K and 10K races is a very low percentage of total runners. A marathon is not for everyone and since the large majority of runners will never run a marathon it puts the marathon runner in sort of an exclusive category. One of the most common questions any runner will get from other runners, and people in general, is, “Have you ever run a marathon?” All you have to do is run one marathon and you can answer, “Yes! I have run a marathon.” It doesn’t matter if it took you five hours, or if you walked a few miles of the 26.2 miles, the point is you ran a marathon.
To most non-runners, a person running a race of 26.2 miles is hard to comprehend. A few comments from friends of marathon runners may go like this: “Joe ran a 26.2 miles marathon.” “My goodness, how many days did it take him?” Or it might be a response like this. ”Joe ran a 26.2-mile marathon? That is like running from San Marcos to Austin!!” That makes you the exclusive runner.
