Couch to marathon in 4 months…?

Hi alwayslemons,

As a baseline rule of thumb, you want to have your race distance roughly half your weekly mileage. This gets you to a place you can comfortably run for the whole race. So, in this case, you’d want to be running 26 miles weekly to feel you’re at a good place to run the half marathon.

I don’t know your current weekly milage, but I’d guess with a slow ramp up it’ll take you longer than 4 months to get to that stage. A slow ramp up is vital to reduce injury risk. Once you’ve got the bug for running, the worst thing that can happen is that you injure yourself and you’re sidelined = decrease in fitness.

A couple of thoughts on alternatives if interested:

1. If you have the time to do more exercise on a weekly basis, want to ramp up your fitness, but don’t want to increase injury risk, try adding cycling instead of more running. You can increase volume of aerobic exercise without the impact forces from running. It takes a long time to build up connective tissue strength for more safely running long distance (think years!).
2. How about doing a challenge walk instead. The UK has some challenging and beautiful walks that can provide a goal, but with lower impact. As an example, a few years ago, I did the Lyke Wake Walk.

Brilliant. I love it when an OP asks for advice and listens to it.

I am a keen and competitive runner. Half is my favourite distance.

What are your criteria? Things to think about.
Distance from home
Terrain
Size
Crowd support
Cost
Goals (good to have A,B and C goals which you can go for on the day depending on how your training has gone, the weather and how you feel on the day).

I think that’s a good choice. How many weeks do you have? Once I finished C25k a few years ago I just kept doing 5ks for a couple of weeks to get strong at that distance - if I remember correctly at the end of C25k I wasn’t actually running 5k, I was running for 30minutes, and couldn’t do 5k in that time, so that was my first target. Then I found a similar programme for building from 5k to 10k - I think that took 6 weeks. Then I started adding 1k a week to my long run until I got to 17km and that was the longest I had ran before my first HM. Worked for me, I built up fitness gradually every week and got in in under 2 hours in the HM and was delighted.

Good luck!

Good choice!

It's a challenge, but it is far more doable, less consuming and fewer injury risks.

Ultimately you want to reach a goal and come out the other end still able and enjoying running.

Fantastic, OP! Good luck and enjoy. Do you have a HM training plan?

I did it. Have a read of this book The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer by David A. Whitsett and Forrest Dolgener.

That’s great that you are enjoying the couch to 5k!

How are you finding the incremental increases – because that will give a good insight as to where you are?
With any endurance type event especially running which requires running, a rule of thumb is to increase how much you do by 10% to ensure that you don’t risk injury regardless of your baseline fitness, as though fitness will obviously translate from one type of activity to another, you have to consider the amount of load you are putting through body.

It's a cliche but, as the saying goes, when it comes to marathons you have to respect the distance. They are extremely hard, even for those experienced runners who have trained well.

I've seen many a decent runner who is used to half marathons absolutely crash on their first marathon because they didn't realise just how different a marathon is, and how things can really go to pieces after that 20 mile mark.

As @AuntieStella said upthread, your chance of success really depends on your base level of fitness. If you're switching to running from the bike and have a high level of cardio fitness, as well as strength to get you round, then you may be in with a chance. If you are a complete newcomer, then no. The chances of injury in training are far too high and you'll end up not just injured, but probably hating running forever.

I would aim for an autumn half marathon, which is a big enough ask in itself, and see how that goes. Then another half in spring 2024, and a 16 week marathon training block in summer 24 - building from the base fitness you'll have by then - before a marathon next autumn.

Finally, on fitness - with new runners, your cardio fitness tends to improve much faster than your musculoskeletal system can keep up with. Hence you feel you can run faster and further, but as your bones and muscles aren't up to it yet, people end up with runners knee/ plantar fasciitis/ stress fractures etc. Things like this can set you back for months and aren't worth risking.

Agree with all the previous posters . I think you will suck all the joy out of running by over committing too early to a marathon and also risk being injured. Aim for an under hour 10k or if you are really confident a half marathon and make next years goal the marathon

OP definitely work up. I have been a runner for years and years and have never ventured further than a half (have done many half marathons though and this is a good distance). You risk injury by pushing it too soon.
See if the race you wish to enter has a shorter distance. Then you can consider the full next year.

No. My fiancé is a runner, runs everyday, frequently runs half marathons at the weekend. He was a wreck at the end his last marathon!

I’m starting marathon training for an October marathon shortly and worried how I’ll handle the increased mileage - but I’m a 5 day a week runner, averaging 30 miles a week. I’d be very worried about injury risk training from scratch in 4 months, it will be very hard on your body.

Also, by rushing into a marathon, it's easy to burn your enthusiasm out too quickly by ticking off the big bucket list challenge too soon.

Distance isn't everything and when you can run 5k it's worth building a bit more stamina and then playing with pace and different structures of runs (intervals, tempo, hill repeats...) It often takes time to learn to control pace. Beginners often have run or walk, and it takes time and experience to learn to adapt pace. Running slower is a useful skill to have before doing very long runs as it reduces stress, exhaustion and injury risk. Long distance for a runner that only has one running pace can make it much harder.

I'm sure Chris Evan's book about training for marathons is called something like "119 days" which is pretty much four months. I'm not sure what base level of fitness they are expecting at the beginning of the 119 days but perhaps check that out before deciding.

I usually train for a marathon over a 16 week plan... but I'm almost always starting from a point where a 10-12 mile run is perfectly comfortable.

I think you'd be mad to try and train for a marathon over such a short time period from almost a standing start. And if we have a hot summer like last year it will be even harder. I found the long runs properly tough last summer, and I run c 30 miles a week normally. Go for a half this autumn and then maybe a spring marathon.

Beginner marathon plans are typically 6m.
I've "Jeffed" (frequent run/walk intervals) my first marathon which took a lot impact off it, but even as a seasoned HMer, it was still a major commitment. Life does get in the way, and some slack to shuffle the plan helped to cover the milage and allow rest when needed. Missing training runs is stressful and can lead to increased injury risk if you don't build up well.

If you're fit, motivated and ambitious, it's doable to do a couch to HM which would be ambitious enough on that timescale. That then gives a decent base to work on for a marathon next year. Being used to 13mi, it wasn't so bad to do 14, 16, 18, 20, but by 20mi it was still 4+ hours on my feet, a massive difference from 2-2.5 hours doing a HM. 20 is still a 10k race short on race day! Because I jeffed, I was much fresher than most people around the 5 hour mark, but there were still niggles.

A good plan should have some strength/ cross training and lighter recovery weeks. That's at any level and recovery is even built into weeks 5-6 of C25k. You want to be able to enjoy it, not get injured or find the while thing stressful.

Oh op I genuinely absolutely love your c25k endorphin fuelled enthusiasm and optimism! But I think it would be a bit bonkers to be honest.

I have done something similar and ended up pulling out 2 weeks before the event. It just wasn’t enough time - I might have been fine, on a good day, but there was a strong risk I’d injure myself or be unable to cope if conditions (or my own health) were less than perfect on the day.

It might have been enough time if I’d devoted every spare moment to training, no holidays that didn’t incorporate training schedule, no indulging etc, but I didn’t want to do that! Depends how single minded you are I guess.

Sorry I would agree with others that it might be slightly ambitious. I run regularly and would normally allow 3-4 months training for a marathon and that's from a starting point of being able to run 10 miles regularly. I think it would be unenjoyable and liable to get injured to start from nothing.
Another thing to consider is that for an autumn marathon - the peak of the training will be in warm weather

What's your motivation for a marathon this autumn?

Start going to parkrun. I was fine doing couch to 5K then when I started parkrun realised I was very very slow! I aimed to speed up at that distance rather than increase my distance and it worked well.

How fit are you generally, what other sports do you do (and at what level) and how many hours a week do you spend on them?

There's a world of difference between say a competitive cyclist who is trying out a different sport and someone who does the odd fitness class.

If you have got an excellent base level of fitness and are injury free, then it might be possible (especially if you've competed in other distance events and know how to pace yourself and how to plan fuel). But it'll be demanding, and you need hours of training. And as likelihood of injury is quite high, it also helps if you have nothing else coming up that injury would spoil.

If complete newbie, the enter it for next year.

I agree with PPs.

My reasoning is not necessarily your fitness. It's the amount of time it takes to a) train for a marathon & b) physically run it (or walk it).

To make it not miserable & not an endurance, you need to have a consistent 7 day training programme (planning rest & easy days is part of the programme) and be able to put this ahead of other commitments. For example, when training for my first marathon, I had to give most of Saturday to the long run - eating right, planning the route, running it & cool down / eating after. (Now that I'm much more experienced, it takes less time as I intuitively know what works & don't need as much prep).

It's a really big commitment & you've to really want it. Very easy to get discouraged.

Focus on the 5k. If it goes well, work from there - some people find a particular distance they love eg running half marathons & focus on that, some keep going to marathons & beyond.

You need to enjoy it, fundamentally.