Can “anyone” really do a marathon?

[AvonCallingBarksdale]

I can do 5K in 35 mins and am doing a 10K next month. Having watched the marathon today it just looks so amazing and I’d love to think I could do London. However, can anyone really do a marathon? I know you can walk for bits and it’s about the finish line not the finish time, but is it realistic to think that an overweight menopausal woman can go from 10K to 42K (with training??) I can’t imagine mentally being able to go out for 4+ hour training runs 😵‍💫

Humans evolved to run very long distances, slowly

@Tophelleborine Humans are designed to run, there's no question about that. I do question 'very long' though. Somewhere in the region of 5-20k would seem 'normal' for hunter gatherers in a day. But hunts weren't every day things for many groups. Scavenging would also have been important and that involves getting to a carcass quickly than bigger predators, somewhere in the region of 30 minutes. Again, nowhere near a marathon.

Gathering was the most reliable, everyday source of calories. Hunting may have been fairly sporadic and seasonal. Once a week or less in many cases. And hunter gatherers were pretty leisurely. A few hours of 'work' a day if that. Walking long distance is probably far far more typical. Foraging/gathering would have taken place every day.

That's also assuming who the typical hunter gatherer was/is. A 20 yo male Australopithecus would be different to a 40 yo female Inuit.

And yes, running marathons is better than being obese in terms of health. But ideal, surely, is somewhere between those two.

Not a chance for me
I ran for a club as a sprinter but I have never ever been able to do any form of distance. Even when doing 100m/200m competitively, I would struggle doing 5k
Now I'm overweight I can still beat most people in the gym at 100m!

My friend on the other hand can do virtually no training and bang out an ultra like it's a walk in the park

Sorry @Tophelleborine I totally x-posted. I agree it's really interesting.

Yes, I think anyone without considerable health issues or disabilities could train to run or run/walk one. Most able bodied people could train to run one reasonably well with enough time and support. But I don’t think running is necessarily the best sport for everyone.

Yes, anyone without disabilities can do a marathon, with training. The whole human body is designed for long distance running, we can run further than any other animal on the planet. This is why the Man versus Horse marathon cant be longer than 22 miles, not the full marathon length - to be an actual competition.

Any further, and it is unfair on the horses, they don't stand a chance.

It’s whether you have the time and are willing to do the training imo. I would need to be doing 2 hour long runs even to train for a half marathon I think and I just don’t want to. It would be fantastic on the day to run London especially or perhaps another well supported marathon but only if the training had been done and so it would feel like a victory lap.

DH has done 3 marathons and he is much faster than me so it isn’t so bad but it still takes big chunks out of Sunday mornings every week for months plus all the shorter evening runs etc. A big commitment that affects family life.

No worries. I totally take your point, and I do agree that covering 26.2 miles of London roads in sub-4 hours is a very long way from our ancestral running habits.

I just generally take issue with the "don't run long distances, it's really bad for you" narrative, when humans are more sedentary than we've ever been (in wealthier nations even more so), and that has a negative impact on our mental and physical well-being on so many levels. We're meant to move, an awful lot more than most of us do. Anyone who has ambitions to move more, and faster, should be celebrated and encouraged, not put off.

@noshadowatnoon DH is doing Man V Horse 😵‍💫. Have you done that - looks insane.
I’m fascinated by the psychology re long distances. When I’m training for my 10K an hour feels like a long time to be out, so then I think could I overcome that to be out for 4 hours?? Mind over (in my case a lot of) matter!

Haha this is me too - l do love watching it though and it is inspiring from the comfort of my sofa!!

I don't think anything is healthy to the extremes. You'll find former marathons runners who thinks the same as well.

True @Tophelleborine. And interestingly, I'm NOT a natural runner. I'm a natural swimmer. I took up running very late and after a few years it sort of clicked. I think because it was sold to us as a sport, rather than recreation, I thought it mattered how fast I went or what distance. And since I wasn't fast, I assumed it wasn't for me.

Now I have a happy 30-60 minutes, three times a week, plodding through a forest, listening to music, clearing my brain. I lope along, don't care how fast, don't care what distance. Go for tea with the group, chat about nonsense. Which is probably as close to hunter gatherer as you can get!

A lot of the menfolk I know are all comparing runs, hurting themselves, shaving a minute or two off their time, buggering their feet, moaning. Training for this or that, never just keeping fit, always trying to get fitter. Honestly I swear my DH runs at activities full-pelt, until he hurts himself then moves to something else. Running, weight lifting, martial arts. He's much better than me at all of them, but he always does something to himself.

Not ‘anyone’, but with your current experience I would think that you could, unless you got injured, knees weren’t up to it etc.

I had done several halves before I thought about marathon training and still found the step up quite hard, mostly in terms of the time commitment needed for training. I followed a training plan from a book called ‘Four Months to a Four Hour Marathon’ to the letter. It really worked for me - different plans for desired times between 4 and 5 hrs. I came in at just over 4.5 hrs and was in the top 25% of women at London, despite not being a particularly athletic type in many ways. Being very stubborn helps!

depends on how much effort you are putting in. I have a running mode I call "armchair" in my head, and it is slow and comfortable and I just think of it as sitting in an armchair watching the world go by. I can do that for hours.

Of course once you start adding hills and timings, and speed, everything changes.

But do you really think the tens of thousands of people who ran the LM today are unhealthy extremists? Not ordinary, fitter-than-average people having a brilliant time?

The whole point of the human endurance running is that we could run down ANY prey. in the long run, ( literally!) so no, it wasn't limited to a certain number of km a day, it was until we caught whatever we were chasing. And if that was an ungulate, it was likely to be in the tens of miles, and it was likely to be all ages and both sexes running.

I ran the London marathon last year aged 66. They give you a really good training plan and it’s well organised. I was slower than when I was younger but the atmosphere is brilliant!

Probably. But I'm not sure it does the body any good pounding tarmac for 5/6/7 hrs. (Plus the training). The amount of people I know who have knackered themselves doing marathons and the training is ridiculous.

Shorter runs and sensible trail runs are probably better for health.

I totally get the armchair mode thing - when it's all going well I can feel as though I'm sitting down and my legs are taking me for a ride, it's brilliant. I genuinely enjoy the ups and downs too because you get to give different muscles a rest. Round here you can't avoid hills unless you run along the A road, so you get hill fit whether you mean to or not!

I'm sure you can. I've seen a banana AND a rhino doing it.

I honestly don't think I could, I am a regular runner, have done 3 half marathons and run the same distance unofficially on a regular basis - the last couple of miles can be very hard and I just couldn't comprehend doing the whole thing again when I stop!
My longest run ever has been 14.5 miles - I could probably add a couple of miles onto this but that would be my limit I think!

If you go onto the BUPA website it has free training plans for various distances including a marathon. If you look at those it will give you an idea of the commitment involved. If you can do those you can run a marathon. But you can't skimp on the long runs, that is a recipe for disaster.

I've thought about it before but ultimately I think all of the training would take away the joy of running for me. I run for about an hour 3 or 4 times a week. I don't think the risk of injury and losing the enjoyment I have in running is worth it tbh.

I don't think I could run a marathon, or even a half. It's a question of endurance, rather than speed. I'd also hate to be in that crowd with all the runners.

I’ve run marathon distance (but not an official race) when I was 50. I had been running for over a decade and built up from 10k or so to half marathons and 70.3 triathlons. I’d wanted to do it for ages and felt 50 was a milestone year so I wrote myself a training plan and stuck to it. I only ran 3 times a week, only did 6/7k twice in the week and kept my long runs for the weekends, which gradually got to about 35k. On the day it took me ages, but it was a coast path trail route with lots of climbing. But I did it, enjoyed it, and felt really happy I’d done it. It taught me the real value of promising yourself something and working for it.
Maybe I’ll train up and do a competitive one some day.

But people who have only ever run a mile think that they could perhaps run 2 miles but that would be their limit. That's how it works. Running 2 miles with sufficient training makes you feel you could run 1 mile with relative ease. Running 20 miles with sufficient training makes you feel you could run 10 miles with relative ease. Marathon training is about how much 'relative ease' you want, not whether your body can do it. We have all evolved to run, and the vast majority of us are capable of it. Just like anything else, the more you do, the easier it is. If you add a couple of miles onto your 14.5 a couple of times, you'll be saying 'My longest run was 16.5 miles, I couldn't add more than a couple of miles to it though, that would be my limit!'