To the uninitiated, the thought of a marathon is not a pleasant one. For people who look at running five miles as daunting, the thought of multiplying that by more than five is positively unfathomable. Nevertheless, everyone has to start somewhere, and if you think you’re up to the task of running a marathon, you’ll need to take certain steps.
The road ahead isn’t going to be easy, and you’ll want to give yourself plenty of time to endure the highs, lows, and everything in between as you go about your training. If you’ve never run more than 26 miles in one go before, it’s not a matter of waking up one day and deciding to run, or even prepping your body for a couple weeks. It takes months of hard work, and even then the challenge may seem insurmountable. Thankfully, a new report provides some insights for persons who are attempting such a feat for the first time, and you’ll want to keep these in mind.
As we hinted above, the marathon you sign up for shouldn’t be Easter Sunday. Set your sights on July or August at the earliest so that you have time to start training in earnest. Simply finding the time to train the hours and hours it will take is an obstacle that throws many people off. A half hour of jogging simply isn’t sufficient to prep your body. You need to take a long hard look at your schedule and figure out where you can carve out chunks of hours with which to prepare yourself.
What shape that training takes will depend largely on your preferences as a runner, but you have to find a happy medium between pushing yourself to reach new goals and giving your body the rest it needs to recuperate. Ideally, you would be able to increase the intensity every week until the big day, but your body may have other plans. Soreness and fatigue must be taken into account, and you should have a backup plan ready to go in case your body simply isn’t up to a lengthy jaunt. Walk for five miles instead of running for that same amount, or supplement heavy amounts of running with weight lifting and other workouts that are less cardio-based and more strength-based.
Finally, try to train yourself to avoid many of the pitfalls that await runners on the day of the marathon itself. Keep a reasonable pace throughout rather than trying to get out ahead of the pack. Sprinting is a bad idea if you want to make it to the finish line. You’re going to have plenty of time to push yourself as is, so you don’t want to overdo things at the outset.
For more training tips, follow the link up above.
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