Forums >General Running>Marathon advice needed!
You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.
------------------------------------- 5K - 18:25 - 3/19/11 10K - 39:38 - 12/13/09 1/2 - 1:29:38 - 5/30/10 Full - 3:45:40 - 5/27/07
Burninated Peasant
E.J.Greater Lowell Road RunnersCry havoc and let slip the dawgs of war!May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your SPF30, may the rains fall soft upon your sweat-wicking hat, and until you hit the finish line may The Flying Spaghetti Monster hold you in the hollow of His Noodly Appendage.
There's nothing wrong multiple 20+ milers, but I'm not sure how that might interact with your relatively low weekly mileage. You're looking at doing some long runs in another month and a half that are as long as your current weekly totals. I'm not by any means an expert on this kind of stuff, but I'm sure there are others around that would probably advise you to focus on increasing your overall weekly mileage first. If you're already committed to running a marathon 13 weeks from now, I'd advise just doing the one 20 miler.
#2867
Run to Win25 Marathons, 17 Ultras, 16 States (Full List)
Hawt and sexy
I'm touching your pants.
Your toughness is made up of equal parts persistence and experience. You don't so much outrun your opponents as outlast and outsmart them, and the toughest opponent of all is the one inside your head." - Joe Henderson
E-mail: eric.fuller.mail@gmail.com -----------------------------
Long runs are overrated. Frankly, your brother and Dad are right. At least partly. It's not necessarily the number of 20+ runs - its the low mileage the rest of the time that concerns me. Worry less about the "long runs," and more about building consistency over the long-term. The "experts" all tend to hype 2-3 long 20+ runs because its a minimum. They figure if you can do that, you can finish your marathon, and you'll end up liking their book. But its mostly bunk. 4 long runs won't kill you and neither will 1. Not if you've got the base mileage. The guy who consistently runs 50+ miles per week is one helluva a lot better off than the guy who gets in the exact number of 20 mile runs Hal Higdon told you to do but rarely hits 30 miles per week. The only true marathon disaster I ever had was the one where I hit every scheduled Higdon/Galloway/Pfitzinger/whatever 20+ miler, but neglected the other runs. And long runs are more a function of exertion and time than distance. There are people here who can run - relatively easily - a 20 mile run in not much over 2 hours. For me, a 20 mile training run is actually longer, time wise, than a race pace marathon. I set my marathon PR without ever going past 18 miles. I now believe - and your mileage may vary - that runs much over 3 hours are counter-productive. Your Dad and bro may be wrong to suggest that one more long run will hurt you (then again, they may right). But I know they're right if they're suggesting that long runs are less important than consistent mileage.