Concept2 Forum

Hello

I am new to the C2 website so bear with me.

I am 19 and a college freshmen i row for Mareitta college in ohio.
Over winter break we were required to do some training the coaches let us take ergs home so most of the half a million meters that we are required to do are done on the erg. We are also aloud to run to earn meters toward our quota. I started running to break up the work outs a bit and figured out that I'm not a half bad distance runner.

Now to the subject.
I have wanted to do a marathon run for awhile now mostly just to prove to my self that i can complete it. I am looking for other people who have completed marathon's. I guess i am looking for tips and maybe even warnings.

Rowing is my primary sport and eats up most of my free time. While i would be able to run occasionally to train for the marathon i would not be able to dedicate large amounts of time specifically to running.

Do you think i am at to high a risk of injury without running specific training to do a marathon?

The target marathon is the Cleveland marathon on may 17 09

Won't a May 17th date conflict with your rowing season? I wouldn't mix a running marathon with a competitive rowing season.

If not, and your goal is to just complete the running marathon, I'd think that you should be able to do it. At 175lbs you are on the large size for a distance runner but not way out there. Training properly for running will probably shed some of that weight though, and you'd have to consider if that would be detrimental to your main sport.

A marathon training program from Jeff Galloway should work. In his books he outlines progressive charts of workouts based on goals, one for 'just to finish,' another for a goal of 4 hours, another for a goal of 3:30:00, etc. There are probably some other training programs online as well that a Google search might turn up, although I know of many people have successfully used the Galloway method over the past 25-30 years.

Rick

I'd second Yankeerunner opinion.
IF you care about the rest of you team you shouldn't jeopardize your rowing to train for a marathon. It will take you a full month to recover from it if you actually race it rather then just take it easy.
I did run two marathons in college while rowing. The first was just before I joined the crew team, the second was the following year during the winter off season. SOme of my teammates were pissed with me for doing it rather then concntrating on rowing and they were right.
Do an erg marathon instead.

You could just do some "build up your base" running during rowing season, and do your marathon training in the summer/early fall. There are some half marathons and a 20k you might look into as an alternative. These require less training, involve significantly less injury risk, and you can recover pretty quickly:

Capital Cities Half Marathon (Columbus)--early May.
Wheeling 20k "the toughest 20k in the USA"--Memorial Day weekend.
Parkersburg Half Marathon--late August.

Thanks for the advice. i may have to put the marathon off until late summer... supplement my rowing season with some distance running.

last friday i ran 8 miles at a pretty good pace i feel like running the extra 5 miles to make a half marathon was well within my range.... i may run the half marathon at Cleveland just to get a feel for the atmosphere before attempting a full marathon.

Thanks!

The Cleveland course is flat as a pancake, so it is a good first half, or even full marathon. The only "hills" are a few overpasses the course goes over. I did the full marathon there a few years ago. Generally good support in terms of water stations, etc. But it billed itself as a "Rock and Roll" marathon, and the only music I came across was a church choir about halfway, and a bad heavy metal band at the finish. Perhaps they've improved the entertainment in recent years.

I ran my first marathon 2 weeks after the official end of my freshman crew season. The key to training for a marathon(I've done a few and am a Beantown Qualifier) is the long run- there is just nothing else that can build up your leg strength like the long run. And I'm not talking about muscle strength- I'm talking about the strength of your tendons/joints that need to be built up to withstand the pounding of running for 26.2 miles. The long run will benefit you more than any sessions of smaller mileage.

It's extremely hard to find time to run while doing competitive rowing- my teammates thought I was crazy! On my day off I would do a 14-20 miler and then during the weekdays before practice I would run 2-3 miles and do 4x100m strides just to keep some turnover in my legs. I was so beat from my training though that my long runs were done slowwwwly, but then when the season stopped and I was better rested both mentally and physically my pace dropped way down. Theres hardly a better feeling as when you finish a marathon!

Good luck!

Just as a matter of interest what pace does one run a marathon at ? I'm specifically wondering about heart rate zones.

Ray