Marathon training - different surfaces and CT questions

bump

Crosstrain as often as you feel like you can. Yes, it would be better to run more miles instead, but your body might not be able to handle that right now, and that's alright. I think it would be hard to crosstrain too much. I started crosstraining instead of two a days in college (I kept getting stress fractures) and I think that it helped my fitness some.

Aquajogging is probably the closest to running, but it doesn't sound like that will continue to be an option for you. I would aquajog as much as you can until it gets cold. Can you find a hotel pool? They will often let you use it for $20/month or so.

Run on soft surfaces as much as you can. Keep your workouts on the track, run everything else on soft surfaces. It shouldn't matter much whether you run on grass or dirt.

Good Luck! Stress fractures are no fun, but they don't have to end your running career.

38 mpw is pretty light for a marathon unless you heavily balance that with cross training, and I have actually known some older guys who BQ'd with heavy CT. I was older and BQ'd doing a lot of work on a track or trails. However, what is your goal? Just to finish?

How long should you crosstrain?

I usually mimicked the time I would spend completing the mileage I would be doing if I was healthy.

For example, I would replace a 7 mile easy run with 45-50 minutes of aquajogging or spinning on a bike.

Thanks for the surface tips and CT tips! Yes I do have hotel pool access so I will check into that.

Yes, just to finish since it's my first. I'm very slow- 24:22 5K PR with a 4:30 marathon time goal. 20 mile long run + 4 mile soft surface run + 8 miles, slow pace w/hills + 6 mile easy run = 38 mpw plus all the CT.

Great! so about an hour or so to replace a 6-8 mile run depending on how I feel (I'm slow haha).

StressFractureSurvivor wrote:

How long should you crosstrain?

I usually mimicked the time I would spend completing the mileage I would be doing if I was healthy.

For example, I would replace a 7 mile easy run with 45-50 minutes of aquajogging or spinning on a bike.

This is perfect advice. If you could cross train for an hour on Tuesday and Sunday in addition to your 38 mile weeks it would put you at something like 50 mile effort wise.

If you can stay healthy cross training and running I bet you can threaten 4 hours and improve your 5k time.

That is the goal! :)

Every time I get beat 25 in the 5K (and consistently beat it for 2-3 months) seems to be when the stress fracture comes up. Hoping to break that streak with my new training schedule!

I'm in a similar boat for a Nov. 1 marathon. I'm trying to peak at 50 mpw, I run about 8-9 on a treadmill to try to reduce the pounding a little. I use it for my tempo run so I can control the pace better, I'm fairly new to running so this "by feel" crap escapes me right now.

I had calcernus stress fracture last year that took 5 months to heal. I don't cross train and run 5 days a week. So far so good at 42 mpw. PRs at 5k and 1 mile in this build up already. Hoping for more of the same at 10k and 1/2 marathon.

Good luck. I hear Rocket City is a good one. I considered it, but I don't know if I can take no headphones for that long. I just recently did my first 5k without them!

"(I'm not a crazy runner like all of you that do 100 miles per week lol, so please don't laugh at my peak of 38 miles per week. :) I'm just an average runner)"

Even the guys on here doing 100mpw are average runners. Don't let them fool ya.

That scared me too, but I will be running with a friend which is better than headphones imo. They have gotten to the point of almost irritating me on some of my runs- it just seems like they're just one more thing to haul along and half the time I zone out and don't notice them.