My Marathon Just Got Cancelled - What Now?

If there's any doubt at all, time trial a HM instead of a marathon. The logistics and recovery are 10x easier.

joedirt wrote:

Do your own time trial. Invite some of your old teammates to pace you through either sections or the entire thing. Pick a flat course you are familiar with. Pick an ideal time of day and year with good conditions. Now you are not held to anyone else's standards but your own.

slight alteration: can somebody (in a non-fascist state like WY or SD) with (enough) land lend use of it for a day so we can knock this thing out?

pretty sure Freedom's run marathon in shepherdstown West Virginia for Oct. 3 is still on as of now. Challenging course, well-organized event [I ran the half-marathon a couple years ago]. 1000-runner limit

my 2c wrote:

If there's any doubt at all, time trial a HM instead of a marathon. The logistics and recovery are 10x easier.

+1

Disappointed Runner wrote:

Was signed up for Manchester Marathon in October, they announced their cancellation an hour ago. Had been following the Jack Daniels Marathon plan and was just about to start phase 3.

What should I do now?

The Yorkshire Marathon is still scheduled for October but I guess it will be cancelled too.

I would find a safe 20-22 mile route that you can run without traffic and having to stop at many locations.

Then, I would treat it just as if it was your marathon (Taper, diet, sleep, time of day, etc).

Then, I would get a few other runners to help pull you along. Maybe get someone on a bike.

Then go for it. Drop the hammer.

At the end, you won't quite have emptied the tank, but you'll recover much faster, reduce the risk of injury and can get back into training within the next 2-3 weeks and start planning for a Spring marathon or a track season.

Too risky id say

try TT 10k instead: track should be fine if you cant find a perfect loop/route.

taper then train for another 2-3 weeks then TT HM and see how that goes

Manchester is not just in Britain there’s also Manchester Marathon in NH....Anyways I wouldn’t time trial a marathon especially if you want your time/effort to count. What about doing a long marathon paced workout? Like 18 at MP. That way you’re body learns somewhat what a marathon will be like without literally going to the well by yourself in a 26mile time trial? If you can find a hm to capitalize on your fitness and have a legitimate time that’d be great...but may be unlikely with all the cancellations. The 18miler mp will give you a good stimulus and then you may consider taking a down wk or two and restarting another training cycle that continues to build on your last.

However you’d start again from the ground up with tour next cycle with the aim of building on your last (just so your not starting exactly where you left off but revisiting other areas of your fitness and continuing to develop them)

Transition to a 5k/10k plan through October/November, and then look to see if spring marathons are on in 2021 and dive into another marathon training block.

I was looking the Newport marathon (Wales) around the same time, fortunately it was postponed far earlier than Manchester. Right now my thinking is that whilst I'm motivated more than a lot of people, a training block to run a solo marathon TT still sounds unreasonable, whereas taking a significant chunk off my 5k time would benefit me long term too.