So I blew up in the marathon.....what to do now??

My personal opinion is that summer marathons blow. Keep your fitness, race some shorter stuff, and get ready for a good fall marathon. Do you think you crashed and burned because of the heat, or was your endurance not what it needed to be?

I would opt for the latter. Rest up for 3 weeks and shoot for another race in the Fall. The marathon is a beast. Hard enough on its own, let alone trying to run one with the type of conditions at Grandmas this year. Good luck in your next round of training.

well for my weekly long run I went 16, 16, 18, 18, 19, 19, rest week, 20, 20, 21, 21, 23, 23, 18, 13.

The final 23 I did 3 weeks before the full, and did it in 2:20:00.

I'm not questioning my training, I'm just wondering if anyone would advise waiting until the spring- or get back on the horse and race a fall marathon.

I ran grandmas too. I am thinking of doing a later fall marathon too.

In the 2:40's is probably pretty good for the conditions out there. You have time to hit a fall marathon. If you are motivated, recover, and hit the training again.

not after a 1:54:22 20 mile split! you really must have taken quite a break before finishing it up. nice work.

I don't believe in resting after a Marathon. You are super fit despite your frustrating run. When your legs loosen up again, you are ready to train again. Keep your fitness, build up your speed gradually, without straining.

In a few weeks you will be flying again. Don't get down, I know how you feel, and it will take you a few weeks to recover from your frustration too, but you owe it to yourself to have another good few races before the summer is out.

Before you go off and run a marathon this summer or fall, you need to first figure out why you blew up. Did you dehydrate, run out of energy, where under trained. It doesn’t look like you were under trained, so you will need to look at the first two. It was a hot day, did you drink enough? Where you taking in anything else? Gatorade? Gels? If you answered no to any of these questions then you know what you need to work on regardless of when you decide to run a marathon again.

Given how good you feel, I would say take a few days off, train lightly (low volume) for 2 weeks and then jump right back into marathon training.

Marathon training after a Marathon??? NO that's not a good idea.

The biggest mistake is coming back too soon because you are pissed about the race. Remember you "blew up." This means you maxed out and your body needs to recover. Take it easy and maximize your fitness in a couple of other races as other posters have suggested. Though you'll need about 2-3 full months until you are 100% fresh again. There's a reason world class marathoners only do 1-2 a year...they are really hard on the body.

Good job with the 2:40 and finishing though. Stick with it and it will come along I'm sure. The marathon sucks in the respect that you only have one shot for so much training. You really need the stars to align to have that perfect day.

I recall reading one well-respected and successful coach (and I'm sorry, the name continues to escape me) said that if you have a bad marathon due to conditions like Grandma's, or bad pacing, etc., and haven't injured yourself, if you run another one in 3 wks (2 wks of easy jogging, 1 wk modified training just to get some turnover) you can actually run better than you would have the first time.

wellnow wrote:

Marathon training after a Marathon??? NO that's not a good idea.

Yes. It is.

yeah, otherwise you'd only ever run one.

If you "can actually run better than you would have the first time", then why would you not use this theory to just run the 2nd one?

suuuper frustrated wrote:

I'm not questioning my training, I'm just wondering if anyone would advise waiting until the spring- or get back on the horse and race a fall marathon.

Best time to do a marathon is November or December...temps in the 30's and 40's and low winds are what you want. Usually I was in my best shape that time of year. Winter build ups are harder due to cold windy weather...

Both years i ran NYC it was 65 - 70 in November. On the other hand it was 39-40 last year in Chicago in October.

Braavo Furgi wrote:

Best time to do a marathon is November or December...temps in the 30's and 40's and low winds are what you want. Usually I was in my best shape that time of year. Winter build ups are harder due to cold windy weather...

Search function is your friend wrote:

If you "can actually run better than you would have the first time", then why would you not use this theory to just run the 2nd one?

I guess that's why we do long tempo runs at marathon pace?

I blew up recently and ran a 1:16 (w/1minute poo break)/2:39. Really felt fine afterwards almost like after a long long run, thought about heading out to San Diego 5 weeks later (great weather), but realized the weather here would be getting hot and so the training would suffer. Give it a week or two and your desire to run another so soon will probably dwindle.

The problem with Spring Marathons is that if you blow up or otherwise run under par you have little room to get in another a few weeks later as it becomes hot and quality marathons are hard to find. If you ran Boston you could probably find a decent 2nd marathon in May/early-mid June. Grandmas was about the last marathon which you might have cool weather and a fast group. Anything from now to Chicago is going to be lacking sub 2:30 guys. Running a marathon by yourself is no fun.

With the Fall/Winter Marathons you have a lot more room. Run one in October, blow up and you have decent fast marathons in November, December, January, February, etc.

Alan