Many marathon runners look down upon distances below the full marathon (42.195kms) . You will find marathon runners talking crap about shorter distances like 10k and 5k runners. This, according to me, comes from people who are extremely ignorant and have no knowledge about running.
What these guys don't understand is that if you want to do a marathon within 3:30 then you need to develop speed that the 21k, 10k and 5k training plans provide you with. These schedules help you develop endurance, speed, strength and tapering. Also, if you look at most sub 3:00 hour marathon training plans, they will tell you two things (a) Develop a base for speed training by going through atleast 4 weeks of intervals, tempo and fartlek runs (b) Start believing in God. You will need him.
Anybody can run a marathon. If you have never ran before and if you are willing to, then I can help you run your first marathon within 8 months. Long distance running is an extension to walking. You have learnt how to walk before, you will learn quickly how to start running. Once you do that, it is an exponential growth. You will graduate from 10k to 21k on sunday morning when you are extremely guilty of drinking too much beer on the previous friday night. That's simple. What you can't do that easily is to increase your speed from x to y. It takes months if not years to shave off 5 minutes.
Next time if you see someone on throwing shit at short distance runners tell them to go take a nice long lonely run.
I still enjoy running marathons and will not stop until I crack the 3:30 code. However, after the last 21 days of speed training, I have started to respect shorter distances much more than before.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
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4 comments:
:))) liked the part that you need to start believing in God!
Yes Shumit that's really true. I would be really happy if I could crack 5k in 20 mins. But that's going to be very tough for sure.
When you go to US think about training for ironman too.
8 months?!! I can do it in FOUR!
Eight months?!! Damn! I can train somebody who has never ran before to run a marathon in FOUR! Given that they will hate me for the rest of their miserable lives, four extra months is just too much time.
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