I made a comment over at Mike’s Running Around the Bend and he suggested that I make it into a post, so here it is.
Peer Pressure, marketing (which can be a form of peer pressure) and advertising are prevalent everywhere in our cultures. The use of the “cool kid” imagery to get us to do stuff, even if it is not in our best interests at times, has become “just the way it is” with the constant barrage of TV, brand imagery and us bloggers talking about how “great” it was to do whatever, especially when it comes to running marathon distances – You know the holy triumvirate:
- half
- full
- ultra
Over the past few years, I got caught up in the you gotta run a lot of miles every week and that running in a marathon (half, full or ultra) is something you just gotta do if you are a “real” runner.
mmmmmm cough, cough Bullshit!
You do not need to run a lot of miles a week, run a marathon or even run in a race (sorry Dr. Sheehan I disagree with you on that one) to be a runner.
I really think that prevailing mood in social media and many in the running community has gotten too many runners to thinking that they are supposed to run “big” miles and always be training for the next half, full or ultra marathon and that other races are given a short shrift when it comes to respecting that distance.
After all it can’t possibly be a real race if it last less than an hour for most people – I mean just about anyone can do that. Sarcasm there folks – but that is some of the attitude I have seen and heard.
Peer pressure sucks and it leads too many runners into that seemingly endless cycle of:
- run
- train – run further/faster
- get injured
- rehab
- start running again
- repeat.
My Experience
I know that I fell into that cycle, errrrr trap, when I got caught up in wanting to run a marathon in 2011 and 2012 (luckily I didn’t), I would start to train for one, dramatically increase my mileage/pace and then find myself hit by the injury bug when I started to do too many miles for the condition my body was in.
Then towards the end of my base training for MCM in 2013, I got injured and injured again while starting to gear up to attempt another one this year. Yeah some of these injuries were self-inflicted training errors, but others were a result of attempting to do things my body was not ready for.
During those years and even earlier this year, looking back with 20/20 hindsight I can admit that I was trying to “keep up with the Joneses” by continually attempting to run higher mileage necessary for racing a half with the times that I wanted or full marathon BQ training.
Unfortunately, when I did that “bigger/faster mileage” and put pressure on myself to continually train for half or full marathons, I found myself injured and not running – all too often.
Since I capped my training mileage after my latest freak injury, at a level that is more reasonable for me, stopped thinking about running a marathon (for at least 2-3 years) or half marathon (this year), which allowed me to focus on the running I enjoy – not the running I “have to do”, to train for a particular race or distance.
Now that I have finally gotten marathon madness out of my system and starting to get back to my roots (shorter distances, at a faster for me speed), I am running better and more consistently.
Old School
Even though I am a bit techy and love my GPS devices, computers, blogging, etc., I am still pretty old-school in what I think about running and training.
I don’t believe that the vast majority of runners either newbies (under 2-3 years experience) or even old crusty runners who have been on the shelf for a long period of time should be attempting a marathon too soon.
Sure there are exceptions, but are most of us really the exception? I know that like most people, I and other runners do not want to hear that, but…
first build a good base built, learn how to train properly for you, learn what your body can actually handle, do the race progression (5k to 10k, move up to 10 milers, etc.), experience shorter distance racing, but most of all figure out what you enjoy about running.
In my opinion that is what the first 2-3 years of running or returning to running after a long lay-off should be – learning, having fun and not worrying about Marathon Madness.
Even us old farts, need to stop think about what we are doing now. Remember, what we enjoyed doing as young studs/studettes, might be different from what we want or can do as we all age. Keeping it PC for a change Harold? Naw, just reminding everyone that we all are aging and our preferences change as we get older.
Just because there might be runners who successfully run a marathon or even multiple marathons in their first couple of years of running doesn’t mean it is the best thing for the rest of us. We are all individuals and what works for some probably doesn’t work for everyone.
Stop for a Minute
All those half or full marathon plans in books, magazines or online, along with the great and no so great coaches (yeah, unfortunately not all running coaches are great) out there that can “prepare” a runner to run the marathon distance, does not mean that a runner should do them.
Yes, often we can do more than we think we can, but then again we have to temper our expectations with a bit of reality too and not get caught up in what “everyone” else is doing.
Sometimes, actually most of the time, we forget that, want to do, too much too soon and our bodies are not ready to endure the stresses of half marathon, much less marathon training or going for a BQ time and the injury bug cycle begins. That’s my story of my training any way.
The miles in most marathon training plans need to get pretty intense over a 4-6 week period, before the taper and having basically a 10 week base building period for someone who is only running 15-20 miles a week when the program begins – well in my opinion is just not enough of a running base to avoid injury for most people.
Something that we often overlook, is just because a runner ran a marathon 20, 10,5 or even a couple of years ago and then went on the couch for some reason, gained oooddles of weight and then got back into the running game to lose the weight (I can look in the mirror here). We have the mentality of being able to do more than a novice runner, but in reality if you have not run in over 6-12 months you are starting over physically and need to give our bodies time to get back in condition for the running that we want to do, without pushing it beyond its capabilities.
So just because you think you can, stop and look at the running you have really done over the past couple of years – do you really have the base necessary to start training for either a half or full marathon?
Are you sure?
How many do you need to do?
How many of the injured runners are doing or attempting to train to race for more than one marathon a year or several half marathons?
To many I think.
Running the half or full marathon distances in a race is much different from running them during training. Racing (even if you say you are just running it) takes more out of you – you do push yourself much harder during a race and it takes longer to recover from them than a training run.
For a while, I was doing at least 13.1 miles every week, but when I actually did a half marathon race it was completely different from any of my training runs of that distance and took a lot more than a week to recover from. I think my experience mirrors most people’s experiences.
However, it seems that every week I read about runners who compete in multiple races at the marathon distances (half, full, or ultra) over the course of a year, which makes me wonder when does their body get a chance for some down-time and real recovery?
Are those people running monsters, who’s genes are great for running and are not like the rest of us or do they just train smarter than the average runner?
Or are they just lucky and the running injury bug, hasn’t caught up to them yet.
The Reality is that
Over the past few months, I have finally learned, the hard way – even though I have been a runner for a very long time, that we all have a sweet spot that our bodies like when it comes to mileage and training routines.
The hard part is finding it – usually by trial and error.
Yes, we can move beyond that sweet spot, but it takes a lot of hard work and patience – and most of all it does not happen overnight.
It takes months if not years to break through that ceiling (I know runners do not like hear that).
For many most of us it does not mean that we can say “Patience, my ass, I just want to run a half, full or ultra, because I want to!”
It usually doesn’t work that way and when we do “go for it”, more often than not…usually sooner than later, when we do too much too soon, we get injured.
Then once you get in the injury cycle, it becomes a very hard cycle to break and to not just rush back into running hard again, because we have such and such a race on our calendar.
Most running injuries in my opinion come down to
wanting to do too much too soon.
Unless your foot gets run over by a hay wagon or some other freak accident 😉
I know a year or two sounds like forever, but at the same time you have to decide if running is a short-term or long-term part of your life.
I don’t mean to be a kill-joy when it comes to wanting to run a half, full or ultra marathon, but from what I have experienced and have seen too many other runners experience with the injury cycle, while attempting to train and/or race those distances too soon or too often – it sucks to be continually injured.
No I would not tell someone not to train for one those races, but at the same time, I would ask them to look closely at their reasons for wanting to do those distance, what kind of running have they done and how often they plan to do them?
Runners have to figure out “their” why.
Basically, are they doing them because they want to or is it because they have a friend, club members, favorite blogger, get caught up in the latest running magazine/ezine article or watched on TV/online one of the big name marathons like Boston, New York, London, Tokyo and all the others and got motivated to go ahead and just do it.
That peer pressure thing.
My advice is to slow down, think about it and build a good base before committing to doing one or giving in to marathon madness
Then figure out when to throw in the towel, when the injury cycle becomes a recurrent theme in your running and move back down to shorter distances for a while, to build the base you need to do what you want.
Personally, I am very happy training now for my 5K’s this year and who knows, if I stay injury free for a while, I might just start to think about racing longer distances again someday, but when/if I do, I plan to do it slowly and a lot smarter than I have in the past.
- Do you feel that there is an undercurrent of peer pressure to run longer distances i.e. that you “have to run at least one half marathon or longer races, due to the “cool kids factor” from other runners, the Internet, running publications or others in the running community to feel like a runner?”
- Has the injury bug bit you while training for a “longer” race, did you get into the injury cycle – what did you do about it?
Harold Being Harold 
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