CONTRARY TO WHAT YOU MIGHT THINK, YOU CAN RUN A MARATHON ON ONE OR TWO TRAINING RUNS PER WEEK… IF YOU FOLLOW SOME BASIC GUIDELINES

TRAINING

WORDS: CHRISTINA MACDONALD

If you dream of running a marathon, but you”re unsure whether you could commit to the volume of training (or you”re worried your body won”t hold up well), there”s good news. You don”t have to run four or five times a week to get marathon fit. Some experts even advise against running more than three times a week if you want to avoid injury. So, if you”re prone to niggles that restrict how often you can run, don”t be despondent. You can still run a marathon on one or two runs per week, providing you”re reasonably fit and not new to running.

“If you want to run your very best effort or smash your PB, then one run per week isn”t going to cut it”, says running coach George Anderson from Running By George (runningbygeorge.com). “But it is possible to run a marathon with very minimal training. I rocked up for the Dublin Marathon back in October and hadn”t run for two months previously. I was able to get round. It wasn”t pretty, but I got it done.”