Enough time left to train? Or too late?

L

Le Guen

0
Six months ago I signed up for the Bath half-marathon here in South West England. I've never run 14 miles before and wanted to put myself through something new and challenging. The first month of training went well, and I was able to run up to 4-5 miles and still had plenty of time to train.

In November I became ill with Glandular fever, which recurred for some six weeks and after talking it over with my doctor, I'm only now really ready to train again.

So yesterday I jumped on the treadmill, and managed a meager 3 miles without too much trouble, but it was enough.

The half marathon is in 45 days, March 7th, about six weeks away.

I'm not in the best shape, I'm not in the worst either - I'm active in that I do a lot of rural walking but since stopping training before christmas I've not done any running until yesterday (and it was hard as hell.)

I still want to run at this half marathon, so I need some advice, how do you rate the chances a 25 year old @ 190lbs, not very high body-fat but then not all that fit, being ready in six weeks?

- Six weeks
- Fourteen miles to run
- Three hour half-marathon time limit.
- Treadmill at my disposal.

My treadmill arrives on Saturday, is this do-able?

All thoughts appreciated.
 
You probably don't have enough time to train to run the half marathon. The conventional wisdom is that you only increase running by 10% per week. If you are at 3 weeks now, you cannot get to 13.1 miles in 6 weeks without dramatically increasing your weekly mileage and risking shin splints, plantar fascitis, stress fractures and a whole host of other potential ailments.

If you could get up to a slow 5 - 7 miles by then and walk the remaining miles at a brisk pace, you could still get in under the 3 hour time limit.
 
I agree with g8r80 - you don't want to increase your chances of injury. However that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Just do it and try your best. Try and run the whole way at a steady pace, or walk it part of the way. You should be able to do it under the 3 hr mark - it's doable. More importantly, have fun :)
 
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