Walking the Marathon

fridaysgirl

Hi, I'm currently training to walk the marathon next month and wondering if there are any other walkers out there who have some advice for me. Why walking? Because if I ran I'd end up on crutches due to dodgy knees.

The longest walk I've done so far is 3hrs and on those walks I concentrate more on finishing it than speed. On the 1hr/2hr walks I tend to walk a lot faster. I try to walk 3hrs once a week, 2hrs once a week and 1hr once or twice a week. I estimate that I walk a mile every 15mins but know as I get better I should reduce that to 12-3mins. My aim is to finish the marathon in 5 - 5.5 hrs so I need to get myself up to walking 4hrs by mid Oct.

Any feedback/advise/tips would be appreciated. I looked up different plans and schedules on the internet but have really just settled into one that works for me.

hunnymonster

fridaysgirl wrote:

HI estimate that I walk a mile every 15mins but know as I get better I should reduce that to 12-3mins. My aim is to finish the marathon in 5 - 5.5 hrs

If you are walking 15 min miles at the moment you're unlikely to take 2-3 min/mile off your time in next 5 weeks, particularly if your longest walk to date is 12 miles or less than half the distance. I would plan on taking longer 5.5 hours on race day and prepare accordingly in terms of clothing and fuel.


Lots of people walk the Dublin marathon. The organisers deserve huge praise for allowing this. So many marathons have a 5-6 hour cut-off that effectively disqualifies most walkers. It's great to see so many people out doing it.


My advice, start at the bag. No walker should be in front of the runners at the start of the race but you would not believe how often I've had to weave around groups of walkers strolling the first few miles of marathons.

fridaysgirl

Hunnymonster, thanks for your reply. I really need to get a pedometer to time how long it takes me to walk a mile. I say 15mins but I'm an experienced walker and am quite fit so I might be slightly quicker. I walked 3hrs tonight and I was pretty wiped but I could have stretched it to 4hrs if I'd brought more fuel.

I finished the marathon once before in just under 5 hours so I suppose I really want to finish in 5.5hrs max. I think any longer and it will just be torture.

I will definitely be starting behind the runners. I can understand there is nothing as irritating for them as walkers getting in their way. I feel the same around slow walkers

jellybelly33

Fridaygirl, Good luck on the walking. Myself and my sister walked the marathon last year and finished in 7.28mins. We had walked up to 18miles beforehand. We aimed to finish in around 6hrs but this didn’t happen.
I managed to frature 3 bones in my foot (found out the next day:eek: ) during the marathon and had to be pulled the last 3 miles (which took 1.30mins). But in saying that I really enjoyed in and was hoping to do it again this year but due to holidays I won’t make it. I will do it again but next time I’ll jog it.:cool:

fridaysgirl

jellybelly33 I managed to frature 3 bones in my foot (found out the next day ) during the marathon and had to be pulled the last 3 miles (which took 1.30mins).

jellybelly33, thanks for the post. TBH, I'm doubting whether or not I'll do it now. The main reason for training for it is that I'm going on a trekking holiday the following week so I wanted to get really fit for that. But hearing that you fractured bones in your foot makes me more scared :eek:

I was thinking if I injure myself then that's the treking holiday in danger. If I wasn't going away later that week then I'd chance it anyway but I'm having serious doubts at the moment.

7.28 hrs..:eek: No wonder you damaged your feet. Your body just couldn't take that pounding for that long. Fair play to you.:)

The training is just so boring so I am definitely going to consider running it next year. I'm taking glucosamine at the moment and a physio I visited recently said I should be able to take up running again soon. I see there is a 10k BHAA run in December. I might train for that when I get back from hols and see how it goes.