As I was engaging in my newest hobby--Googling everything Ironman related that crosses my mind--I happened upon a blog post by Joe Friel (whom I have discovered, through said new hobby, is quite the Ironman training stud) that cautioned against running a marathon during Ironman training. More specifically, he cautioned against racing a marathon. I suspect that many newbies such as myself assumed running a marathon was a useful step in Ironman training. Turns out Ironman training is far less run-tensive than marathon training, and that the most important part of training for the marathon portion of an Ironman, it seems, is training on the bike! The key to the IM marathon is being strong enough on the bike to ride 112 miles and have enough left in the tank to then run 26.2 miles. Thus, time spent training on the bike is more important than extra time spent running. Training to race a marathon requires a good deal of run-specific training, which detracts from your overall triathlon training, as well as a long recovery after the race.
This is all fascinating stuff to this novice triathlete (Not least of all because when you think about it, it seems so obvious!), but it certainly leaves me in a quandary. I planned to do the Lost Dutchman marathon here in Arizona in February, but now I wonder...
Finishing a marathon at all, even if I am not pushing for a time goal, is still a challenge and an accomplishment. I could certainly treat it as a training run; an enjoyable experience in nice surroundings, with a t-shirt and a medal. But am I even capable of doing that? I enjoy half marathons because I enjoy dedicating myself to the training and pushing myself to see what I am capable of. The full marathon had the same appeal, on a bigger scale. If I am not going to really train effectively or push my limits, what's really the point? Perhaps I should wait until I can do it right without compromising my IM training. Part of me feels like I am cheating the whole marathon experience if I don't make training for it a focus. Another part of me feels that I can't exclude myself from other activities all year because they may be slightly detrimental to my IM training! And yet another part of me thinks how cool it would be to be so fit from Ironman training that I can just go out and run a marathon, for fun, without even properly training for it!
Finishing a marathon at all, even if I am not pushing for a time goal, is still a challenge and an accomplishment. I could certainly treat it as a training run; an enjoyable experience in nice surroundings, with a t-shirt and a medal. But am I even capable of doing that? I enjoy half marathons because I enjoy dedicating myself to the training and pushing myself to see what I am capable of. The full marathon had the same appeal, on a bigger scale. If I am not going to really train effectively or push my limits, what's really the point? Perhaps I should wait until I can do it right without compromising my IM training. Part of me feels like I am cheating the whole marathon experience if I don't make training for it a focus. Another part of me feels that I can't exclude myself from other activities all year because they may be slightly detrimental to my IM training! And yet another part of me thinks how cool it would be to be so fit from Ironman training that I can just go out and run a marathon, for fun, without even properly training for it!
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