How many marathons per year is healthy

I Accept Show Purposes. Include interval sessions in your schedule. November Participate in a full November to December Rest and ease back with very easy, light runs for about two weeks. December to January Begin recovery training. Be sure to include strength training and stride work. January Spend the next four weeks working on speed by concentrating on drills and interval training. February to May Fall back into week 10 to 12 of your original marathon training schedule.

Mid-May Participate in second full End of May Rest and ease back with very easy, light runs for about two weeks. June to July Begin recovery training. July to August Spend the next four weeks working on speed by concentrating on drills and interval training.

August to September Participate in a 5K or 10K race. September to October 2 weeks of recovery and light runs. October to December Change things up. Jump into half-marathon training. This is a good way to maximize your anaerobic threshold before reverse tapering and going back to training for another Was this page helpful?

Thanks for your feedback! Sign Up. What are your concerns? Verywell Fit uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Related Articles. Training Schedules for Running Races.

Quotes About Marathon Running. Beginner Marathon Training Schedule. How to Get Into the Chicago Marathon. Follow an 18 to 22 week advanced marathon training schedule ; work on developing your VO2 max, gaining milage, and cross training. Spend the next four weeks working on speed by concentrating on drills and interval training. If the goal is just to finish the marathon, then read my experience below. A t Curitiba Marathon, I tried a distinct experience.

I went to this marathon without doing any specific training, my longer runs were a half-marathon and a 17,m race. I ran slower than I am used to until 30 km, then I walked 1 km and ran 1 km until finishing the marathon in I realized how the long runs are crucial for the marathon, since I am also an amateur runner, how good it is to be in this category! Now I understand why some athletes run every marathons.

They go easy, running and walking, and finish the marathon feeling well. In this case, with my personal experience, I don't see any problem in using a marathon as a long run following a pre-determined schedule.

It was what I did, watching many thing with the eyes of a coach and amateur runner, now I can share more experience helping the recreational runners that are the majority that turn the marathon into a celebration. These funds allow us to keep the site up and continue to write great articles. Running can be a very addicting enterprise, and I would guess that there are more than a few of our readers are looking ahead to their next race just hours after completing one.

And that includes marathons! If you pay attention to the elite level of the sport, you know that the great competitors of our age — Kipchoge, Kosgei, et al — never run more than two big races per year.

A typical good rule of thumb is to run no more than two marathons per year, six months apart. The reasons are that you need to ensure proper recovery between each race as well as ensuring that you have plenty of time to train for the next one. This guideline assumes that each marathon is a major goal race, and that you want to be in the best possible condition for it. For many runners, a marathon is the culmination of a long season of training and race build-up.

One study found that levels in the blood stream connected to tissue damage remain for over a week after a marathon. You should give yourself two to three weeks off with nothing but easy running.

Remember that you really need at least two weeks to recover and two weeks to taper before another race. Trying to squeeze too many marathons into a year means you might be limiting your progress. The first is to train smartly. Runners who do too much too soon, overdo it in general, or train too sporadically are all at increased risk for musculoskeletal injuries.

The body needs time to adapt to training, and recovery and rest are also critical for tissue repair. Make sure you work with a coach or get a proper training plan. Secondly, make sure you warm up for your training runs and races. He also urges all runners to stretch. It is also important to make sure your shoes fit properly and are changed every miles to ensure they still provide the support and cushioning you need.

Lastly, Rowley recommends eating a diet full of lean protein , complex carbohydrates, and fresh greens, as well as drinking plenty of water. To the uninitiated, it might seem like marathoners like their lingo almost as much as the post-race brunch. While popular thought used to be that DOMS was the result of lactic acid in the muscles, this is not true lactic acid is metabolized and removed. You might need to put your favorite pedicurist on speed dial once you start marathon training.

Though certainly the gravity of black toenails or even toenail loss pales in comparison to true injuries, toenail maladies are so ubiquitous among marathon runners that there are memes declaring them a rite of passage. That repeated contact can lead to blood forming under the nail, which in turn can lead to the nail falling off. Sure, some of this is inevitable, but if it's happening often, it's likely that the shoes don't fit properly. Along those same lines, experiment with different sock thicknesses.

Most people don't immediately think of kidney damage when they think of the common risks of marathon running. However, according to research conducted at the Yale University School of Medicine, 82 percent of marathoners experienced acute kidney injury AKI. AKI affects the kidneys' ability to filter waste from the blood and balance fluids and electrolytes. Fortunately, this condition typically resolves within 48 hours with proper rehydration. A subsequent study found that runners who experienced AKI during a marathon were particularly heavy sweaters, losing approximately four liters during the race—two liters more than marathoners without AKI.

According to Cane, with proper race hydration , including the ever-important electrolytes such as sodium and potassium, it should be possible for all runners to avoid AKI.