Run a marathon without training ...

Last Sunday (17th April) I ran the London Matrathon, as part of the Adventure Fundraising Team, in memory of my friend Ray Glazer, to raise money for MacMillan Cancer Support and Alzheimer's Society. Whilst I didn't finish in the time I wanted to do I none the less enjoyed the event fully and I'm sure I'll run it again in the near future to raise more funds for charity.

Whilst running with over 35,000 other runners, it occured to me that the London Marathon was proberbly quite an adventure for many of the runners involved. The majority of entrants were proberbly not dedicated runners but had in fact entered to raise money for charities and good causes and to gain some sort of personal acheivement. I got to wondering how these individuals, who were not normally runners, had found their training over the previous 16 or 18 weeks and how many of them would continue running afterwards or even enter another marathon. Either way it didn't matter. The fact was that everybody who crossed the start line had initialy had a dream to run the biggest marathon event in the world, whether it had been to raise money for charity, to acheive a personal best time, or just to be able to complete 26.2 miles. From the first day that they had begun their training, through all the cold and wet training sessions and through the highs and lows of the marathon itself, everyone of them had had an adventure along the way. After crossing the finish line and receiving their medals there would be many memories recolected and stories to be told for years to come.

What also struck me was that all of these people, runners and spectators alike, of all colours, creeds, and religeons, were enjoying the carnival atmosphere and sharing in the joy of this fantastic event and cheering and encouraging each other on. For the whole of the 26.2 mile course I saw nothing but joy, happiness and laughter on the the faces of thousands and it was fantastic to be a part of it.

Over a week has passed now and I find myself searching the internet reading about other peoples stories, not only of the London Marathon but of other marathons around the world. As I was reading I came across this short story (see below) about two friends who ran the San Fransico marathon without doing any training at all. Whilst I certainly don't advocate running a marathon without doing the right amount of training I found the story to be an interesting example of what people can acheive if they put their minds to it and they have the desire to succeed.


          Running a Marathon without training:  by Andrew Gertrig

A few years ago I ran the San Francisco marathon without training and finished it in 4 hours and 28 minutes. Most people don’t believe me when I tell them I did this, then when they do they then start thinking I’m an idiot. I did do it, and maybe. The part of the story that I don’t normally share is that my friend Tyson also ran the marathon that day and finished in around 5 and 1/2 hours. To me his run, though an hour longer, is probably more impressive of a feat.


Everything started on a Tuesday evening in Livermore, CA where Tyson and I were both working as interns at LLNL. We were shooting pool with 2 other interns and one of them mentioned that he was going to run the San Francisco marathon that coming Sunday. I am not sure if there is a possible logical chain of events between his comment and the point that Tyson and I were registering for the marathon and buying running shoes at the Expo the day before it, but it happened. What was logical was that Tyson (now a nuclear physicist) and I decided that we needed a plan for how to finish the marathon. This is where Tyson’s story gets more impressive. As we started hashing things out we started by discussing our current levels of physical fitness and how far we had ever run before. Tyson had always been more into playing music than sports, so when he told me that he didn’t think that he had ever run for more than a mile before it gave me only a moments pause. This is when I actually started to feel confident because I played intramural soccer in college and had once gone for a three mile run. After all we were two smart young guys, so who needs to have run longer than a mile before when you are about to run 26.2 miles. Not us.


So we talked with our marathoning buddy who had tricked us into this somehow and we came up with a plan. How to hack a marathon:

1. Don’t plan on running the whole thing
2. Take 4 Advil an hour before the race
3. Take a walking break at every mile marker
4. Eat half a banana whenever you see one
5. Take two waters at ever water station
6. Eat no more than 3 Gu energy packs because our stomachs didn’t like them
7. Take bathroom breaks
8. Walk every hill
9. Meet interesting people and use conversation to kill the pain
10. Put bandaids on your nipples to prevent bleeding

Because I felt as though I was in relatively good shape I decided that I would run the first 4 miles at a little slower than a 10 minute pace and then start my plan of walking for 2 mins or less at every mile marker. I mostly stuck to the plan and finished with a pace of 10:14/mile. Tyson also stuck to his regimen and we both got our medals.


That day I learned a valuable lesson, that just because something seems hard and you don’t feel prepared does not mean that you can’t do it.


Now go run a marathon.