Is it possible to run a marathon without training

And when Eddie Izzard ran 43 marathons in 51 days, the comedian admitted he only began preparing five weeks before. Not all have been so successful, however. The reality television star Jade Goody was hospitalised after attempting the London marathon without meaningful training.

So how difficult is it to run a marathon without putting in the leg work? For American Sean Ogle, 26, running a marathon on almost no training was not something he set out to achieve. But he is testament to the fact it can be done, albeit in a modest time of five hours and 29 minutes. Ogle began training for the Eugene marathon in Oregon, held on 1 May , in January of that year.

But he kept up his training for just three weeks. Then he was compelled to travel more regularly for work, and picked up a shin injury, so he stopped.

It was hard, but it made me think, maybe I can walk this thing. Ogle says he turned up to the start of the race with his new plan, but then something happened. His ego kicked in. So I decided to run for the first mile, which went to three, and somehow I kept going. I'd stretch my leg on a tree or something.

All I knew was I was getting closer. Ogle says he was overcome with emotion and pain when he actually managed to cross the finish line. Competition is a critical part of life and endurance events are an easy opportunity to remain a competitive athlete for the rest of your life. Endurance races have not always been a passion of mine, I didn't grow up dreaming of marathons and triathlons, rather my racing days began out of a desire to out-run two 50 year old ladies.

I was 19 and fully immersed in the college lifestyle, working out was not a priority but I still fancied myself an athlete. My mom called one day and told me that she had signed up for her first half marathon with her running partner; I immediately replied back with "I'll do it".

I didn't even know how long a half marathon was but I figured if my mother could do it then I should be able to do it too, and I should probably be able to do it faster. Lucky for me, I could and did, however, it wasn't pretty, I was totally shot by the finish line and struggled the whole way.

I hated every second of it and thought I would never do it again. I stayed away for a while, but I couldn't stay away forever, my racing history now includes a little bit of everything, sprint triathlons, half Ironman, half marathon, century bike ride etc.

I have a little experience in a lot of different events and have come to enjoy the hours of discomfort that they bring. That being said, my list didn't include a full marathon yet, and I was getting antsy to try something new. My intention was to sign up for a full in the fall and train for it throughout the summer until my roommate told me last Wednesday April 8 , that he was running a half marathon on Sunday April 12 that started right outside our door.

It seemed like the perfect opportunity to run a half and get serious for marathon training, but then the thought of trying the full quickly crept into my head. The fact is, anyone can run a marathon, literally anyone, if they follow a proper training program and even more, most people can probably predict their finish time within 10 minutes if they train diligently. I couldn't resist the opportunity to try something different, to really push myself and see if I could finish the full marathon on 3 days notice.

Doing a half again really didn't interest me, the next goal had already been set and it was a full, I couldn't stand the thought of running a half again and realizing I could have gone further at the finish line. I mean I had no intention of running a marathon within the next 3 months and had not been running much at all. I ran the 6 mile loop at Forest Park about 3 times within the past 2 months and thats it as far as running goes, otherwise I went to the local YMCA a couple times a week to lift weights, shoot 3 pointers, or play racquetball.

That's it, that is the extent of the athletic activity I have had within the past few months, no marathon training schedule, no build up, no taper, nothing. I find that registering for these events always gives me an immediate 2 hour high followed by a short period of buyer's remorse wondering "What the hell did I just do"? I can say with certainty that though I had been unprepared for events in the past, this was certainly the most ambitious timeline I had ever put myself on and the most aggressive case of buyer's remorse I'd ever had.

Signing up for a Sprint Tri or 10K without training was one thing, but this was a full marathon, I immediately started to google "Marathon Training". Every internet expert in the world indicated that running a marathon without training was not only impossible but dangerous, reckless, irresponsible, and a disgrace to the sport. I don't disagree with those assessments but like I said above, nobody knows your body and your mind like you do so I was excited to give it a try and I have no dependents so I figured I'm the perfect guinea pig.

After googling training programs, my first instinct was to go for a run, it's like after reading all that negativity I had to prove to myself that my legs still worked. I didn't tell anyone that I was doing the race because I didn't really want anyone to try and talk me out of it and I wasn't interested in opinions or tips.

The reason I wasn't interested is because I knew they would all be negative, literally no one was going to tell me this was a good idea or that they thought I could do it; that being the case I decided it was best not to solicit opinions at all.

The only person I told was Mike because I had to put him down as the emergency contact in case they had to scrape me off of the road. The alarm went off at AM and I was feeling rough, I obviously couldn't sleep the night before, it was like my body refusing to give in to the night because of what awaited me in the morning, like a dog that won't get in the car for a vet trip.

I woke up and took a cold shower to wake up and then started eating; granola bars, bananas, apples, anything I could find in our apartment that wasn't pizza. I am usually not a planner but today I had a plan and it was simple:. That was it, that was the plan; as they say, the separation is in the preparation and I was ready. I headed off to the start line and got in my corral, I looked around at all the different people and again thought to myself, if they can all do it, then so can I.

I saw the 3 hour 45 minute pacer and figured he might be the perfect person to follow around, the lack of training didn't help, but in general I am a terrible pacer as it is so I thought today would be the perfect day to try out a pace group. This became a last minute addition to my race plan. The marathon is an arduous event and requires a dedicated training block of at least four months for beginning runners classified as someone running consistently for less than a year, or averaging less than 20 to 25 miles per week.

More importantly, training for a marathon when you don't have the requisite running background is a sure fire way to get injured or find yourself disenchanted with running if you're new to the sport.

In my experience, beginners need to be able to average at least 30 to 35 miles per week for 5 to 6 weeks to increase the chance that they will have a good race experience.

This means that you need to be able to run 25 to 30 miles per week comfortably before you begin training for a marathon. If you're not at this number, it doesn't mean you can never train for a marathon. Rather, you should focus on slowly building your training tolerance and mileage. Otherwise, you're probably going to struggle to increase the weekly mileage and long runs enough to be prepared on race day.

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