Marathons 3-weeks apart
Posted January 19th, 2007 at 8:08 AM by Jim Fortner
Section: Running & Training, Training Tips
Jim Fortner is a weekly, guest contributor to TFS. Also check out his own personal running and advice site: “Jim2’s Running Page”.
It is certainly possible to run two marathons three weeks apart. Many runners have done it. And it can be done by running both hard; both easy; or one hard and the other easy.
The decision to run one or both should be based on three considerations:
- How susceptible you are to injury.
- How quickly you recover from a marathon effort.
- How important it is to you to run both of them.
Those are factors that only you can evaluate. However, if you decide to run them both, it should be because both are important to you and you don’t have a history of injuries. Otherwise, you should focus on the one that is more important to you and let the other one go.
If you decide to run them both, you have two choices:
- (A) Make one the “target” race and the other either a training race (the first one) or a fun run (the second one).
- (B) Run them both as serious marathon races.
I would not even consider running both easily. What would be the purpose of your entire 16-18 week marathon program?
If you choose (A) above, then using the first as a training run to prepare for an all out effort at the second is very feasible. Assuming that you use a 3-week taper, the first is ideally timed to be your last long run before the second. It would simply make your last long run a few miles longer than the 20-24 miles that most training programs call for … no big deal, especially if you pace yourself properly to simply make it an extra long LSD. The challenge would be to control your enthusiasm and adrenalin flow that naturally result from a race environment and not be seduced into running it faster than a good, constructive training effort.
Running the second as a fun run 3 weeks after a hard marathon, would depend on your recovery ability. However, assuming that you come out of the first without an injury, then finishing and enjoying the second shouldn’t be a problem. You should be recovered sufficiently to run a creditable “race”.
Option (B) above, running both as serious race efforts, is also feasible. I have run back-to-back marathons 2-6 weeks apart seven times. In six of those cases, I ran both marathons as hard, serious races … none as training runs or fun runs. The seventh time, I ran the first marathon as a very slow LSD, because I was pacing a slower friend, and the second marathon as a race. I discussed my first five back-to-back marathon experiences, which were 2-5 weeks apart in 1983-87 during my first running life, in a 1997 post on these forums that was in response to a question very much like yours. If you are interested, it is on my Personal Running Page. My sixth and seventh back-to-back marathon experiences were in 1998/99 during my second running life. In every case, the second marathon was a stronger, better, and sometimes faster marathon than the first.
From my experiences, I see no problem with running marathons a few weeks apart … and running both of them hard, if you want to. I admit that I haven’t run them exactly 3 weeks apart. However, I have run them hard 2, 4, 5 and 6 weeks apart. When they were 2 weeks apart, the second was more of a struggle than the first. However, in every case the second one was a better performance, adjusted for course terrain, than the first. In some cases, the second marathon was faster than the first … even on a course that was more difficult than the first one. For instance, I PR’d in 1984 and 1986 on a Maryland Marathon course that was 10-12 minutes difficult than the MCM course that I ran 4-5 weeks earlier. The other three times I ran these same two marathons with Maryland 2-4 weeks after MCM, Maryland was 3-9 minutes slower than MCM, which equated to a better performance on a 10-12 minute more difficult course. (See my race log on my Personal Running Page).
My conclusion is that a hard run marathon helps to prepare me for an even better effort a few weeks later. But, that’s me. Others have had the exact opposite experience. Everyone is different. Like so many things in running, there are no absolutes. The inputs that you get, like mine, mostly reflects either what works for the person offering it or what s/he thinks works for most people. However, you have to learn specifically what works for you and what doesn’t. The only way to find out is trial and error.
If I were you, I would plan to run both marathons; base my training and tapering on an all out effort at the first one; run it all out as a target race; run a 2-week “reverse taper” afterwards; then decide whether to run the second marathon hard, easy or at all … depending on how I feel two weeks after the first.
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Tags: marathon, marathon running, marathon training, personal record, PR, training
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The Final Sprint
Jim, I agree. I have had success with multiple marathoning as well. I had a related blog post several months ago:
http://marathongis.com/blog/?p=11
In my opinion, you may as well run a second marathon after the first (assuming recovery goes well and you are injury-free), simply to get more “return on investment”. Considering all the time it takes to train and all the fitness you build in preparation for a marathon, it seems like a waste to do just one. It’s not for everyone though!
January 19th, 2007 at 10:58 amI’ve done marathons as close together as 3 weeks and also did the second a bit faster than the first. It’s good to know there are others who share my experience.
You never find training programs for 2 marathons close together. Anyone know where I might find one?
January 28th, 2007 at 3:19 pmPerry,
One source of guidance for training between marathons close together is Hal Higdon. He has a set of training schedules for marathons 2,4,6 and 8 weeks apart. You can find them at http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/multiple/Multiplemara.htm
I don’t have Pete Pfitzinger’s book, “Advanced Marathoning”, but I think it also has training schedules for marathons close together.
I also have an old essay titled “Training Between Close Marathons” on the Marathoning section of my Running Page at www.jim2.net.
January 28th, 2007 at 4:11 pmJim and Perry,
January 28th, 2007 at 5:42 pmYes, “Advanced Marathoning” has some multiple marathoning schedules for 12, 10, 8, 6, and 4 weeks apart. I modified these for when I did marathons 3 weeks and 2 weeks apart with good success.