<p>Plenty of people take walking breaks in races. A lot of people on my company “team” do a walk/run- even in 5Ks! As you get more experience, you learn how to start out so you don’t get in as much breathing distress right off the bat (I’ve been there).</p>
<p>I’m in a fight on the Marathon Maniacs facebook page. A father (also a MM) proudly posted a picture of his two VERY young sons (I would say maybe 8-11 years old) who just qualified for Marathon Maniacs and who run multiple marathons. This is such a BAD idea! Their bones aren’t developed. Many races don’t even let runners in who are under 16. And there’s the whole stage parent issue… I commented that I don’t think it’s a good idea (and consistent with all the advice we got from Cooper and my son’s coaches as he was developing- we really held the mileage down) and people are jumping all over me. Sometimes I hate message boards and want to say again how much I appreciate our group here and how we are all supportive and respectful of each other’s varying goals and approaches. (well, I might slip a little with respect to one certain poster…)</p>
<p>I have signed up for a marathon in York, PA in a month. I am clearly not good at resisting peer pressure. Flat, fast, my ideal size (500 runners) and fits in with my PA travel plans. Some of my friends picked it to try to BQ. I don’t think I can BQ in this age group- at least not right now- but it’s worth a shot. It would take a perfect day, a perfect course (this could be one) and a perfect ME!</p>
<p>I’m thinking about running a race at the end of August. Need to check if there are slots available, but running through what looks to be a wine cellar sounds cool. :)</p>
<p>MOfWC, that guy is nuts. I would get into a MB fight wih him, too. At the very best, the kids will simply burn out, but chances are high that they will get injured.</p>
<p>MOWC, you can do it, if not this race, another one. </p>
<p>I work with a young lady, early 20’s, who’s mom was/is a big runner. Her mom trained her for a marathon when she was 14. She is still dealing with the aftermath of a knee injury she suffered back then.</p>
<p>Bunsen- thanks. Interestingly, I wasn’t in a fight with the guy (he hadn’t posted since he put up the pictures of his kids at their latest marathon), but with all the supporters! Do people not get it? Many marathons and even half-marathons have a minimum age (usually 16 or 18 for a marathon)! People got REALLY mad at me for suggesting this wasn’t such a great idea…</p>
<p>blankmind- Thanks, but actually the qualifying times for my age group are considered to be about 10 minutes too fast based on the statistics used to calculate the times. A 4:25 truly might not be in the cards for me, and I’m not sure I want to run the risk of injury by doing speedwork and higher mileage to get there. I think I can get to around 4:30 with what I’m doing, but 4:25 would take some divine intervention. That’s OK- I am not a big fan of the Boston Marathon (in terms of running it), but with what happened, it makes me want to go back one more time. Maybe I wait until I’m 65!</p>
<p>NYC2013? Sure! abasket, PlantMom, BCEagle Deborah and I are going to start training right now! iDad, are you in? (Feeble attempt at a joke, if there was any question).</p>
<p>I would consider training for a marathon if I dropped another 25 pounds or so. For me, I think that the biggest obstacle to running this kind of distance is weight and losing a lot more weight would probably make training and running a marathon a lot easier. I do not know if it would be a healthy thing to do because I’d have to give up a fair amount of muscle to get there.</p>
<p>Interestingly, there are three people that workout at the office that are moderately overweight that are good runners. One of them, probably about 230 pounds, has run halfs and full marathons. He’s quite tall but he definitely isn’t thin. Two others are short and not thin but the lady runs at 7 MPH and the guy runs a 22 minute 5K.</p>
<p>I don’t even have plans to think about a marathon. When I can run a half on a treadmill, then I’ll think about plans for maybe two years away. It’s one of those kinds of questions where you answer: Maybe I will possibly think about it someday.</p>
<p>On training at young ages: there are lots of kids that do this with tennis and a lot of the best players start at very early ages. I do not know if a lot of them get repetitive use injuries though. Modern tennis and modern tennis equipment is rough on joints. My feeling is that the best players have genetic makeups which give them better than average joints to avoid injuries. Good coaching when young may help to decrease the damage to joints. It may be the same with running - one kid that can run a lot when young may have the gifts, training and equipment to do it while others would be injured.</p>
<p>As little as I like the Boston Marathon (as a runner), I like New York about 300% less! Again, the logistics of getting 40,000 or so people out to the starting location, sitting around freezing (hopefully it isn’t hot) for HOURS before it starts- the thousands of portapotties… No thanks. Give me Bob Potts in York with 500 runners, or Flying Pig in Cincy with 4000 or so. </p>
<p>That picture of the NY Marathon runners on the bridge (which looks like it is in severe need of maintenance) always puts me off running in NYC. I’d have no problems running in Boston (son does it frequently) but I don’t think that I’d run in NYC. A lot of that, of course, is that I know Boston quite well and I don’t know NYC.</p>
<p>The thing that I’d worry about in running a small marathon is if I didn’t see anyone for a long time and thought that I was off track or if everyone already finished and went home.</p>
<p>The Flying Pig in Cinti. always has lots of onlookers & cheerers, water spots, and so forth. I don’t think you could get confused and run off course! Runners speak very highly of it as a race and as a good experience.</p>
And second that mention above about the respect on this board for all questions, thoughts and crazy ideas!!!</p>
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