Marathons during IM training?

I'm not an expert, so won't advise you, but this post has come up a few times recently (I know, 'cuz I was wondering the same thing)...search old posts and you'll find a plethora of opinions on it...the jist of which I believe was that it is not necessary and recovery from it might interfere with the IM training.  I decided against it, and have never ran a marathon. Will let you know in August how it worked out!!!

Running a marathon won't help you practice anything for IMAZ.  It may provide you with some confidnce that you can actually run that far.  MCM is probably as close to IMAZ as you want to get running a marathon.  Definately don't run a "few".

of course it WILL work out awesome

My coach had me run the PF Changs marathon in Jan before I did IMAZ this year. I felt worse physically after the marathon than IMAZ FWIW. I had never run a marathon before, so I used it as a confidence booster.

I used the LA marathon as my longest training run before IMAZ. It was about 30 days before. It works for me but I don't think I could have done several like in Jan or Feb.

I come from a marathon background. I wish i had as much experience in the tri as i do running. I have learned over the years, that i need no less than 30 days to fully recover after running a marathon. When preparing for the 07 IMAZ i ran a marathon about 45 days out. I felt it was a good decision. I would not run more than 2 marathons in the six months before an Ironman. If your doing the proper long bricks, you will not need to run a marathon before if you dont want to. I do think at least one or two easy pace runs of 20-22 miles with in two months of your ironman is a good thing. I would keep these runs at least 3 weeks apart. And nothing like that within 30 days of the IM. Marine Corp being 6 months out will have no negitive impact on you come April. I think its a great idea. I would run another marathon in Jan if you want to. (at race pace) but after that only training pace. Good luck and most of all have fun with it all. Just being able to cover these distances at any pace is an increadable achievement.

Thanks, guys! I signed up for IMAZ and am coming up with a plan for my training!

What I did in my build-up to IMLP this summer is I was a pacer for a marathon 12 weeks out.  Now I've done a couple of marathons before and certainly would not suggest that to a first-time marathon (not that a marathon would let a first-timer be an official pacer) but for someone that has done the distance a few times before, it could be a good option.  I did the proper build-up to the marathon and just used it as a nice, easy mostly zone 1, maybe zone 2 towards the end of the race (it's still 26.2 miles of work).  The goal is to take my base from the marathon and apply it to the run at LP (and well, the bike too- that's been a struggle for other reasons) so I finish with a nice marathon PR there (knock on wood)- I completely blew apart at the marathon I set my current PR at (bad leg cramps).

if you want to do a marathon before the im just to train and work on nutrition, i would say to skip it. standard long runs and long bricks are just as improtant and will allow you shorter recovery time to be able to get in more high quality workouts.

that doesn't mean you can't do them though. if you want to run a marathon in addition to the im for other reasons, it can be done. heck, i think jeepfleeb ran 5 marathons and 2 ims last year.

i ended up running 2 marathons during my current training for imcda. one was very early (24 weeks out) and the other was unplanned when i ended up qualifying for boston at the first one. i basically treated it as a separate plan by swimming and biking on the im plan schedule and replacing the runs with stand-alone marathon plan workouts and it worked out fine.

good luck and kick some imaz!

I love running marathons and struggle with whether I'm a triathlete who runs marathons for fun or a marathon runner who does triathlons for fun. Anyway, if you have a good base and aren't going for time then run a marathon for training but make sure you time it so that you can recover fully. Personally, I could never do a marathon and not care about my time, I always try for a PR so I do them in the late fall (Philadelphia) and early spring (Boston) so they don't interfere with tri training.

Chris