Alternate Marathons

By Rick Morris

I love it when a plan comes together perfectly. Unfortunately, it’s not a perfect world. Things can happen that force you to change your plans. Your marathon plans are no exception. It’s a very rare occurrence for a marathon to be canceled - but it can happen. Race day temperatures could rise to unsafe levels. There might be some sort of extreme weather such as a hurricane or blizzard. It doesn’t happen often but you just never know.

Race cancellations aren’t the only reason you may miss your marathon. Injuries, illness or scheduling problems could also cause to miss your goal race. If your race is cancelled or if you can’t participate in your goal race you have two choices. You can try to find an alternate race or you could scrap your plans entirely.

If you need to completely scrap your plans, all is not lost. You gained a lot of fitness during your training. You can always enter a race sometime in the next six months. The training you did for this race will give you a big step up for your next one.

Finding an alternate marathon can be difficult. Marathons have become very popular in recent years and most of them fill up well before race day. If you are lucky enough to find one that will work for you in the next few weeks you can still salvage your training plan and make it work for your alternate race. Adjusting your training for an alternate marathon is not difficult. It is a simple matter of repeating the number of training weeks with some minor adjustments. Here are my training suggestions for your alternate marathon.

One Week to Alternate Marathon

This one is easy to schedule. One extra week off low to moderate mileage. The extra taper week will extend your recovery but don't worry, you wont lose fitness. No adjustments. Simply repeat your last training/taper week

Two Weeks to Alternate Marathon

Do a 12 mile long run before repeating your last 2 training weeks. This delay will give you a 5 week taper instead of a 3 week taper. Add in a 12 mile run but not much more. You'll still maintain your endurance and fitness for the race.

Three Weeks to Alternate Marathon

This is the toughest delay to overcome. The extra three weeks could start to have an effect on your fitness, but you don't have enough time to completely recover from a very long run. Do a 14 to 18 mile run before repeating your last 3 training weeks. If you are an experienced marathon runner with a high fitness level you could do up to a 20 mile training run.

Four + Weeks to Alternate Marathon

If you have 4 weeks or more until your alternate marathon your job is easy. Just repeat the number of weeks equal to the time to your alternate marathon. For example, if your alternate marathon is 5 weeks away, repeat the last 5 weeks of your training program