There seems to be a common theme here

[Craig Green]

First of all, I want to say I like what you've done with the discussion board. I have been reading Sasha's and other blogs for about a year (on and off), but I didn't realize until recently that the blog and discussion board would help my running. It seems like there are some good, fresh ideas here from runners that are more experienced and faster than I am, which is refreshing.

I coach a beginning running group that registers about 150-200 runners every year in April (SaltLakeFit). By the end of the season as we approach the marathon, our numbers are down to about 50. The most common reason for the decrease in numbers is injury, as these are first time runners that have the goal of completing a marathon in 6 months. Since reading posts on this site, I am beginning to realize that we may have it wrong. Yes, first time runners can complete a marathon in 6 months, but it is a big risk. Furthermore, our beginner runners will typically only run 2-3 times a week, stressing the speed workout on Tuesday and the long run on Saturday.

So the question is: Is there something fundamentally wrong with this program? Should we be teaching these people to run less miles at a time and run almost every day? Should we tell them to not try a marathon unless they've been running a year and their fitness level is appropriate? I'm really torn here, because I've seen some good success stories... but I've seen even more injuries. The sucess stories are usually young runners who have already achieved some level of fitness, or who are just young and can adjust to the mileage quickly.

[James Winzenz]

Craig, from my own personal experience with running and injury, I have been healthy almost this entire year, and managed to avoid any major injury by subscribing to Sasha's advice.  I began running 5-6 days a week, low mileage, and slowly brought my mileage up, no more than 10% per week.  I also avoided any speed workouts for quite some time.  For beginning runners, I do not think that speed workouts are going to have any impact at all, especially if they are training for a marathon.  The most important thing for them (as it was for me) was aerobic fitness/endurance.  Once my endurance got to a certain level (after 3-4 months), I felt ready to incorporate some speedwork into my regimen, and did some tempo runs.  I also added some races to my calendar to liven things up.  About a month ago, I got up to my highest mileage I have ever run, at 55 miles per week.  I firmly believe that training my body to run almost every day has strengthened me and prepared me for St. George.  As Sasha told me back in February, what is stronger, a table with 3 legs, or one with 6 legs?  These are my own personal thoughts and feelings on the subject, but I can tell you that after running St. George in 2004, the following two years I had to pull out because of injury.  I am certain that one of the major causes was trying too hard/too much mileage running only 3 days a week.  I am healthier, stronger, and even weigh substantially less now than I did then.  Running has become a part of my lifestyle, and I think that's really what we are trying to accomplish here.

[Paul Petersen]

Just a few of my opinions:

• I think it is generally a mistake for someone to take up running and immediately try a marathon. Marathons are kind of "the thing" to do, so people gravitate toward them, but IMO a new runner should start with just building base for a year or so, with an occasional 5K or 10K to keep themselves motivated. A half marathon is a really nice distance, and a good accomplishment, so I would encourage more runners to do one or two or three half marathons as "big races" before they even start thinking about a marathon. By that point, they will know more about their bodies, their tendency toward injury, and whether or not they even enjoy running. I think too many people tackle the marathon immediately, and either get injured (worst-case scenario), or just SURVIVE the race. We don't want people to just survive, we want them to excel! Hitting the wall is abnormal, and means that the person did something wrong, either in preparation or during the race itself. Too many people now days accept the Wall as the norm, and this shoudn't be the case.
• Regarding number of days per week to run, the best way to get good at running is to run a lot. To be really good at the marathon, one should run 10-12 times per week. Obviously, this is out of the question for most people, but the point is that people should try to run every day. An interesting paradox is that the more you run (both mileage and frequency), the less prone to injury you become. The body becomes very efficient, weight comes off, and the muscles and joints more readily adapt to the rigors. See my blog entry here about this subject:
  http://marathongis.com/blog/?p=53
  also,
  http://marathongis.com/blog/?p=55

I think a beginning runner should build up to running at least 5-6 times/week. The mileage each day doesn't need to be too high, nor too fast. When tired, it is better to run 4 miles very slow than to take a day off. All mileage should be aerobic pace (other than striders a couple times per week); I won't bother with any speedwork until they have have several months of base under them, and then try some moderate tempo runs (I won't bother with intervals at this level). All this will increase strength, aerobic endurance, and adaptation to the stresses of running. As runners become more "advanced" tempo speed and duration can increase, and higher-intensity interval workouts can be introduced.

I think it's natural for a lot of beginners to drop out, simply because they will find that they don't like to run. That is okay. What we don't want is for someone to quit running because they are too injured, or because they "survived" a marathon, but it was such an unpleasant experience, they never want to run again! But with a big base and patience, I think a beginner can start with 5Ks/10ks, move to the half marathon, and then tackle a marathon (and succeed!) within a couple years.

[Sirenesque]

Being in the fitness industry and having helped many people accomplish their first marathons, I tend to agree with Paul.  A marathon has become the "thing to do" without really understanding the demands the event requires.  I would not recommend anyone who has done no running to attempt a marathon with out close to a year of consistent running.  Speed work for a beginning runner getting ready for a marathon would really serve no point.  Without a solid aerobic base and commitment to training consistently throughout each week speed will only accentuate the the potential for injury.  I advice people who come to me wanting to run a marathon to start running at least 4 days per week with a very gradual build up in mileage, once their daily mileage is stable, I increase one day per week for a longer run.  Consistency will be a greater determinate to success and ultimately a reduction in injury rate.  I would teach your runners to respect the distance, and to help them understand the commitment they are about to make.  If they cannot realistically commit 4-6 days a week to running, they will not have success in the marathon.  Ultimately I think we all want to see more people find joy and fulfillment in running, but I think we need to educate them on the demands of the sport and what is required to stay healthy so they can feel the sense of accomplishment the marathon provides.  I think the marathon phenom is just another symptom of people wanting to do more with less. Our sport requires patience and commitment, failure to be patient or committed is why we see so many injuries in new runners.

[Lulu]

Now you have invited me to stand on my soapbox. I have spent a lot of time thinking and talking to people about this subject and agree with the other posters. You have provided the data to answer your question. About 75% of people who start the program drop out, and you say many are injured. Granted, some people will drop out but 75% seems like excessive attrition. I also wonder about the long term affects of this activity on peoples' bodies. The timeline you present is more reasonable than many I have seen. Take, for example, charity running programs: their timeline is often four months or less. I know because I participated in one a few times. I call these programs "couch potato to marathoner in four months." I watched enormous numbers of people get injured and not complete their goal. This doesn't seem to matter to the charity, as much of the fundraising is done in the first two months of the program -- before people get injured.

I agree that people should be encouraged to do several half marathons first and run for at least a year. If they can't run more than 4 days a week, they should be encouraged to put off their goal until they can schedule their lives to commit the time. Like Craig said, often the people who are successful are young which makes their body quite resilient and resistant to injuries.

[Craig Green]

Yes- and this is interesting...

To give you an idea of how many people have been lost to injury or general attrition:

We had 33 spots to give out to people who didn't make the St George lottery. The spots weren't free (just the normal marathon cost), but it gave runners a chance to go to St George if they didn't get selected in the lottery. We were worried that with 175+ registered runners, we wouldn't have enough St George slots available for those that wanted to run it. So we encouraged people to run TOU instead. Even at that, we had all 33 spots taken right after the lottery results came in. So we gave the 33 spots out to runners that we felt were committed- runners that came out every week and really wanted to run St George. Over time, even those runners dwindled down to 20, mostly due to injury. So we gave the St George marathon back 13 unused spots, and they were very grateful

[Tom]

First let me say I'm in agreement with what others have said. However I can say that if you would have asked me this a year or 2 ago I would have given you an alternative answer as until this year I had never tried the run-every-day-higher-mileage approach and was somewhat of a proponent of the "you-CAN-do-more-with-less" approach.  I still have yet to run an actual marathon on 6-day a week running, having done all my marathons (10 or 11?) on only 3-4 days of running plus cross-training. I must admit I have hit the wall, really bad in some cases in probably 2/3 of these marathons.

As has been mentioned, if you go out looking for marathon training programs, you'll have no problem finding numerous programs that will let you get by running just a few days a week on as low as around 30 miles a week. The 1st running book I purchased was by Galloway whom many here probably recognize as one of the major proponents for running lower mileage, at least for beginners. He's also big on walking breaks during races. I followed his programs almost to a tee (minus the long walking breaks during races) and can say that I met most of my goals doing so. Of course along the way I did deal with almost all of the injuries you hear about (PF, IT-band, various tendonitises). Thru this experience I somehow got it in my head that I was incapable of realistically running every day without getting a major injury so that less-days was better.

In fact last year as I was training to qualify for Boston a run-every-day runner friend told me he didn't think it was possible for me to do a BQ without running at least 5, preferably 6 days. Of course I then took this as a personal challenge to prove him wrong and was actually successful getting the BQ with 3, occasionally 4 days of running. However I must confess I was doing some pretty good cross-training and weights on the other 2 days (I didn't tell him about that). Now the bad news on the BQ race was a few days later the 1st day going for an easy run I seemed to aggravate many of the injuries I had had over the years and spent all winter trying to recover.

So I guess after the long-winded story the point I want to make is YES, it can be possible to run a marathon on less than every-day running, HOWEVER, the odds of nasty injuries and most-unpleasant race experiences is very high. Having joined the blog this year and being a convert to the run-daily mentality promoted by Sasha and others (Been running nearly every day but Sunday for 3-4 months now), I can summarize the advantages I've seen.....

- When I ran 3-4 days a week I always seemed to be in a continual cycle where I would start to feel good, run hard, be dead for a day or 2 to recover, start feeling good again, ....etc. Especially after long Saturday runs it would sometimes take most of the next week to get feeling decent again. From this I got to where I just assumed that this was just how running is and that running daily would make it worse, not better. WRONG! Although it took me a while to get used to everyday running (building up slowly with mostly all EASY miles is the key), once I got to a point I suddenly notice that my legs actually feel GREAT, nearly every day.

-So going along with the feeling great I guess the big thing I notice now is how quickly I recover from a run and after races. Also just a feeling of having strong, injury-resistant legs whereas before I always felt like I was on the verge of breaking down at any moment. Feeling this good just makes the whole running experience that much better as lately for me I feel like every single run just has more enjoyability factor, even the hard workouts. In years past I always went through these major burnout periods where running was just not fun....I don't know for sure yet if running every day will allow me to avoid this but I'm thinking it will greatly reduce the burnout factor.

So I guess the one thing I haven't done yet is actually run a marathon on the 6-day program but I'm eagerly awaiting the chance next year. In the mean-time I'm having a great time running 5K, 10K and 1/2 marathons.  Oh and I almost forgot to mention the other 'minor' benefit of the 6-day, high mileage program......even without much if any speed workouts most people (me included) find themselves setting all kinds of PRs at any/every distance.