I'm thinking about doing my first full also, but haven't convinced myself yet. I've only been running two years and currently training for another half. This will be my 2nd one; my 1st was Star Wars last year. Being a slower runner, long runs are really long. Training for a full seems intimidating.
I understand this so well. Long before I wanted to run a marathon, I came to believe that I could finish the marathon if I trained for it, but I did not want to endure the 5-6 hour training runs every other weekend that most plans called for given my slower pace.
But then
@DopeyBadger helped me understand that if I was willing to make small to moderate increases to my weekday runs both in miles and frequency and commit to them fully then I could still be fully trained for Dopey even with long runs capping at 11 miles. Yes I had to trust the training plan and rely on the experiences of so many others who had followed similar plans. But since I was running Dopey, I knew at the end of the half marathon that I was in great shape for the marathon. In every single half marathon I had ever run before, I began to feel it around mile 10 or 11. I was tired and exhausted, but I could hold on to the end. But near the end of my first half marathon which included Dopey, I did not feel tired at all in my legs or body. At that point I felt a quiet hope that my training would be sufficient turn into real confidence that I was going to finish the marathon the next day.
And while the marathon the next day tested me in ways I had never been tested before as a runner, I had put in the training to fight through the challenges and finish it.
For 2020, we had to adjust my plan due to some travel issues and I missed more runs due to illness/holidays than the year before. But even with those issues and the intense heat during the marathon this year, I still finished the marathon strong. Had I not been one of the runners impacted by the shortened course, I might have broken my previous year's PR.
DH here.
2020 was my first marathon, done as part of Goofy. Peak run was 15 miles, in my 21-week plan. I remember looking at it in August and starting to break it down. Each week, just asking a little more. I couldn't have done peak week miles or Goofy miles when I started, but by the time I got to race weekend, I was ready.
In the end, I broke the plan into 3 phases covering the 20 weeks. My overall goal was 20 weeks of training and 1 week of celebration at WDW with DIS friends.
I love this. I often remind myself at the beginning of any training plan when I'm struggling that I do not have to run the race distance miles today. Instead as I continue to keep at this, then I will be ready for the distance come race day. I believe that more than anything else, consistency leads to crossing the finish line. When I do not feel like going for a run, I try to pretend that it's race day and I'm actually at mile 22 if the plan calls for a 4 mile run and that helps me find the motivation to get out there.
Now when the real mile 22 came at my first marathon, I felt exhausted, tired, sore, hot, and ready to be done. But I looked back on all those 4 mile runs in the months leading up to the marathon and said I've got this. It's just one more training run to reach my goal and I've done this very distance many, many times. Sure enough, 4.2 miles later and I was crossing that finish line with a huge smile on my face that may not have left my face for another 7-8 days.