This series is written by Mike. 

In Part Six: The First Mile, you began training for your first marathon by attempting your first mile. You may not have been able to finish that mile the first time, but hopefully you kept pushing yourself to complete it without walking.

My first mile

In April 2006, I ran my first mile in about 12 minutes after my fourth try, and I was dying afterwards. My best mile to-date happened in September at 8:58, and I was dying then too. However, you’re not training for speed with a marathon; you’re training for endurance.

What’s next?

Keep working on that mile. If you feel good after the first mile and want to try more, go for it! But keep working on your 1-mile time without pushing yourself too hard. You don’t want to get hurt!

One key warning: DON’T STOP TRAINING!!!

You may think “I can take a break for a week. The marathon is 8 months away”. However, give your body too much time to recover, and you’ll lose almost everything you’ve gained. This holds true for many experienced runners as well.

I didn’t run for about 3 weeks after the Marine Corp Marathon, and when I tried again, I had trouble finishing 3 miles in under 35 minutes. I constantly trained at 11 minute miles on our 3 mile run days. How pathetic. After 2 months without running, I have trouble doing a single mile on the treadmill!

Motivation

Go back to Part Five: Motivation to find out some methods to stay motivated. Just do anything you can to ensure you KEEP RUNNING.

Visit the Marathons for Beginners Collection page to see the rest of the series!

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