It’s Go Time: The SF Marathon Clock Is Ticking

Guest Blogger Eric Jorgenson

I went to Las Vegas, gambled, somehow won, then came home. That means two things: I need to spend all my winnings ASAP on something totally dumb; and it’s time to start training for our July 29th Wipro San Francisco Marathon. We’re four months out now, and according to everyone I’ve asked, that’s the proper training window for a marathon if you have not started training.

As I wrote earlier, it was in Vegas last year that I decided to run my first marathon in San Francisco. Basically, my yearly pilgrimage to Sin City to watch and gamble on March Madness is also my going away party for lazy days. From now until the end of July, it’s game on.

Some of you are much, much better runners than me and run year round, so you don’t need to worry about the four-month window. I hope to experience that feeling now that I live in San Francisco and the weather allows me to easily hit the pavement. This year I actually have run semi-regularly on top of my resistance training, which is a nice springboard into SF Marathon training season. That said, I’m still not in marathon form.

If you’re in the same position I am and you plan to run The SF Marathon, heed my advice: start training now. I would never try to cram marathon training into a smaller window. This isn’t a history test that we can pull an all-nighter the day before the test. We need to spread the training out and build up to the runner we need to be come July 29.

I’m not a running coach and wouldn’t dare try to tell you how you should train for the race. Whatever works for you, do it. The only advice I can give is what worked for me: run four to six days a week, and plan your long run for the weekend. Also, wear sleeveless shirts and flex as much as possible.

I guess there is one more piece of advice I can give, which now seems obvious to me: You should decide soon if you want to run in the full marathon, so you can put in all your training. If you want to run one of the halves and haven’t been training you probably have a month or two to decide.

But just run the full. Heck, I’ll run it with you.

Good luck out there this SF Marathon training season! If you see me griping as I trudge up a hill, please come over and tell me to man up hustle to the top.