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[El Gordo]

Havana is a half marathon, SP.

The question of how soon you should race after a marathon is an interesting one though. The two marathons I've plodded have left me in no fit state to think about running for weeks afterwards, never mind racing. I did seek some advice from Hal Higdon who said it would be OK to run a half three weeks after a marathon as long as I treated one of them as just a training run. So that's the plan at this stage. The formula you often see is that you shouldn't race for the number of days equivalent to the number of miles you've run ie if you run a marathon you shouldn't race for at least 26 days; half marathon 13 days etc. I've also seen the same linked to kilometres, which would mean not racing for 42 and 21 days respectively. Seems a bit too convenient to be of great use though. A lot depends on how you come through the race.

I was interested to read that Ian Painter and Charlotte Dutch are running the Stratford Marathon just 3 or 4 weeks after their Paris and London marathons. They are better runners than me and they know what they are doing, but I couldn't contemplate doing that. Apart from the physical exhaustion, I've found marathons quite emotionally draining, and would find it hard to crank up the necessary 'attitude'. Also, if the recent calf problem taught me anything, it's that running races in quick succession significantly increases the risk of injury.

Must admit I always feel nervous talking about events this far in advance. You have to have targets to motivate you but it's easy to get carried away, and become a bit over-ambitious. But Dublin is a definite date, and we do plan to have a holiday in Cuba in November, so the Havana half seems too good a chance to ignore - as long as I get round Dublin unscathed.

As for how many marathons a year, I guess that depends on how good/experienced a runner you are. Top marathon runners seem to run the equivalent of a marathon every day in training.

Personally I couldn't do more than 2 a year just because the 4 or 5 months training is too intrusive. 3 a year and I'd be in permanent training. In fact, anything more than one a year seems a bit unreasonable on those around me.

But as always, it's horses for courses.

Do you have any marathons lined up, SP, or are you still in 'never again' mode?

Andy