To give folks an idea of just how much walking I do to prepare for a single 26.2 mile event, I thought I’d post the actual training schedule I’m following for the upcoming Boston marathon.
Because I’m semi- training pretty much continuously throughout the year, I usually stop at the 14th week mark on this schedule (and also because my lungs can’t handle multiple 20 mile walks.) Currently , I’m at week 12 and will do weeks #11 and #12 when I return from Italy. As you can see, the key to building endurance , is by gradually increasing the distance walked every week and then maintaining it with alternating shorter distances. If you were to complete this 18 week training schedule as written, you will have walked 415 miles!
This particular example is probably more suitable for advanced walkers who have a lot of time on their hands and a couple races under their belts, but there are beginner and intermittent level training schedules out there as well…. for both full and half marathons.
There are also organizations that will train you to walk or run a marathon in exchange for fund raising… “Team in Training” comes to mind (what I call the purple people)!
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