If you compete in marathons, the time will come when you can't make it to your goal race. Maybe you get the flu. Maybe a storm scrambles transportation, preventing you from getting to the event. Maybe, as was the case at the 2007 Chicago Marathon, the weather conditions are so challenging, there's no real point in racing. Or the race itself is canceled.
Whatever the reason, the result is that you're suddenly looking for plan B.
One option is simply to move on, doing shorter races or maybe a half marathon, or restarting your training cycle to rebuild for your next marathon. Your training will not be in vain -- it puts you in good shape to aim for nearly any other race.
But what if you're not willing to write off your plans that easily? Can you shift to another marathon, salvaging the training you've already put in? And if so, what's the optimum timing for a backup marathon? One week later? Two weeks? Four? Six? "There are a lot of questions," says Ryan Vail, a pro marathoner training in Portland, Ore.
Vail, who'd run 2:12:43 in his debut at the 2012 Olympic marathon trials, was one of several elites who faced these questions last fall when the New York City Marathon was called off in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Another was Scott Overall (2:10:55), a British Olympian, who'd been looking to New York as a chance to bounce back from a disappointing 61st-place finish at the London Games. "As soon as it got canceled, I was looking at the calendar to see if there were any other marathons I could run," he recalls.
Others doing the same included New Zealand Olympian Kim Smith, 2:11 marathoner Nick Arciniaga, and 14th-place marathon trials finisher Alisha Williams. "It rarely happens like this, when you have multiple elite athletes looking for a 'second' marathon," Vail says. That made it a great opportunity for the rest of us to observe what they (and their coaches) do under such circumstances.
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Unless you were woefully under-tapered for your first race (or can find a backup the following day), you probably need to wait more than a week, giving yourself enough time to bounce back into training and re-taper. Paul Greer, coach of the San Diego Track Club, suggests a minimum of two weeks before your next attempt.
But the longest Greer advises waiting is four weeks. "[Beyond that] you've lost your window," he says. "It's been drawn out too much."
Overall concurs. He eventually picked Fukuoka as his backup race, four weeks after New York's scheduled date. That's long enough, he says, to get in a couple of long runs and a few sessions of speed work, but not enough to become overtired. If the delay had been any longer, he doesn't think he would have raced. After that much training, he says, "You just want to do the race and have a rest."
In contrast, Vail, who also ran Fukuoka, found the four-week reboot to be "a little rushed" and says, "I think five or six weeks might have been ideal." Curiously, the two runners also had opposite race-day experiences: Vail ran a personal best time of 2:11:45, while Overall ran a disappointing 2:14, though he believes the problem lay in the fact that until the shift in plans, his training had been geared toward New York's strength-demanding hills rather than Fukuoka's speedier, flatter course.
At the closer end of the time range, a two- or three-week delay can also work, at least in theory. Jack Daniels, author of Daniels' Running Formula, says he ran his best-ever marathon only two weeks after a race in which hot weather prevented him from running hard. In effect, the first race functioned much like a long training run. "The human body is quite capable of performing for you if you don't over-stress it," he says.
That said, the elites' experience indicates two weeks' delay might be too short. Smith tried it by entering Japan's Yokohama Women's Marathon two weeks after she'd been expecting to run New York. On a windy day, she finished a respectable sixth, only 2 minutes and a few seconds slower than her 2:25:21 PR, but she thinks she would have done better to wait longer. "In hindsight, four to six weeks would have been a better idea," she says.
Scott Simmons of the Colorado-based American Distance Project agrees. He'd considered Yokohama as an option for Williams but didn't see how anyone could reboot that quickly off a properly executed taper. "That time period would be a dead spot," he says. The advantage of a four-week window, according to Simmons, is that there's time to get back into training for two weeks, while still having time to re-taper.
And nothing speaks like success. Williams went to the California International Marathon, where, despite yet another weather disaster (torrential rains and 38-mph headwinds at the start), she not only won but eked out a 12-second PR.
Arciniaga also went to CIM, but had a different experience, finishing fifth in what for him was a slow time (2:18). But he blames race-day errors, not timing. "I raced terribly, tactically," he says. "I still believe I was ready on that day, and the training I did the last four weeks prepared me as well as I could have prepared."
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The pros and coaches applied three basic principles:
- Go Long
The first step, everyone agreed, was to do a long run. Nothing fancy or intense, just a "regular" long run, says Simmons. Smith went for a 22-miler on the day she'd expected to race New York.
- Don't Panic
"Realize that you have not lost fitness," says Daniels. "All you need to do is maintain the level of fitness you had going into the race you didn't get to run." In fact, if you've tapered properly and your body (and mind) are peaked and raring to go, the main risk may be jumping too intensely back into training. "You don't want to waste that race effort," Vail says.
- Resume Training
Bounce back into training. Even if Smith's Yokohama finish wasn't ideal, her time was respectable for only a two-week reboot. The key workouts seem to have been the long run two weeks out, one speed workout in the following week, nothing more than moderate mileage, and a repeat of the final-week taper. "Your body is used to doing this," Smith says.
Others agree. "Just duplicate what you were doing, and see how healthy and rested you can be for the new race," says Daniels.
Race-Week Entries
What if you're in Chicago, Twin Cities, Marine Corps or New York, and suddenly need a backup race? Where should you go? Here are 10 fall races scattered across the U.S. and Canada where late registration is likely possible.
Maine Marathon (Portland) // Oct. 6
Baltimore Marathon // Oct. 12
Delaware & Lehigh Heritage Marathon Easton, Pa. // Nov. 3
Empire State Marathon (Syracuse) // Oct. 20
Grand Rapids Marathon (Michigan) // Oct. 20
Niagara Falls International Marathon (Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada) // Oct. 27
Atlanta Marathon // Oct. 27
Delaware & Lehigh Heritage Marathon (Easton, Pa.) // Nov. 3
Madison Marathon (Wisconsin) // Nov. 10
Anthem Richmond Marathon (Virginia) // Nov. 16
