How to Prepare to Run the La Marathon

The annual Los Angeles Marathon is run by thousands of people every year. It takes place March 4th although it may not be too late for you to register. It may be too late for you to train properly or make the 26th mile of this race but you can still register up until the week of the race.

When the marathon is run, the streets are closed down, traffic is backed up but the marathon is all about stamina, striving to get to a place where you've never been before. It promotes health and fitness which is something a lo of people strive to have and is not a bad thing to have in general.

To get involved in the LA marathon, I have already mentioned that you will have to register. To register, you can go online to the website which is www.lamarthon.com. There you will find fact sheets about the marathon and any information you need to get started. You will also find ways that you can be helped in training.

Training for the LA marathon is like keeping a New Year's resolution. It's tough and you really don't see yourself doing it seriously. But you have to get it in your head that this is something you really want to put your all into. The best way to really do this is to make a schedule.

Making a schedule for yourself is the ultimate way to keep up with running the marathon. To help you make that schedule you should get involved with a marathon group online. On the website, they have groups that you can join filled with people who are also running the marathon and those who have run it before. They have a weekly training schedule and they are led by people who run the marathon every year.

Getting involved in one of these groups is a great way to keep up. But before getting in these groups, you must start with yourself. Here is a good schedule to keep when preparing to run the marathon.

This is a 6 month training schedule.

1) Start waking up early in the morning. Getting an early start can get you motivated. Besides that you will have to wake up early to run the marathon and you should start training early to get your day started instead of training at night. It puts you on a more reasonable schedule.

2) Start eating a healthy breakfast early in the morning. This gos along with training as well. You need something that will fill you up but will also make you feel good after training. Cereal or fruit is best. I know you like your coffee and hashbrowns so at first you will be unhappy. But after a week of pain, you will be happy because training will go so much better if you eat a healthy breakfast.

3) Start exercising 30 minutes every 2 days. Do this for 3 weeks. This advice is for people who don't exercise on a regular basis. Don't start out with an hour of exercise because you will end up hurting yourself. This exercise shouldn't completely be cardio yet. Feel your body out, work on your strength first before your stamina. You can start with stretching, cycling, weightlifting, walking. Save running for when you've built up your stamina.

4) Start exercising cardio 45 minutes every 2 days. Do this for 3 weeks. This is where your cardio starts. You can start out with jogging and then finish with a fast walk. You really need to get used to it at this point. Pushing yourself too much at the beginning can only hurt you. If you're trying to lose weight, that's one thing. But a marathon is about stamina.

5) Start exercising 1 hour every 2 days. Do this for 4 weeks. Once you've begun exercising for 1 hour, you've built your stamina up pretty well. The only next thing to do is to keep it up.

6) Jog outside for 45 minutes every 2 days. Do this for 4 weeks. I brought the time down because jogging outside is a far cry from jogging in a gym. The natural elements get in the way of jogging and you don't see a clock, televisions, etc. It can get boring, monotonous and the roads can be tiresome. So do this until you are comfortable with outside elements.

7) Run outside an hour 5 days a week. Do this for 4 weeks. Now that you are comfortable with the outside and have built your stamina up, you are ready to jog like the big dogs.

8) Get involved with the group. The record for the fastest guy to run the marathon is 2:09: 25. The fastest for the ladies is 2:26:11. Most people end up running for 3 hours straight or more. So once you have the stamina of an hour down, you're ready to join the group and feel up to building your stamina even more. They will start you on the training program where they have jogs week by week, longer and longer.

9) Get up to running for 2 hours straight. The schedule will tell you how long the group runs for. Maintain your current jogging schedule as well. By then you should know what your body can and cannot do.

10) Feel accomplished no matter what happens. As far as you go or as far as you get, feel good that you tried your best. It takes a lot of courage to get our there and try something like this and really get your body healthy. It's a definite challenge in this country. So no matter what, at least by the end you will feel better than you did a year ago as long as you don't push yourself too far.

Tips:
1) Stretch before and after you exercise. It seems the typical tip but it is extremely important. Sometimes you can't be sure if you've hurt yourself or not and you can always make sure that at least your joints are safe from tearing.

2) Always remember to cool down after exercise. If you're jogging for 45 minutes, use five minutes of that time to walk and cool yourself down. You muscles and joints will get tight and if you don't loosen them up, you'll feel pain all day.

3) Take breaks when you need to. Don't kill yourself. Seriously, you could literally kill yourself. It's not natural for people to run 3 hours straight every day. That's why this is a challenge. So if you are a regular person just like the rest of us, it will be difficult to do this. Don't beat yourself up if you need rest. Don't try to keep up if you can't. Your body is trying to tell you something if you're near passing out. Your body will let you know when you can go on and push through. But always listen to the little voice inside saying that you might be in trouble.