Balancing other activities with running schedule

Hi guys,

Having run a few half's in the last year or so, I am now signed up to do the Edinburgh marathon in May this year.

I've found a good 16 week plan which I'm hoping will get me to my target time of under 4 hours.

At the moment, alongside my running I do a few circuit training sessions a week - these often leave me very achey for a day or two afterwards - not a huge deal when I'm only running for fitness.  But now that I am aiming for a specific time, I worry it may be detrimental to my running training.

Does anyone have any experience of juggling other intense activity alongside their running or is it as simple as I'm going to have to cut it down/out completely?

Thanks in advance

Andy

Whats more important to you - your circuits or the marathon ? 

How many days a week running are you training ? I'd think one circuit training per week would be enough with a marathon training session.

Yes, I have experience of juggling other intense activity, as for my first marathon i tried to kid myself that a couple of games of 5 a side football a week would act instead of speedwork.

Sadly, it didn't work out like that  -  and for my next marathon, I stuck with running with better results

Cheers guys - I think I sort of knew the answer and to answer the first point, the marathon is definitely more important for the next 4 months.

I just wondered whether people had trained through the tiredness without too much adverse effect - sounds like the opposite is true!

You should feel that the first few weeks are easy. Cos they will get harder as you progress.