Marathon training in 8 weeks?

Hi all

I think I know the answer to this but I just wondered if anyone has had any experience of this (positive or otherwise)....

Basicalli I did a marathon back at the end of March on what was already a sore foot but I had no idea why I had the sore foot (I had been running regularly for a long time and done numerous halfs) and so just thought I would run through it.  AFterwards I could not walk and my foot was the size of a head and very bruised.  Anyway to cut a (very) long story short I had very bad tenosynovitis of various tendons in the foot and ankle. Yes my prep for the marathon had been very bas due to awful work commitments but it did not explain why this had happened.  After months of being in and out of an aircast boot and a couple of cortisone injections I finally found a physio with the answer.  Basically I had been put in Orhtotics for the last 15 years (from the age of 12) and my foot/ankle was so stiff and calves etc so tight (I had a minus knee to wall range) that I had no flexion that all the tendons in my feet had to work so hard and it was only a matter of time before something happened.

Sorry for the story but now I have had a couple of months of great physio - lots of maniputlation of the foot and rehab exercise to learn how to be biomechanicaly functional again and I have just got back to running (well yesterday).  Fpr the next couple of weeks it is litelly 1 min jogging 2 mins walking x6 and increasing gradually the repititions but not the amount of time running each time.

Back in January I had entered the Florence marathon which takes place at the end of Nov.

DOes anyone have any experience of this kind of situation/injury? And the recovery times back to normality? And as a long shot anyone recovered from injury (out for 6 months ish) and done a marathon quickly afterwards? I have been able to get fit lately with bikes etc so cardio wise I am good but I knoe running is completely different and my fitness in this repect wil not be good. I am not going to be silly about it and risk injury but any advice on recovery would be great.

Phew sorry for the essay!  Thank you all in advance.

Holly

Tough call. I am running Florence too and I had an injury that limited my training for about three weeks and it took a fair amount of expectation recalibration not to want to just give up and choose a different race! I am back running again and doing similar volume to before so I am pret certain I can get to race day ready to run. You don't really have that so its going to be hard.

You might find that you need to be more aggressive in your recovery than you otherwise would if you want to still do the race. That of course means more risk of further injury. Oftentimes coming back from an injury you get other niggles because of the body readjusting.

Personally if I had been out for as long my fitness would be absolutely shot and I would be looking at 8-10 months of getting back to where I was but if you have managed to stay fit and you are realistic about what you want to achieve then maybe you could still get something out of it

personally I wouldn't risk it after being out for so long. You risk injuring yourself again. If you already have the flights etc booked, then just go for a holiday and be a spectator for the marathon. Annoying, but it would be far worse to run the marathon and then have to go through loads more physio and another few months of no running

Hi you two thank you very much for your comments (sorry for the late response I have been away working). And yes you are both right.  I am thinking about seeing how things go and maybe walk and run and jog the marathon.  I am already enetered and I am working in Milan at the time - so it is only a train ride away....mr chunky best of lucj with your training - it is such a beautiful place you will be too busy looking around the 42k will be an afterthought....hmmm.

Thank you both again. Heres to a speedy recovery...