So still feeling pretty rubbish at the moment but hoping this will clear up in the next few days. All of this is showing how hard on your body training for a marathon can be and thats coming from someone who has been running since the age of 10!! Must admit I thought I would be able to hold out with the millage as used to run 70 plus every week easily but I guess the 2 years out of proper training have meant taking me longer than I thought to adapt back to this training.

Now you can be 18 to run a marathon but most of the time I would STRONGLY recommend against running one this young. If that 18 year old just wanted to get round and not worry too much with the time and wasnt going to run much for the rest of their life then fair enough go for it. But if that 18 year old was going to plan to run throughout their life and wanted to run in a decent time then absolutely no point as I believe you need to be strong enough for the training let alone the race and this means years of miles and training in the legs aswell as experience. Running local cross countrys, track races, 5k races and the odd 10k is where I personally learnt a lot about distance running in general and built a lot of strength from it all. When I was keen at 17/18 I proberly would have tried a marathon but I was lucky in that I had people who knew what they were doing advising me and plus my old man would never have let me punish myself over 26 miles at that age as was showing potential over the shorter distances of 5k and cross country.

From more of a coach point of view seeing I have advised athletes in the past about training and racing, I wouldnt advise an athlete to do a marathon at that age and if they insisted I would unfortunately have nothing to do with it. Have to think havent stopped growing and developing at 18 for most and pounding the streets training for 26 miles can end up in injury/illness a lot of the time...and yes I have seen athletes do this at this age never run again or never as quick.