I am a new marathoner trainee and will be running my first marathon in February (Okinawa Marathon, 2009) I have been training for several weeks and at this point my longest run is 8 miles in a little less than two hours. Because of the time checks, my husband says that I will have to increase my speed and definitely not take walk breaks like Jeff Galloway suggest or else I will not make the times. I have not incorporated the walk breaks yet, but did have to walk for about 7 mins during this last long run. (Okinawa is really hilly) My current pace is comfortable, but I don't think I could increase much more and maintain. The time checks are as follows:

Race Begins at 9:00 am

(18.2 km) 11:40
(24.7 km) 12:40
(31.2 km) 13:30
(40.3 km) 15:00

If I don't make the time checks in the specified time, I will be asked to leave the course. I would hate to have trained all this time and have this happen. Should I just scrap this marathon and wait until 2010 or is it possible to make these times comfortably. All I want to do is finish strong with and get my certificate. I have no time goals or speed goals at this point being a beginner.

Any advice would be so helpful!

It depends. If you are not used to running distance and you are for the first time training for a hilly marathon, you could be in for a tough time. There is a big difference in difficulty between a flat marathon and a hilly marathon. Keep increasing your mileage as long as you don't have any pain and see where you are in December. Two months before the marathon you should at least be able to do 15 miles. If you are a little slower than your goal pace that's ok since normally you run the marathon faster than you train. If you haven't made much progress in distance and endurance by then you may want to take a longer term approach to your training and shoot for 2010. Look at it this way, is it better to just "get through" a marathon or is it better to really improve your fitness to the point that completing a marathon under time limit is easy?

Thanks for the advice piano man. I will continue to train and see where I am in December. Yeah it is a bummer running here in Okinawa. The only flat areas are those on a track. Just for clarification, you are saying that I should be running 15 miles continuously with out walk breaks by December right?

Thanks again.

If you are a first timer training in hills, and don't have a running background, I think the Galloway method makes sense. What I meant was that by December your long run which I assume would be one per week, should be up to 15 miles, whether you do Galloway or not. See how your pace is and how you are feeling. You'll be better able to assess at that time if you think you can run in February.