What do you think of a 12 hour run?

Question

I'm a sophomore in high school and I have been wanting to run a 12 hour run with some of my friends. I thought of the idea, kind of to challenge myself and see how much I can run in that period of time. I'm not going to run the whole time, I will walk some of it, but I was wondering if it would hurt me or my health.

Answer 1

It's possible but just remember there is no health benefit from doing this. The only people who compete for this long are triathletes and ultramarathon runners.  Ultra runners work up to 2 20 milers back to back during training.  If you try to run 12 hours and have never gone beyond 2 hrs you won't have any chance of running for this long.  My recommendation is to experiment first with some 2 to 2:30 runs.

For a run this long, the pace is very slow.  You will find that you are limited by nutrition and hydration.  In 12 hours you can run 60 to 70 miles.  That's 7000 calories.  You need to stop and eat and drink periodically. While running it's hard to consume more than 250 calories/hr without getting stomach problems.  So 12 x 250 = 4800 calories and your body stores around 2000 calories so you can see that you will hit the wall if you run too fast.  You must keep the pace slow enough that your body is buring a mix of glycogen and fat. The other gremlins are simple things likes blisters and chafing.  Again, experiment with 2 hour runs to get a small taste of these.

Answer 2

look up ultra-marathons. You'll find out how to train.

Answer 3

Train.

do 1 day of 2 miles

then 1 day of walking 4 miles

then 1 day of running 8 miles.

and so on stretch it out like that.

http://www.53riverbankrun.com/pdfs/train...

try that training thing.

Answer 4

I don't think I could drive a CAR for 12 hours. You might want to run that idea by someone familiar with SPORTS MEDICINE before you try it.

Answer 5

I know that it's not healthy for people under the age of 20 to run marathons... not good for their bones. So, if you run/walk for 12 hours, you'll definitely get in the equivilant of a marathon... so I would say no. By the way, I'm wondering what's the fartherest you've ever run?

Answer 6

As long as you have been running for a few years and know how to run I do not see why you would not be able to pace yourself and run for 12 hours, as long as you had the proper amount of water and food during that time.

Answer 7

omg...unless your use to these kind of long runs for example :crosscrounty. other than that i think u would be overdoing it. but of course you can try to see where your health is at by seeing a doctor not by running for half a day ..sheesh!

Answer 8

You need to train for something like that a marathon is 26.2 miles and it's possible to run that in under 3 hours. People train for marathons months leading up to it. But considering a 26.2 mile race can be done in under 3 hours think of how many miles you'd run in 12. You'd probably run well over 80 miles and that is not good for you if you don't stop for eating or drinking water.