At some point in the last few years, running a marathon went from something slightly unhinged that endurance people did to a completely normal life milestone. A lot of that momentum built during covid, when running was one of the few things still outside and free while everything else was shut. Plenty of people took it up then and called themselves runners for a while, though a fair few have quietly stopped since. Now your colleague is doing one, your cousin is doing one, and half your feed is doing one, complete with carb loading content and a finish line photo captioned “we did it.”
So it is a fair question. Is marathon training something you should do, or just the fitness era’s version of a phase everyone cycles through? The honest answer is that it depends on what you’re looking for, so let’s be real about both sides.