Background:
I am 20 year old male who has always been athletic. Played football in high school, lifted weights for ~4 years consistently.
-Ran 2 half marathons in 2025 with around a month of minimal training for each as well as an Olympic triathlon with minimal training.
Injury Context:
December 2025- started training for a full marathon in April of 2026. Ran 3 days a week, swam 2 days, and lifted 3 days.
February 2026- Woke up with Achilles tendinitis/tendinopathy. Was not in pain during any of my training and stayed at a heart rate below/near my zone 2 calculation for all my runs. Paused most exercise besides upper body lifts and rehab for about a month.
March 2026- Reintroduced swimming, lower body lifts and began biking in March.
End of March- Pain in Achilles while walking finally faded in first week of April.
April- Began 3-4 long walks a week to reintroduce the mechanical movement to Achilles alongside biking swimming and lifting.
May- finally started 9 week program of walk/jog to full hour run that PT suggested.
Main Point/Question:
I am looking to train for a marathon in November but am a little worried because after this 9 weeks of getting back to running is up I will be left with only 4 months to train. I am also unsure of how quickly I will gain back my running fitness although I only worked up to a 10 miler in training with 20 miles total for the week.
My original plan was 3 runs a week and I got injured with that so I need help figuring out how to properly build or pick a plan that avoids the same injury.
-More than 3 runs a week but less mileage per run?
-Incorporating swimming and biking?
-Longer build than 4 months needed?