Running Half Marathon for Young Adults

Can running a half marathon be bad for you if you're an 18 year female?


Answer by Dominique:


Hi there,
Thanks for your half marathon running question.

It's great you are considering this, many people are a lot more careless.



It's hard to give you a straight yes or no without knowing more about you.

Generally, if you are a fully grown young woman, fit and healthy with a background in sports, having prepared for the event and everything, then doing a half marathon should not have any adverse effects on you.

Events that go over 20 miles / 32 km, like marathons and ultras are not too healthy (maybe that explains their growing popularity!?!). Those kind of events take a serious recuperation period and have a huge impact on the legs and body, reason that children, teenagers and young adults are heavily discouraged from running them.

But a half marathon could be done basically every weekend. In fact, many runners cover the distance every weekend in their long runs.

So, provided you have put in the training and are otherwise healthy, there should be no reason why you could not do a half marathon.

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Hope this helps.
Good luck with your half marathon training.
Cheers,
Dominique