How Many Marathons Is Too Many?

It’s easy to catch the marathon bug. Influencers and everyday runners flood social media talking about their training, their accomplishments, and their speedy splits. And when your options range from exciting destination races and multiday challenge events to the coveted World Marathon Majors, it’s easy to get caught up in signing up for 26.2 after 26.2.But can you run too many marathons?What does a race calendar that brings out your best performances—while still supporting your recovery and life outside of running—actually look like?We talked to an exercise physiologist and a sports psychology researcher to find out the physical and mental effects of marathoning and how to determine the number of races per year that keeps you motivated and feeling accomplished without overwhelm or burnout.How Many Marathons Should You Race in a Year?It’s absolutely possible to go overboard on marathoning, Janet Hamilton, CSCS, an exercise physiologist and the founder and head coach of Running Strong, tells Runner’s World. Many factors play into the number of races per year that best serves an individual, she explains.One of the most important to consider? Your overall goal.“Do you have some sort of a time goal, like you want to qualify for Boston? Or do you just want to be able to say you’ve completed one every month? Those two goals are very different,” she explains.Racing a marathon at an all-out effort places much more stress on the body than jogging one at your easy pace. Of course, both efforts still require recovery, adds Hamilton. “But if you have a specific performance goal, it behooves you to train with that purpose in mind,” she says.This means setting aside a full cycle of training to properly base-build, add in speed, gradually taper, and finally, race. To achieve your best result, you can’t rush any part of this process.Hamilton’s guidance for most runners who want to race well is to aim for a maximum of two, maybe three, marathons per year. “Can you get away with more than that? Sure. Some people complete streaks of marathoning every weekend,” she says. “But that can be really hard on your body, physiologically speaking.”What Happens to Your Body When You Race Too Often? Significant physiological changes occur following a long-duration hard-effort exercise bout such as the marathon, explains Hamilton. This can include weakened immune function—part of the reason many runners come down with a postrace cold—elevation of enzymes that indicate cardiac damage, increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and a decrease in testosterone levels.“Generally, your body will come back in balance with a proper recovery cycle,” Hamilton says. But if you never give yourself a break from racing, it becomes much more challenging for you to fully recuperate. “Over time, this takes a toll on your body. And you might not always be able to necessarily feel it.”Some signs, she explains, would only show up in specific blood tests or diagnostic scans, such as an elevated cardiac calcification score, which can increase the risk for heart problems. “We can certainly do blood tests to look for markers of creatine kinase [an indicator of tissue trauma from microtears in the muscle], but how many of us get blood tested after every marathon?”Fortunately, you don’t need a lab test to notice every red flag. Some more obvious symptoms that you’re overdoing it include persistent fatigue, getting sick more often, trouble sleeping, low mood, decreased motivation, and nagging aches or pains that don’t resolve with rest. You also might find that your usual pace on easy runs feels noticeably harder to maintain.More and more exercise does not necessarily mean better and better physical fitness, Hamilton says. “At some point, that correlation between volume and health kind of starts to fall apart,” she says. And that not only goes for physical health but for mental health, as well.Mental Effects of Running Frequent MarathonsAccording to a study published in Acta Psychologica, multimarathoners—defined as individuals who had completed at least 100 official marathons—had higher depression and anxiety scores compared with the general population, though still below clinical thresholds. “We found that high levels of physical activity don’t necessarily equate to good mental health,” says the study’s lead author, Leo Lundy, PhD.Of the 576 runners in the study, about 30 percent had few or no symptoms of anxiety and depression, he explains. However, about 25 percent experienced higher levels than average. “What was particularly worrying was that 8 percent—which is a significant percentage—showed signs of severe depression or high anxiety, way above what you’d expect in the general public,” says Lundy.This doesn’t mean that multimarathoning causes these symptoms; it does, however, show an association. And to understand the full picture, we need to examine the type of individual who is drawn to multimarathoning in the first place, Lundy explains.“When you look at the type of person that's attracted to long-distance running, two areas of the personality were significant in the research,” he says. “One was conscientiousness: These individuals love to follow the rules. The other was emotional stability,” which assessed how calm or even-keeled they generally tended to be.In psychometric tests, marathoners tended to score very high in conscientiousness but lower in emotional stability, which could correlate to higher levels of depression and anxiety, explains Lundy.Enter: the marathon. This race provides exactly the environment that this personality type needs to thrive. “The marathon is very structured: You follow the rules, you turn up on time, and you know what’s going to happen. It’s all very predictable in that regard,” he says.Add in the meaningful social connection that comes from gathering with fellow runners and the sense of achievement from completing a full 26.2 miles, and the picture becomes clearer: These benefits all help marathoners manage those lower levels of emotional stability. And by providing a reliable framework for them to succeed and belong, the race itself becomes a valuable coping mechanism for underlying anxiety and depression.However, racing marathon after marathon can also mean sustained physical fatigue, competition pressure, increased injury risk, and sacrificing other aspects of life. So, Lundy explains, if a runner relies too heavily on marathoning and continues despite mounting physical, emotional, or lifestyle costs, it becomes a source of stress. As a result, it may contribute to the very symptoms a runner was trying to relieve.What If I’m Running Easy—Not “Racing” the Marathon?Both mentally and physically, the amount of effort you put into 26.2 matters when taking on multiple marathons each year. But for some runners, especially those scoring high in conscientiousness, it can be difficult to toe the line and not give their best effort.“As a coach, I consider the individual runner’s personality: How well will they be able to adhere to just doing it at a training effort when that gun goes off?” says Hamilton. Many runners will want to push the pace beyond an easy jog.So if someone really wants to do a series of mostly easy marathons, she still advises the majority of athletes to complete no more than four marathons per year.But many runners do more.Take Lundy himself, for example, who, at age 62, has completed more than four hundred marathons, including seven just this year. Lundy says he still enjoys running marathons regularly, but emphasizes this crucial element: Fast performances are not the goal.“The most successful multi-marathoners that I’ve come across are people that run at a sub-maximal level. They really are quite slow, quite determined, some running into the seven-hour ranges,” he says. “They’re running for lots of other reasons besides performance.”Some of those reasons? Just to finish, to enjoy the social environment, to travel, to stay active and healthy. “I’ve run marathons in close to 25 countries; most of my friends are in running communities, so I see them regularly, and achieving new milestones continues to make me happy. That’s really what drives me,” Lundy says.While the marathon gives you a specific goal, you don’t have to keep chasing finish lines to reap many of the same benefits Lundy mentions. Running in general supports cardiovascular and cognitive health while also providing a sense of fulfillment, connection, and belonging, he says.So, you might decide to race 26.2 once, many times, or maybe not at all—the right number of marathons for you is the number that keeps you feeling strong, healthy, and happy enough to keep on running.Morgan is a gear editor who has been with Runner’s World since 2017. She started as an intern ghostwriting The Warmup, a bygone version of the daily RW newsletter. Now, she tests and reviews anything you might find on runners’ feet-from crew socks and compression boots to carbon-plated super shoes. A lifelong runner and shoe geek, Morgan has been chasing the perfect pair of kicks since she joined her grade school cross-country team. Since then, she ran as a Division I walk-on for the cross-country and track & field teams at the University of Delaware, where she studied English and Biology. She has one full marathon under her belt, and has raced more halfs and 5Ks than she can count.