That's hardly good advice for a novice though. I agree somewhat for that a lot of people, they just need to get out the door and run, but there are too many people out there that think they need to run as much as possible. And that's how injuries happen. I know way too many people that have gone and done too much too soon on little training because they're not following good, practiced advice.
I agree that "just get out and run" isn't really helpful for training for a marathon. It helps to have a plan and to follow one of the many training plans. For example, you can do 25 mile weeks by running 4 miles a day 7 days a week or by running 3 or 4 days a week with purposefully different workouts (e.g, long run, tempo run, recovery run, etc.) The purposeful workouts are going to give far more bang for your buck.
Also, one long run per week -- building up to 20 miles or so a month before marathon -- is the mainstay of most good marathon training plans. It's foolish to run a marathon without having prepared with some "long runs". And you'd be surprised at how slowly you can run the long runs in order for them to be beneficial. In fact, pushing yourself too hard on them is more likely to do harm than good.
It also helps to look over the various training plans to find out what works, specifically regarding training mileage and training speed. You don't need to do much if any "speed work" for a marathon, certainly not if you're not planning to do at least sub 3:30 or so.
Finally, people should be aware that based on your training runs and a practice 5k,10k, or half-marathon, you should be able to gauge your likely performance in a marathon quite well. This is of paramount importance, because you have to know what you're capable of and pace yourself properly in a marathon. Many first-timers (and many who who have run multiple marathons) run the first 13 miles of marathon way too fast, which is partly understandable because the proper pace feels quite slow and easy in first half of the race. But it has bad consequences. There is a saying that "For each 10 seconds per mile faster than your goal pace during first half of marathon means you'll be running 60 seconds per mile slower than goal pace in second half." Or hit the wall and not finish at all. Even pacing is the key.
I agree with another poster, it is not a great idea to do both the Chicago and the NYC marathon in the same year, especially if it's your first.
Training programs are really dependent on your previous experience. If you're starting as a non-runner (or a once-a-week runner) then your training plan would be much different than someone who is running 5 times a week. Also important to take into account if you're doing it just to do it or doing it to do well.
I used a plan that was based on a Pfitzinger plan. It was helpful (I got a Boston Qualifier on my first marathon), but you need to be quite disciplined. It is high mileage and takes commitment to running 6-7 days a week.
From the linked Huff Po article:
"I was doing a lot of programming from home. I would write out the program on paper using Fortran [a programming language], then I would mail it in to key punch operators at NYU, they would punch the cards out and then I would use the cards to run the program."
Programming on paper from home, that's incredible.
You youngsters dont realize what it was like to have one day turnaround. Yeah, one day to find a syntax error. Mailing in your coding sheets was only marginally slower than sticking them in your out basket and getting them back a day or two later. Even longer if you wanted them verified.
Of course it's true that sexism exists - plenty of women do choose to be silent on issues of sexism. It is an incredibly hard to bring up such a personal thing when you want to be taken seriously professionally.
