Sub 3 hour Marathon.

[Mike T]

Attachment 7320
Unlike you Tahr, I had never done a marathon until recently when I decided to do one before I am too old for it. The Athens Classic Marathon was my choice and I was not disappointed. The organisation was great and I managed a sub-four hour time, details.

Well run Yiannis!

[ydt]

Well, I had to do one road marathon, I was going to be in Greece at that time anyway and November weather is cooler than usual. Looking forward to getting back to normal again. Fingers crossed, my team will get an HPM place!?

[alwaysinjured]

Thanks AI, i read that and it chimed with the conclusion i'm reaching re training, i.e. too much junk, not enough funk (as a coach i know often says). I was on course for sub 3 at Berlin in 2008 when i tore a quad at mile 22 and walked the last 3.5 miles to record a 3:18. Was gutted as was in the shape of my life having just done a 1:23 half with more in the tank (pb was 1:26 up to that point). I'm in for Berlin next Sept and wanted to take a more surgical view of training, and 3/4 sessions is as much as i'll be able to do anyway given child no 2 is due in Feb!

LDWA events are lovely and it never occured to me to use them for the long run for a marathon.

Good luck Tahr, i'll also be pushing for that elusive sub 3 next year

**ouch** I can relate to that

The schedule that I did manage to fit into some long working hours was..

M off
T shorthills (1 mile warmup - 5K total over a 1/3 mile hill up and down - 1mile warmdown - sometimes off , if busy
W semilong as above 12 build to 18 at 15 sec faster than marathon
Th off
F Night long intervals 5 building to 9 * K+, half K recovery, round local block. 9-10mi total
S 6 mile pace
SU long 15 - build to 23, plod.

That way only one midweek run is critical, the rest are essentially weekend - still 50-55 mi.
The sessions dovetail well, the pace run on sat seems easy after long ints on fri.
When racing on sun, I would lose the SAT pace session.

[Deadlegs]

Lots of good advice here. I did 3:10 at London last year and am doing Edinburgh next year. I would like to go sub 3 but don't think I can. Running the distance is not the problem it's getting the cruising speed down to 6:50 mins/mile. I like AI's schedule but would recommend a target marathon paced session every week to get used to the speed. Also be careful not to do too much quality or you may get injured. Some friends have drastically increased their speed by one weekly track session and regular cross country races.

[Yaks]

Greater Manchester next year for me. Did 3:12 earlier this year ( should have been about 3:08 - 3:10 but set off too fast ), hoping for 3:05 -3:10.

Manchester is now less than 18 weeks, and my 18 week plan started today ! Starts off about 55 mpw and builds to 70.

Based on a pretty large user base of stats the website I use for logging miles finds that you need to be sub 1:24 fit for the half to break 3:00, so hopefully you should be OK

[Tahr]

Thanks for all the advice gents,

I am going to go for the Manchester as the Edinburgh is on the 23rd May and I have to help a few mates with BG attempts around that time. Your advice gives me a bit of confidence that it is with in my reach, if I train right.

Looking back my best road race pace for 5 miles is 6:05-6:10 per mile pace. Although on Saturday I did the last mile of an 8 mile trail race in 6:04 according to Strava. So with concentration on speed work I might be able to do 6 miles at 6 MPM.

I have been trying to make all the club weekly speed sessions, last week it was 200m reps with 30 second rests. My thoughts on training are one weekend a hill session, probably a BG recce run followed by a 3 hour road run the next weekend, I am hoping this will stop me smashing myself up on the road. I will also look to start this week with trying to run 10 mile in 70 minutes mid week, followed by 11 in 77 the next until I get up to 18 miles at 7 minute mile pace, hopefully I will be able to go a bit quicker on race day to crack the 3 hours.

I use a Physio at The Herriott Watt University in Edinburgh, although the wife is good a teasing out knots in calves and hamstrings.

Thanks again the real hard bit will be finding the time and keeping injury free.

Well-done Ydt on your first Marathon. Andy if I was going to do another round it would have to be Ramsey although I fancy the 50 at 50 as I am 50 next year.

ATB

Tahr

[Vic Crescit]

M off
T shorthills (1 mile warmup - 5K total over a 1/3 mile hill up and down - 1mile warmdown - sometimes off , if busy
W semilong as above 12 build to 18 at 15 sec faster than marathon
Th off
F Night long intervals 5 building to 9 * K+, half K recovery, round local block. 9-10mi total
S 6 mile pace
SU long 15 - build to 23, plod.

.

Your Saturday 6 mile pace - does that mean marathon race pace?

And the plod - how much over marathon pace would you do? Cheers

[alwaysinjured]

Your Saturday 6 mile pace - does that mean marathon race pace?

And the plod - how much over marathon pace would you do? Cheers

Think I said higher up - more like 6.10 pace

The worst pace to train at in my view is junk mileage at 7.0 - 7.15 , do that and the marathon will feel too fast to maintain. Use the midweek semi to program pace not slower than 6.40. Then nowhere near that for longs eg 7.30+ or offroad/ldwa.

I knocked 10-15 min of my times in a matter of months when I stopped doing junk miles in that forbidden zone, reduced the miles and made the core workouts specific. I was also less tired all the time!

[cyclops]

Looking back my best road race pace for 5 miles is 6:05-6:10 per mile pace. Although on Saturday I did the last mile of an 8 mile trail race in 6:04 according to Strava. So with concentration on speed work I might be able to do 6 miles at 6 MPM.

Tahr

really dont trust strava for your stats, it plays havoc with mine and many others that i know. It has a habit of not calculating distance or time correctly and dont get me started on ascent. Use a watch to record and work out pace, not strava

[Nee Bother]

All good advice here, I was training well for BG way back and got offered a number for London, thought i could crack 3hrs on BG training and went well till 20 mile ish and the constant pace began to tell. I had to slow (which was great and I enjoyed the race) and finished in 3.04.
Basically trying to agree with above comments, you need the steady miles in at an even pace in your training.