Sub 3 hour Marathon.

[alwaysinjured]

Well next year's London marathon will be a big wake up call for me. I've checked back through my strava log for this year and, so far, I have done exactly 2 (yes 2!!) 'pacey' runs. The first was a lunchtime run along the canal in Leeds and even that had a hill of sorts in the middle and the second was the relatively unhilly Commondale Beacon fell race a couple of weeks ago. This and this. I found the canal run easyish mind although the fell race was a fair old gut buster. Sub 3 hrs 30 might be a sensible goal for me

Since when did water flow 300 feet uphill
Using the 500 feet a mile formula, that run of yours was worth 7 min pace maybe.

As saz says (PS she is marathon royalty! even now in the top handful on the ladies UK all time marathon list!!) - doubt if she ever ran so slow as 3hours even in training. She actually won an open marathon, beat all the men too.

Hard to judge until you do some actual hard surfaces
Roads are a two edged sword.

On the one hand, it allows spring return to your stride so that you run faster than on more absorbent surfaces, on the other that constant pounding can give serious injury problems, unless you introduce it gradually. I have seen off road runners going on road suffer other stuff like shin splints, ITB syndrome, and achilles problems too.

I think saz was more or less put out of marathons because of back troubles arising from the hard surface, but still carried on to do stunning performances on the fell, where the surface is more forgiving. (hope she does not mind me saying so!)

Off topic, if you watch the london, you can see the ones who use treadmills to train, by long lollopy overstriding, because of the extra bounce they are used to. They never last much past half way either! That said - Powerjogs (if they are still made) always a hard bed, and I could reproduce my performances on treadmills on the roads with them.

So (I think- saz may disagree, and if she does, listen to her) in my programme above, as a bare minimum, the semilong , long intervals and pace session need all to be on the road. Some of the longs can be off road, where it is about extending endurance limits whilst continuous running, which is why LDWA is better than fell.

BTW - Try dismantled railway paths. There are some brilliant ones for off road longs!

[saz]

Would not disagree with that, I probably did too much on roads early on, everyone is of course different, but making sure you are comfortable running at pace on flat decent surfaces is key in my experience

s