I read on the 2011 Goal of Sub-3:00 Marathon thread that Baddawg achieved an impressive marathon PR of 2:56:38 at Boston.
Congratulations.
Being curious I checked out his workout log today (yea ok I'm a troll) and what did I find? He ran a sub 20min 5k race the day after his marathon PR! I was impressed by (and envious of) the 2:56:38 marathon, and I'm amazed at the recovery that made a 5k race the day after even possible. Fantastic.
I hope it is all down to those regular HMs and that I can get a piece of that action too when I have a go at a sub 3hr marathon next Saturday.
Running - cheaper than therapy
You have to listen carefully to your body to be safe, but if your body doesn't rebel then I think running (easy) about two hours on a regular basis can only help your racing at any distance. Impossible to really quantify the impact, but I'm quite certain that it played a role in my two half marathons on Monday.
The sub-20 5k the next night wasn't as bad as you might imagine, felt better than walking down stairs.
I'm looking forward to your race report Ian, the very best of luck to you!
E.J.Greater Lowell Road RunnersCry havoc and let slip the dawgs of war!May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your SPF30, may the rains fall soft upon your sweat-wicking hat, and until you hit the finish line may The Flying Spaghetti Monster hold you in the hollow of His Noodly Appendage.
It's almost next Saturday...
Saturday's been and gone.. Unfortunately I didn't make it to my sub 3 hr goal. I finished in 3:02:17.
I had an OK first half - 45 sec ahead of target at 1:29:15, but it got too hot near the end and I faded badly. The second half took me 1:33:02 for a (disappointing) positive split of 3:47.
At the 39 km mark I was still (just) on target for sub 3 hrs, but the temperature had climbed up to 20 deg C (68F) - and got to 21C (70F) by the end. My engine just lost too much power. The last 3km seemed like a death march with the world closing in around me - but I made it to the finish.
5k splits (target 21:20 for sub 3hr): 20:55, 20:23, 20:32, 21:22, 20:50, 21:33, 22:07, 23:07, then 11:28 for the last 2.2km
I'm probably mad, but I'm already signed up for another sub 3hr attempt on October 30th. I'm going to get that 3hr monster off my back...The next one (Auckland Marathon) is a flatter course run earlier in the day so should be cooler.
After a massage and a bit of sustenance I wasn't feeling too bad so I had great fun doing half a dozen luge rides with my son - 1km downhill with 100m fall all over in 2:10. Check here for a fun way to use a GPS. It tells me I peaked at 60 km/hr! Can't do that using my legs and running shoes.
Oooops, calendar malfunction on my part. I was a little disappointed in my attempt at Hartford last fall, but couldn't be too disappointed with with 3:02:25. My race sounds eerily like yours, was on target until late in the race but fell off as the temperature rose and my legs tired. I just wasn't strong enough over the last 10k.
With a small sample size (8 marathons completed) and many variables, it's so hard to figure out what works and what doesn't. But the learning process sure is fun.
About the only thing I think I'm sure of is you can hope for good conditions, and be mentally tough, have a fabulous plan but your fitness is a hard limit. You can't outrun your fitness. So we train to improve our fitness, and hope the planets line up. Keep up the work that you've been putting in Ian, and you'll move your fitness meter to the point that no matter what the other factors are you'll get your goal. I don't doubt it for a moment.
Congrats on your race, and on the great day that followed!
Having just run a 3:03:33 I can relate, just a little. I haven't been running long enough and certainly haven't run enough marathons to complain about it. Regardless, every time someone asks how I did it's hard to answer politely because I only think about missing my goal. I hope you don't have the same annoying voice in the back of your mind that distracts you from what was an excellent run on a tough day.
Here's the upside. If you, like me, aren't banged up it can only serve as more motivation to keep the fitness rolling and increase it for October.
Here's to more and more halfs. Cheers!
Thanks for your sympathetic words.
I like to put a positive spin on things so after some number crunching I've found out how to explain this year's time asa good one. I compared my time with the first 10 people to finish this year who also ran 2 years ago (I was the 7th of the 10). Our average time this year was 4:01 slower than 2 years ago - so my 1:57 slow-down was actually 2:04 minutes BETTER than average.
So... last time I ran 3:00:21, less the 2:04 relative improvement and it means that I sort of did 2:58:17! I'll call it my virtual sub 3. If I could just have put this year's fitness into the weather from 2 years ago... If only.