You Rang?
I run the marathon because it is a standard road racing distance. I also race/run flat out one 5k every year too. I don't specialize in one distance or the other. It's just running and I just run.
As others have stated above, if you want to run the marathon, I'd find a full marathon with a longer cutoff than 5:30. The common math for a marathon finishing time is to double a half marathon finishing time and then add 20 minutes. And I think that math considers/assumes adequate conditioning, experience and training. I went into my first marathon with a 2:16 Half Marathon PR and finished it in 5:29. Eight months later after changing my training plans, I finished my second marathon in 5:37 minutes after bonking hard and walking the last two miles.
Best of luck with your decision.
Rick
PR: 5k 25:01 (10/15) 10k: 57:44 (7/14) HM: 1:57 (5/15) FM: 4:55 (1/15)
delicate flower
My only suggestion is to think how you felt after your last half marathon; now imagine that you're only half way done.
You run the first half of your marathons at HM race effort?
<3
I was thinking something similar. At my last half, as we passed the 10 mile marker, I joked to the guy next to me saying, "Ok time for 5k race pace!" He replied, "You first."
Quote from Baboon on 1/19/2015 at 5:16 PM:
That's not what he meant. He was commenting on the lack of aerobic fitness by running an additional 13.1 miles. More people are hoping to only cover the distance than race the distance.
Youth Has No Age. ~ Picasso / 1st road race: Charleston Distance Run 15 Miler - 1974 / profile
The common math for a marathon finishing time is to double a half marathon finishing time and then add 20 minutes.
Whatever happened to the double your half and add ten minutes? That was common 20 years ago. My 1st half marathon race was 1:36:58 for a hot, hilly and humid August race. Three months later I completed my 1st BQ attempt [5th marathon] in 3:18:36. * This was my 1st year back to serious training, gaining quite a bit of fitness between those two races. The following year I ran 1:32 for the same half and 3:13 ** for the same marathon. Much closer to the projection.
* 22 week schedule / one 19 miler / two 20 milers / one 22 miler - 35.3 mpw average / 1394 miles for the year.
** 19 week schedule / two 18 milers / two 20 milers / one 21 miler / one 22 miler - 44.4 mpw average / 1600 miles for the year.
Quote from Baboon on 1/19/2015 at 5:16 PM: That's not what he meant. He was commenting on the lack of aerobic fitness by running an additional 13.1 miles. More people are hoping to only cover the distance than race the distance.
He said none of that though.
True. Knowing the poster's profile I gave him a bit more credit.
Whatever happened to the double your half and add ten minutes? That was common 20 years ago.
And in the last 20 years the popularity of running has exploded. Participation in marathons has increased from those who are pretty good at distance running to include folks who are pretty good a making a costume and those who are pretty good at raising money for LLS or a similar charity. With the likes of Jeff "run-walk-run" Galloway and John "The Penguin" Bingham making more people think that they could finish a marathon, and the emergence of races as less of a celebration of athleticism and more of a community event centered around a theme, an extra ten minutes snuck into the formula.
KillJoyFuckStick
Bingo.
No, I don't run the first half of a marathon at HM pace. For the newb runner (we were all new once) 99% of the time it is just about covering the distance at varying speeds according to ability. Read 90-95% of first-time marathon race reports and you'll find "suckfests" from miles 16-18 to the finish, self included.
OP runs about 20 MPW for the past year. I'm just suggesting she might want to question herself if she really wants to partake in the suckfest that lasts anywhere between 2-3 or more hours.
You people have issues
on my way to badass
Still waiting for the perfect race picture. 5K PR-33:52 , 10K PR 1:11:16, First HM 2:42:28
Here is my personal opinion regarding MY own racing. I try not to be judgemental when it comes to other people's running and way of doing.
I have been running 30 mpw in the last 10 weeks (including 2x20 milers and a 10 miler at very close to a decent HMP). Doing more miles would have been difficult for me because I am suffering from lack of energy presently. Based on that, I decided that I was not ready to do the marathon I had signed for. It was this past Sunday and I traveled for it. The decision was a hard one and I did a lot of soul searching and it made me feel very unhappy after, but I think I made the right call for me. I prefer losing $120.00 in registration fees rather than try something that would have been accomplished on what I consider not a solid base. To me, it's not really always about speed, or being faster than before (if it were, I would have stopped racing in 2013), but it should always (well maybe not always, but most of the time...) be about a job well done under the present circumstances. 30 mpw for a marathon isn't ideal in my experience. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe for a first it's okay. Maybe I just can't remember what my first was like and I'm now talking like a snobby old runner...
PRs: Boston Marathon, 3:27, April 15th 2013
Cornwall Half-Marathon, 1:35, April 27th 2013
18 marathons, 18 BQs since 2010
Oh and I like marathons simply because I pretty much suck at most other distances...
Next year I will in a new age group with a huge birthday. A revision to this plan could be to ramp up, train hard for a goal HM this year and plan on the FM for my big 5-0 year. Along the way I want to work on some other distance PRs.
Good call.
Are we there, yet?
Jay, Lurch and DR (among others) have inspired me to at least consider a FM. I looked at the Hal Higdon Novice plan and it looks like something I could manage time wise. What say you all? I'm looking at 5.5 hours give or take. Really, what is the point of running a marathon? Just to say you did it? To do penance for some horrible crime? JK. When does the madness end and you stop going longer distances? Let's hear it!
Jay, Lurch and DR (among others) have inspired me to at least consider a FM. I looked at the Hal Higdon Novice plan and it looks like something I could manage time wise. What say you all? I'm looking at 5.5 hours give or take.
Really, what is the point of running a marathon? Just to say you did it? To do penance for some horrible crime? JK. When does the madness end and you stop going longer distances? Let's hear it!
The reasons for running a marathon are as varied as the backgrounds of those who run them. When I started running I wasn't interested in racing any farther than 2-miles and the marathon wasn't even a serious enough consideration for me to say I was never running one. That changed when I learned that Boston was going to implement qualifying standards and it looked like a now or never opportunity to run Boston since I didn't expect to ever be able to meet a BQ and that was the last year I could enter without one. Boston was the only marathon I considered running at that time. Nothing else would offer enough incentive to suffer through 26.2 miles. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be - some future marathons were a lot harder and more miserable - but I eventually migrated back to my first love, racing on the track and 5K road races.
Now slower and older, I just began running ultras less than 2 years ago and I'm about your anticipated pace for the marathon. You have a long way to go to be able to beat a 5:30 cutoff time. I would suggest you find another marathon with a more liberal cutoff time or put it off for a year. My most recent HM was a 2:21:30 a year ago and my best marathon in the past 2 years was 5:30:00 exactly. That was on 30-35 mpw for the marathon and about 40 mpw for the HM.
For me obviously the madness has not ended as I started running ultras 43 years after my first marathon. Sometimes it just takes a while to realize that. I now have 50M and 100K in my sights.
2024 Races:
03/09 - Livingston Oval Ultra 6-Hour, 22.88 miles
05/11 - D3 50K, 9:11:09 06/17 - 6 Days in the Dome 12-Hour.
Your half marathon time is better than your marathon time. (as is mine).