Okay, I'm making progress on my running over the last year and a half and just signed up for my first marathon. The Flying Pig on May 5, 2013. I ran my first half marathon back on April 28, 2012 and beat my goal time of a sub 2 hour with a 1:55:43. I've been running pretty steady over the summer and just logged my 8th month with 100+ miles. I've been averaging 30 miles per week with some speedwork mixed in once a week and a 12ish mile long run typically. My wife is the runner in the family and has been pretty much running all her life. She has run 5 marathons before, but her last one was 10 years ago. Her times were from a 4:47 to a 5:10 on them. She has continued to run and has done several half marathons and ran the last one with me back in April and ran a 2:10:15 which wasn't very far off of her times 10 years ago she ran a 2:08 and 2:03 mixed in when she was running her marathons.What I'm thinking is that it would be great for us to run my first marathon together and I would like to try to help her break the 4:30 mark. If I was going to run by myself I would think I could get somewhere in the 4:00 range and would spend a lot of time and effort working toward that and stressing about it. I'm thinking if I just focused on helping her break 4:30 it would lead to a more enjoyable time for me and maybe be a big help having someone running with her the entire race to help her break 4:30.She was working full time and coaching back when she ran her marathons and now she is a stay at home mom and our son has just started school this year so I think she will have more time than ever to train and could have a really good shot at it. She's 42 so still plenty young enough to make this happen. I think I might want her to break 4:30 more than she does though.So that huge long intro to ask if this is something that sounds like it would work or should we just train for it and run our own race when the time comes? That's what we did on my first half marathon back in April and it worked pretty well. I made my goal time, she just ran and enjoyed herself and we both had a good time, we just didn't run the actual race together.Any thoughts?
Age: 50 Weight: 224 Height: 6'3" (Goal weight 195)
Current PR's: Mara 3:14:36* (2017); HM 1:36:13 (2017); 10K 43:59 (2014); 5K 21:12 (2016)
Life is short, man. Running a marathon with your wife might be a once in a lifetime chance. It's still a marathon and I'm sure the last 3-4 miles will be tough for both of you---but when you get to the end, it will be sweet, and it will be an event in yours lives that you made happen together that you'll never forget. And you won't ever be looking back and saying "I should have run with her" or "I should have stayed with her." Nothing wrong with running your own race, but that leaves you with another past to look at. Which memory do you want to create? is always the question.
Break on through
Go ahead and run together if the pace is comfortable for both of you. You probably shouldn't assume that 4:30 will be easy for you, since you haven't run the marathon distance yet. It may be... but it's not a given. There can be some surprises when you move up in distance.
"Not to touch the Earth, not to see the Sun, nothing left to do but run, run, run..."
Thanks for the input guys. I do need to make sure a sub 4:30 goal is something she wants more than something I want for her. She has mentioned it several times, but I think to make it she will have to really want it and put in more training than she ever has before. I think she could do it if she wanted to and I think it would help if I was there alongside her, but the key ingredient is that she would have to want it.
I'm kind of in a no mans land on what I want to do for my first marathon so I was hoping that I could just go with the helping her get to a 4:30 angle. I just am not the kind of person that would want to just run whatever I ended up running, I would be setting a goal and really working at it and I would be looking at something in the sub 4 hour range and then potentially be disappointed if I didn't make it. I was thinking it would allow me to just enjoy my first marathon if I ran it with her at whatever pace she could handle instead of worrying about a goal time for me.
It's 6 months away though so we have plenty of time to figure it out!
Any thoughts on setting this up and running the marathon with her as just a really long training run for me and then running another one for real 3 or 4 weeks later and try to go sub 4 hours on that one?
Thanks, Nathan
Well, I'm leaning toward just running my race and her running her race and we will see each other at the finish line.
Leaning toward a Hanson type plan with some speedwork on Tuesdays and a Marathon Pace run on Thursdays with the Long run on Sundays each week peaking around 60 mpw.
Calculators say I should be able to go anywhere from 3:40 to 4:00 for the marathon based on my latest race times so I'll probably shoot for somewhere in the middle of that and start out with my MP runs being around 8:45 pace.
Tenatively have the training plan put together and will start on it the first of January. My work schedule is going to mess it up, but I will try to always get in the key workouts and work around the easy days if I have to.
Going with the weekly volume theory and my longest run will only be 18 miles on the plan right now.
Still haven't completely ruled out running this marathon with her as a long training run for me and then running another later in the year though. I just haven't found another one that really jumps out at me as a goal marathon.
I'd go with what work for you two during your first half. It would take more self-control than I have to do your first as just a training run.
At least if you decided ahead of time to run your own races, you wouldn't face the grim prospect of promising to run with her, and then possibly dropping her later in the race.
That wouldn't play well for most of use married types.
Joe1775
I'm in for the Flying Pig. It'll be my 16th marathon. I'm looking forward to this as it looks well organized and a lot of fun!
I ran my first marathon at the Flying Pig this year. It's an awesome experience, with great crowd support. Don't underestimate the hills though. Miles 6 to 9 are all uphill and there are a few more in the second half of the race. I think I saw somewhere you should figure on being 3:18 slower on this course vs a flat course. A lot of runners underestimate the big hill and blow too much energy on it. I would advise slowing to a 9:30 pace in mile 6-9. You'll make up the time later and really lower the risk of bonking late. That strategy worked well for me. My goal was to break 4 hours as well, and I did it in 3:53:24. Do some hill training, and you'll have a good shot at your goal, as long as the weather cooperates. It was hot last year - mid 60's at the start, 74 when I finished at 10:25 am.
Looks like we are going. Booked our hotel and flights over the weekend. Flying in that Saturday and then flying home Sunday afternoon.
Started my first week of my training plan last week and am going to try to follow the Hanson Plan as closely as I can. Just a couple races thrown in the mix that I'm having to alter the plan for a little.
Really looking forward to the marathan, although the 60 miles a week during my busy season at work aren't looking quite as appealing.
Sorry if I missed this in an earlier post - have you run together at other distances to test your running compatibility? What's the plan if one is feeling better than the other on race day?
Houston Marathon 1-13-13
Rock n Roll St. Pete Half 2-10-13
Gasparilla 15K 2-23-13
Armadillo 10K 3-9-13
Ogden Marathon 5-18-13
Steamtown?
Baystate?
The Goal: Boston Marathon 4-20-15
Sorry, I guess I never did 100% clarify my final decision, but we are going to run separately on the marathon. I never could get her to commit to trying for a 4:30 so I'm going to go for my target of sub 4 hours and she's just going to run to finish.
We ran 8 miles together over the weekend and it was nice, but I was running a little slower than I was supposed to in my plan and she was running a little faster than she wanted although she really doesn't have a plan yet. It was still fun to run together and it worked out fine.
I run with my wife once a week and it works well. We run on a day that's a recovery day for me and a tempo run for her. It works out well and keeps me from running too fast, which can sometimes be a problem for me on my recovery days.
Good luck at the "Pig", I'll be there again as we'll. Hopefully it'll be a little cooler this year.
4 more days until my first marathon! Getting pretty nervous and excited all at the same time.
My wife ended up with Mono and has been out of commission for almost all of 2013. At one point we switched her to the half thinking she might be able to recover in time to run that, but she's not going to be able to. She's just now getting to where she can jog a mile so it's going to take a big effort on her part just to go with me for moral support.
I'm pretty proud of the work I've done so far in 2013 and think I've put in the training to go sub 4 hours, but we'll find out on Sunday. So far the weather forecast is looking pretty good, a little on the humid side, but I think I'll take clouds and humidity over warm, windy and sunny.
Thought I would update this with my results. Ended up with an official time of 3:48:09. Had a tiny 59 second negative split.
Here's my race report. It's a novel.
http://www.runningahead.com/forums/post/647ef8c8d2df40f2bdae1c741b00009e#focus