Forums >Racing>2019 Sub 3 hour marathon thread
Swim: Shake off the 10k and look towards your half; your training has been going great so just keep on grinding.
Weather: Very nice week with some great Q sessions. You covered the T work really well on Tuesday and today more than took care of the M work. You said your 10:10 3k was not fast by any means.... that's relative, I would be thrilled with that result!
Finbad: Hope the quad is doing better.
My week went ok; I was happy with a track session of 1600m repeats, with most of them in the 5:44 range give or take. Then I had a rare double the next day, which was actually quite nice and I may try to continue that after the hard workout days. I was feeling a bit worn out for today's long run so just kept it very easy. I've got a 7.6 mile race in 2 weeks which should be a good measure of my fitness.
Weekly SummaryMonday, Feb 04, 2019 thru Sunday, Feb 10, 2019
2:52:16 (2018)
I've survived a really bad two weeks weather wise. We've had 3 snowstorms of ~6 inches each, 3 days with lows in the -30s, and freezing rain Wednesday night. I could have ice skated to and from work on Thursday and Friday.
But I hit my mileage goals (94 last week, 100 this week) and the major workouts (5 mile LAT, 10 miles at MP). For my MP run I went down to the indoor track and did 70 laps (this was after 10.5 miles on a treadmill). I was in Nashville for work for two days this past week so was able to do my LAT there where the weather was perfect.
Mother of Cats
Interesting discussion on MP workouts. Towards the end of my last cycle I was getting In nearly 23 miles at marathon effort a week. Sounds absurd but it isn’t when you are really running at the correct effort level.
I agree with your point about running at the correct effort level for marathon work. That's one of the reasons I personally prefer longer blocks of MP work (i.e. 2x5 miles) as opposed to shorter segments (like 4x2 miles). It's very hard to resist the siren call of running MP work too fast when you have shorter intervals. I see it regularly - people insert "3 miles at marathon pace" into the middle of their long run, and then have to slow down dramatically and catch their breath at the end of those 3 miles - an indicator that maybe that wasn't their marathon pace after all....
Swim - sometimes you have races that are so off that they clearly don't reflect on your fitness - the good news is that those are obviously outliers, so you can disregard them.
Weatherboy - I'd be pretty happy with that 13 mile workout also - bodes well, I think.
JTReeves - nice 1600s on Tuesday. 7.6 miles is an odd distance - why wouldn't they just have a 12K?
Madisonrunner - that sounds awful - ice is the worse. I'm stunned you hit your mileage goals despite that.
****
My week: 62 miles, 16 "miles" of pool-running, and 3000 yards of swimming: M: Yoga and 8 "miles" pool-runningT: 12 miles, including 2x1600, 2x800, 2x400 in 6:19, 6:09, 2:57, 2:54, 83, 81. Also leg strengthwork and 1000 yards recovery swimming.W: 8 miles very easy (9:08), yoga, and 4 miles very easy (8:59) plus drills/stridesTh: upper body weights/core and 8 "miles" pool-running.F: 12 miles, including an 8K tempo on the track in 33:04 (6:44/6:36/6:37/6:36/6:30). Also leg strengthwork and 1000 yards recovery swimming.Sa: 10 miles very easy (8:36) followed by drills and strides, and then upper body weights/core and some DIY yogaSu: 16 miles progressive - first 5 miles averaging 8:39, next 5 miles averaging 7:36, last 6 miles averaging 6:55. Followed with injury prevention work and 1000 yards recovery swimming.
Everyone's gotta running blog; I'm the only one with a POOL-RUNNING blog.
And...if you want a running Instagram where all the pictures are of cats, I've got you covered.
Mmmm Bop
Interesting discussion on MP workouts. Towards the end of my last cycle I was getting In nearly 23 miles at marathon effort a week. Sounds absurd but it isn’t when you are really running at the correct effort level. I ran 2x40:00 tempos in the AM on wed and fri which then led to threshold intervals in the afternoon. Always had 60-65 minutes of Mp work at the end of the LR every week. Moral of the story is you can pile a ton of MP work in in a week if you manage it fairly well. Down for a lackluster 10k yesterday mon 8 with 8x1:00 at functional threshold power at sea level (5:45) tue 8 at 8:15 back in flag wed 6 with 4x1:00 at FTP (5:42) thurs 4 8:02 fri 3 at 8:00 sat 9.2 with a terrible 37:45 10k. Nearly closed the last 10k at CIM faster. First 10k race ever sun 8 8:15 11 weeks until the Eugene Half. I’m ready to get back to work and stop screwing around. My half PR is way to old now.
Interesting discussion on MP workouts. Towards the end of my last cycle I was getting In nearly 23 miles at marathon effort a week. Sounds absurd but it isn’t when you are really running at the correct effort level. I ran 2x40:00 tempos in the AM on wed and fri which then led to threshold intervals in the afternoon. Always had 60-65 minutes of Mp work at the end of the LR every week. Moral of the story is you can pile a ton of MP work in in a week if you manage it fairly well.
Down for a lackluster 10k yesterday
mon 8 with 8x1:00 at functional threshold power at sea level (5:45)
tue 8 at 8:15 back in flag
wed 6 with 4x1:00 at FTP (5:42)
thurs 4 8:02
fri 3 at 8:00
sat 9.2 with a terrible 37:45 10k. Nearly closed the last 10k at CIM faster. First 10k race ever
sun 8 8:15
11 weeks until the Eugene Half. I’m ready to get back to work and stop screwing around. My half PR is way to old now.
I’m curious to know why you had a terrible run?...your training paces are always awesome...but you always seem to race badly?
5k - 17:53 (4/19) 10k - 37:53 (11/18) Half - 1:23:18 (4/19) Full - 2:50:43 (4/19)
Man your a great guy. Pretty sure my back half at CIM is nearly your half PR but I don’t spend my time stepping all over you. Let’s be honest your just a jackass
HM: 1/17 1:18:53. FM: 12/18 2:46:04
Thank you
Oh wait yeah it is faster then your PR. Read above I modified my comment because your just a trolling ass
Dude, you ran a 10k about 10 seconds faster than my November 10k race and I’m nearly dead. Get real.
RIP Milkman
Swim - I wouldn’t worry about the 10K. I find that I do better in longer distances as well, e.g. my 10K is within a 10 mile run. You’ve been putting up monster weeks, and also not exactly perfect 10K training (or tapering), so why would you do amazing? I think you run a ton of quality each week and unless you specifically trained for a 10K, you’re not going to get a time that correlates well with your marathon. Just forget about it and get back to the great training you’ve been doing.
Weather - Please stay healthy. With my horrible cycle and Finbad posting on Strava that he may have a quad issue, we need you in Boston! Your training has been great and you are having an unbelievable cycle with no real hiccups.
JT - You get the most underrate marathon prep award on this thread. You are sneakily putting in a great cycle and just need to keep plugging away (without the dreaded calf issues) and you will be sitting pretty for sub 2:50.
Madison - I can’t believe that mileage with your weather! Looks like things have stabilized here in the northeast, I hope your weather is more normal going forward. We aren’t out of the woods yet, but we passed our coldest time of the year and every day’s average is slightly higher than the previous day!
Dw - Your week was very backloaded, very interesting. Regarding your MP comments, I can’t see the benefit of running something like 4x2 @ MP. Even Pfitz questions cruise intervals instead of long tempos. I guess just pure practice at pace? I think the minimum I would at marathon pace is either 10 straight, or 2x6.
Me - quite a roller coaster week. I tweaked my calf on my run on Monday as stated earlier. After buying a heating pad and an electric massager (I was in full panic mode), things have recovered nicely. I can’t believe how exponential it was. Tuesday, I went out and within less than 100 feet, I felt like I was going to collapse from how weak/painful my calves were. I took Wednesday off and gave it a go again on Thursday, where I had to shut it down after 2 miles due to pain and cabbed it home from Central Park. By Friday, I was able to complete 6, but still with some pain. By Saturday, it was basically back to normal, with a confirming run on Sunday that everything was good to go with very minor or zero pain. Very different than my PTT injury, but as alluded to earlier on this thread, much better to have a muscle injury than a tendon/ligament injury.
I’m going to give it a go on a quality day tomorrow. This cycle has been complete shit and I feel like I’ve basically run out of time for Boston, but I still want to see if there’s some fitness there and maybe I can sneakily reach my goal of a PR. I think I’m averaging around 40 MPW at this point over the last 2 months, which isn’t going to cut it.
5K: 16:37 (11/20) | 10K: 34:49 (10/19) | HM: 1:14:57 (5/22) | FM: 2:36:31 (12/19)
Weather - very nice long run and especially 3k
JT - great consistent week again
Madison - you must have a your life pretty well planned to hit your miles in those conditions. Great work
Swim - does the alternating between sea level and altitude muck you around at all? Did you just blow up?
Me
Nice steady down week with one piece of stupidity that came with punishment
M: 4 easy
T: 14 w. 5x 1M (5:37-47) pouring rain
W: 7 easy
T: 8 with 7x hill efforts & 4 easy
F: 10 & 3
S: jog
S: 4x5k @MP aborted after 2.5 reps
A reiteration of the lesson of knowing what the purpose of every workout is. I got drawn into running harder than I should with a friend on Friday (7:09 average) after hard hill work on Thursday and then assumed that the quad niggle was nothing serious. Two of the 5k MP efforts on Sunday were fine and 6:09 pace felt about right, then I had to bail out as quad pain just ramped up. Today stairs suck but generally it's not too bad, I think probably tendon aggravation. Anyone had something similar and has rehab tips, I'd love to hear them. Plan for this week (an ongoing) is just to get it right and not run before I'm ready.
Upcoming; 14th Sep Scottish veterans XC trials, 289th Sep Great Scottish Run 1/2, 12th October TAMA half marathon, 27th October Leeds Abbey dash 10k
Hey Folks! I've been lurking enough that I should actually chip something in.
I'm ZZCaptainObvious (long, dull story), a 20something healthcare IT analyst in Madison, WI (yep, the ice is awful this year). I've been running on and off (mostly on) since 2008 (middle school track yeyeye) and moved back to Madison after college out in Worcester. Current marathon PR is 3:08:02 at Madison 2018, so I'm going for Boston 2020.
First crack is Illinois Marathon at the end of April. Training has been meh at best, but the winter has been rugged.
2/4-2/10 Recap: 42.4 mi total; 5:20:39.
7.1 easy; 5.1 easy; 6.2 tempo (2.85 in 20 minutes in a driving freezing drizzle); Off (roads were bad and I was lazy); Off (too cold... and lazy); 14 long (as many loops as mentally possible in the Stoner Prairie neighborhood); 10 MLR (medium-long run, same "route" as Saturday).
good luck to everyone!
Swim - nice week & 10k. Awesome you're doing Eugene. Such a fun place to race!
weather - great looking big mileage week there - i saw a few IG stories of the weather at melbourne - didn't look fun!
JTR - very nice week w/ the 20 miler & mile repeat session
madison - awesome mileage there. those are some bigtime workouts.
darkwave - Impressive 3 quality sessions in a good looking week
JMac - glad you were able to recover nicely - think there's still time before boston to see fitness gains
finbad - ive learned that lesson a few times, but yet always seem to forget it. hope the quad heals up quickly this week
captain - welcome! good mileage on the weekend. any tune up races before illinios?
My week: Coach had me take last weekend off after a niggle in the right hammy. Came into this week feeling pretty fresh. Was weird to run on a monday (normally a rest day). Thankfully no residual issues popped up. Had a good quality session of hills and a long run with a bunch of work at half marathon effort in strong winds on Saturday. Couple big weeks left before racing my first half marathon in 18 months. Getting excited!
Yeah! I'm going to run a 5k and 10k the first week of March (and probably run there and back, since it's relatively close). Outside of that, I might run a casual 10k the week before the marathon, but that's really more a training jog because it's (again) right by my house.
JT: Those 5 X 1600 repeats were really impressive. Liking how you progressed with your speed! I like to double quite a bit after a big quality day. It seems like alot of miles at first, but I feel like if you go easy enough you almost feel better late in the 2nd day.
Madison: Huge week yet again. Simply impressive the amount of volume you put in especially with your weather.
Fin: Hope the quad niggle comes around. Still lots of fitness right now so take care of that sooner rather than later.
JMac: Hope you can get some consistency going over the next few weeks so that a PR is still possible. Based on your last workout still looked like there is some pretty good fitness going on. Also agree and hoping I can string togther another few months and make it to Boston healthy.DW: Nice big week and a stellar looking weekend to boot!
Jay: Awesome week. Liking that HMP workout you threw down the other day. Glad the hammy is behaving. Looking promoising in a few weeks.
Welcome Captain!
1mile: 4:46 (12/20) | 5K: 15:57 (3/21) | 10K: 33:40 (4/20) | 15K 51:43 (4/21) | HM: 1:15:03 (12/20) | FM: 2:40:30 (1/20)
Stotan Disciple
Harder on the body or a better marathon workout? B for the former, A for the latter. nimmalS- Maybe I'm not reading this correctly, but isn't your teammate Ronald J looking to pace 2:55 at Boston?
Harder on the body or a better marathon workout? B for the former, A for the latter.
nimmalS- Maybe I'm not reading this correctly, but isn't your teammate Ronald J looking to pace 2:55 at Boston?
Ron J is no longer my teammate btw. I love Ron like a brother. I try to guide him but the guy is obtusely stubborn.
He has never run 1 good Boston. Look at 2017 he did the unforgivable.... he started yelling at me like I was the one who put rollers in the first 5k. I was cracking up he almost had a nervous breakdown when he saw the early rollers. Then at 3 miles he said he was done??? WTF. I know he is pacing some other races at 2:55. But he is suppose to be racing Boston. I am having a singlet I made for him, so he better not be dicking around. I am taking the singlets to get done up tomorrow.
Check out his sunday run he demolished my segment. I was very proud of him as I had invited him to do my 20 miler with me on sat. if he can replicate that I'd give him a lifetime supply of beers. all he has to do is replicate that pace for entire boston 26.2.
Thinking should be done first, before training begins.