Forums >Racing>2019 Sub 3 hour marathon thread
I'm in for 2019.
My bio:
I'm 38, married, with an 8 year old son. I live in Madison, WI (thus the username). I first broke 3 in 2002 at Boston (2:55) and didn't break it again (despite many attempts) until 2010. In 2011 I had a big breakthrough and ran 2:39 at CIM. I finally set a new PR last October (2:37).
I'm racing the Milwaukee Marathon in April and I think I can get in shape to run low 2:30s. I'll be starting a Pfitz 12 week plan on 1/14.
I run commute so that and a long run on the weekend are the bulk of my training. I use Eric's awesome running log here on Running Ahead so I don't use Strava.
I only have 2 cats (and no desire for any more ).
Mother of Cats
So..here's my first week of 2019: A bit jumbled both because I'm not yet really seriously training, and also because getting sick in the early part of the week mucked stuff up. 53 miles of running, 6 "miles" pool-running, and some other stuff.
M: 12 miles, including a workout of 2 miles, ~1.5 miles, 1 mile at half-marathon effort. 2:00 recovery after the 2 mile; bathroom break plus 60 second recovery after the ~1.5 (which was why it was ~1.5 and not 2....). Splits were 13:17 (6:43/6:34); 9:12 for 1.41 (6:31 and then 6:34 pace for the .41), and 6:30. Also leg-strengthwork/injury prevention work and recovery swimming.
T: sick. Nothing.
W: 8 miles very easy (9:14)
Th: 10 miles very easy (9:18); also drills, strides. Later did upper body strengthwork/core.F: 11 miles, including a hill workout - 7 repeats of a hill loop (~2 minutes up, ~90 second recovery, ~30 second stride, ~60 second recovery to bottom). Also leg-strengthwork/injury prevention work and recovery swimming.
Sa: 4 "miles" pool-running in the morning. In the afternoon, a swimming drills clinic and 2 "miles" pool-running, and then upper body strengthwork/core.
Su: 12 miles aerobic and slightly progressive - averaged 7:45 for the run, with most miles in the mid-7's. Started with two easy miles at 9:25 and 8:33; ended with 2 hard miles at 6:59 and 6:54. Also leg-strengthwork/injury prevention work and 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.
Ok, the race table has been added now to the first page. As new people join I will add them in. Also, if you decide on additional races or goals or to change anything just let me know and I will update it accordingly.
Madison: Your 2:37/2:39 double last fall was incredible. I'm glad to see you are going for it this spring!
Darkwave: Sorry to hear about the illness but looks like you bounced back pretty quickly. Strong runs to begin and end the week. For not yet training seriously this looks really good to me
My week went well. I did 2 quality runs on the treadmill so if my calf acted up I wouldn't need to limp home. 4 x 1 mile repeats Tuesday, progressively faster (6:31, 6:23, 6:15, 6:07), then a straight tempo Saturday at 6:23 pace. My calf was absolutely fine, even on a fairly hilly long run today. I hope I've put that injury past me for good.
Weekly SummaryMonday, Dec 31, 2018 thru Sunday, Jan 06, 2019
2:52:16 (2018)
Great bios. Forgot to add I swam collegiately at a pretty high level which I think helped out running wise even though I didn’t start until 11 years after I stopped swimming
dark wave. Love the other stuff you do throughout your week
JT. Glad the calf is feeling good. Solid week
me 55 total. Got stuck on the treadmill for 3 days due to all the snow we got up here. I have no clue how people regularly run on them. If I get lucky I can go years without getting on one.
Mon 6 with strides 8:17
tue 6 with strides 8:14
wed 10 with 30 min at marathon power (6:28)
thurs 6 8:14
fri 10 with 30 min at marathon power (6:26)
sat SRD
sun 17 as 12 easy then 10x1:00 at 5k power (5:20)
2 min off. Solid week. Nothing spectacular
HM: 1/17 1:18:53. FM: 12/18 2:46:04
powered by plants
Yup...more people getting sick. This really has been a tough year for that. Here I am 2 weeks from coming down with it and I'm still not 100%. Crazy.
My week:
M- 9 easy
T- 11 with 4 sets of 4x200 in 40 with 200 jog and 1 min extra between sets
W- 10 jog
T- am 8 w/ 10x :30 strides, pm 3 easy
F- 8 jog
S- 10 with 10k race in 38:05. I wanted, obviously, to be much closer to 37, but getting sick took much more out of me than I wanted to admit going in. That said, I did beat two of my teammates who are consistently ahead of me, including one who just ran 2:48 at CIM. Not quite ready to pack it in yet for the season, but I need to kick this stupid cough/virus if I'm going to have a good half in a couple weeks.
S- 16 with a hard second half. Ran 7:50s for the first 8 and then hard effort the second 8.
76 for the week.
5k: 17:52 (2014); 10k 36:59 (2014); 15k: 56:29 (2018); Half: 1:19:27* (2018); Full: 2:54:22 (2018)
*downhill AF
Steve: Very solid and a nice effort on the 10K especially considering the leftover cold or virus. Hope you continue to get stronger.
Swim: Nice looking week. Agree with sentiment on the treadmill runs.
JT: Very nice building week, a solid workout, and nice LR on Sunday. Looks like you have rounded the corner!
Darkwave: Hope you are feeling better. Very nice and balanced week though.
Madison: Nice bio. I'm insipired by your crazy jump in speed in the marathon though. Think it was the mileage or something else?
Me: We are at less than about 100 days until Boston 2019, so another solid training week is in the books. Brought the volume down just a touch compard to last week, but the quality of the 2 workout days was still there for sure. Really pleased with my big mixed LR/workout where I believe I was able to crack under 1:20 for 13.1 or so miles in during the quality miles. Definitely credit the good weather where it was right around 50 which was a nice change for us! Other notable session was a nice hard session of 4 X 2 miles of threshold miles on the track on Wednesday. That is the 2nd such similar threshold session of this training block and they never get easier (especially the last rep), but am happy I finished strong on that one.
Weekly Summary Monday, Dec 31, 2018 thru Sunday, Jan 06, 2019
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)
RIP Milkman
Here's my bio, sorry for being so late to the party:
Male, aged 32, living in NYC with my wife. No kiddos yet, but we do have one doggo. Ran in high school with worse times than I have now, even at the 5K, so I wasn't very good. Tried training for one half marathon in 2013, which I ran a 1:43 in and proceeded to nearly pass out at the end of the race. I needed a volunteer to get me to a place to sit down.
After that terrible race, I took another year off but got back into things more seriously in 2014 when I decided I wanted to train for a marathon. This required me to run a bunch of smaller races as part of NYCM's 9+1 program, which guarantees entry into the race if you run 9 NYRR races the prior year.
I ran my first marathon in 3:12 in 2015. I told myself I would only run one of them because the training seemed so awful, but at the bar that night celebrating the race, I decided I was going to do another 9+1 qualification. After that, I was hooked to running in general.
Here is my mileage history
2015(est.): 1500
2016: 1281
2017: 1975
2018: 2123
For the marathon, I was able to run 2:54 in 2017 and 2:46 in 2018.
I've been setting new PRs each year (the beauty of slowly increasing your mileage I guess). This past year was another great year for me, setting new PRs in every single distance except the half marathon, which I didn't race at all.
Unfortunately I'm starting up 2019 just like I did 2018: on the disabled list with a foot/ankle issue. Once I get over this, my main goals for 2019 are to stay healthy and hopefully set some new PRs across all distances!
5K: 16:37 (11/20) | 10K: 34:49 (10/19) | HM: 1:14:57 (5/22) | FM: 2:36:31 (12/19)
weather, I am really pulling for you, but man oh man, I hope those workouts don't burn you out. I know I'm in the minority in thinking this, but I just don't think you need to run continuous M paced runs like that to get to peak form for a marathon. Also, 8 miles of T work earlier in the week...are you using the vdot paces from the book? Again, I may be in the minority on this, but I find those paces aggressive. Even using this weekend's lackluster 10k that's a 55 vdot on the nose. That gives me a 6:20 T pace. I don't think I could run 4x2M at 6:20. At least not at 5am.
1) is the Strava weekly thing mandatory or optional? I'd prefer not to use, since I do so much crosstraining and the entry ends up looking messy and hard to follow. ... Andres - Could the left leg issue be correlated with the right hammy thing in some way?
1) is the Strava weekly thing mandatory or optional? I'd prefer not to use, since I do so much crosstraining and the entry ends up looking messy and hard to follow.
...
Andres - Could the left leg issue be correlated with the right hammy thing in some way?
1. I certainly don't care about the format you put up your weeks, and to carry over a little from last year, there aren't too many rules here (or shouldn't be). If someone does care, might be a them problem. One thing that is helpful is to be able to look up some stats on certain workouts though. If you do post everything on Strava, and you don't mind having us/me follow, can you post a link to your profile? Or follow me and I'll follow back?
2. Definitely. When I'm not focused on it, I can feel my left leg drift in towards center. I can only assume it's psoas related and has to do with finally releasing whatever it was that was affecting my right side.
Solid week you put up there when you consider it was done while sick.
Madison - Crazy bio. It'll be cool to follow your training. Was it just a massive step up in training that took you from struggling to break 3 again, to getting under 2:40 a year later? Something else?
JT - Big weekend combo you managed. How did you decide on Athens, Ohio for your next marathon? I assume you're flying there?
Swim - Agree that it's a solid week, but I'm used to seeing you in the 110s! Do you have some of your other races for the year mapped out yet?
Steve - 76 while sick is big stuff. I guess you need to power through when you're a 4k per year type of runner. I had a virus several weeks back and noticed my HR and overall strength affected for several days after I felt like it had already cleared my system. No doubt that's what caused the slower 10k time. But was there something else about the course that made it slow? Doing slower than 38 off of a recent 2:48 seems a bit out of whack.
Mikkey - where you at?
Mon Dec 31
5.01
8:01
Morning Run
Wed Jan 02
6.01
8:08
Thu Jan 03
4.00
8:14
2up, weights, 2down
Fri Jan 04
8:12
Sat Jan 05
13.06
7:21
Sun Jan 06
8:40
40.10
7:58
Not much there. But I'm hoping to build from here. Having finally admitted to myself that I'm not ready to do anything serious in Houston in two weeks has helped. That way I don't need to worry about a down week before or after. This should give me plenty of time to get ready for a marathon in late April/early May. Still trying to figure out which one though.
Upcoming races: Boston
Lots to catch up on here!
Weather - your cycle has been great so far. Don't be shy: you should be aiming for 2:39. I know it may seem daunting but with the work you've been putting in, you have no excuses not to go for it. Also I don't think I really have a shot at it now with my injury, so you need to be the torchbearer of the sub 2:40!
Lela - I pulled this quote from you from last year's forum from you after I said "don't disappear!" Please stick around this time!
Thanks all, I really appreciate it! Also - I'm not going anywhere, cant get rid of me that easily!
Swim - I'm still seriously considering CIM, and now that my Boston training has hit the brakes, it's tempting me even more.
Andres - Your training has really picked up on Strava, here's hoping to a healthy year for you.
DW - Loved your quote about being good with grammar but abusing parentheticals. That is 100% me.
Steve - You've put in some crazy mileage, you can take some down time! I know when you're running high mileage a few days off seems like it will kill you, but 2 weeks is a long time to feel sick.
Me - Finally decided to test out my posterior tibialis tendinitis (PTT) on Saturday with a 4 mile run. It wasn't 100% pain free, but good enough that I felt like I could go for 6 the next day. My run on Sunday was completely pain free! It's very encouraging, but I know it's a long road back, and having witnessed all the recurring calf injuries and horror stories about PTT from people on this forum, I will be taking things easy. The injury is certainly not completely gone. It hurts sometimes just walking around, and especially when stretching the area or doing exercises. That's what led me to wait as long as I have to test it out, as I expect the pain to decrease more. I don't think that pain will go away for weeks if not months. But I'm following the rule I always do with running: if it's not above a level 1 out of 10 pain when running, you're cleared to run. I am sticking with theraband foot exercises, icing, and heavy lacrosse ball massaging (thanks to everyone who gave me all these tips).
Going to stick with easy miles this week as I try to build back up. I have a few big tests I know I need to get through: multiple days of 60+ minutes in a row, one long run, and finally a long run with quality in it. Either way, this cycle will obviously need major adjustments after 12 days off, even if I can come back full time soon, but I'm just taking it one day at a time right now. The most important goal is to get back running healthy, not whatever time goal I was thinking of.
Thanks Steve: This is a pretty similar to the plan I followed last year leading up my sub 2:50 breakthrough. And yes the Daniels Q2 is quite a bit of quality mixed into the LR's. One thing I probably wouldn't do again is run the 4 X 2 the same week as that big M paced run that I did. That could be a danger since both of those are big workouts alone. I kind of was chasing weather for the LR as the conditions were so good! As for my vdot I've been using anywhere from 61 to perhaps a 62 (not quite) based on my recent race times. The 4 X 2 was run just under my half marathon pace though and the M pace miles were closer to a vdot of 61 if I smooth out some of the data (ignoring the turns on the road and my GPS). I also need to be careful and slow some of my EZ pace runs down as I go forward in this training block
Hi all, bit late but here we go.
I'm Finlay, 39, living in Glasgow Scotland. I've been running more or less seriously for about 10 years. Didn't do any competitive sport growing up and kind of made my way to running via climbing and hill walking. I'm pretty thankful for that now as I've also got a seven year old and a full time job so taking whole weekends to do my hobby just doesn't cut it anymore.
I ran London marathon last year in 2:47 although I feel my shape was at least 5 minutes faster than that if it hadn't been so warm (I feel like a fraud citing heat in Weatherboy's presence but hey I'm Scottish - we love complaining and consider 18°C to be 'taps aff' weather)
Sat out a bit towards the end of 2018 due to injuries so my 2019 Boston build up is going to be a masterful display of balancing forcing the intensity and not getting hurt (hopefully).
Got back to running finally last week after being told I definitely haven't slipped a disc in my back
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
Have you gotten injured in the past couple of years doing Daniels? I feel like I've never seen you down with anything, which is so impressive given the quality you do.
I don't know how you feel about Daniels, but his workouts excite me. 70 miles of week of only easy running would burn me out within 2 weeks. 70 with Daniels quality? Sign me up. To each their own I guess.
Knock on wood, but so far with my 1-2 years worth of Daniels style training (with mostly a Q2 approach) I've only had a few niggles that have knocked me off the road for perhaps a few days at most. I also think that the mileage base I've been able to sustain the last 2 years has allowed me to keep doing some of these workouts and you need to scale it towards whatever attempt to run. I'm sort of similar in that doing a bunch of steady EZ miles bores me a bit. As daunting as they sound those big mixed M/T pace runs really make the 16-20 milers go by that much faster. That said I do belive everybody has to adjust to what works for them and I do think other plans can get you in very good shape to run great marathons. Also taking the EZ days EZ are a big key as well and something I need to constantly watch myself. I'm also trying to stay on top of core/hip/glute strength which is something that I've struggled with in previous cycles.
BTW - excited that you might have turned the corner with your foot! Hopefully you will be back into the training swing of things in a few more weeks. Still plenty of time to get some fitness back before Boston.
\ The 4 X 2 was run just under my half marathon pace though and the M pace miles were closer to a vdot of 61 if I smooth out some of the data (ignoring the turns on the road and my GPS).
Interesting - I don't train by Daniels, but I took a look - my November 2018 half-marathon was 84:22, which put me right at VDot 55 at that point. Meaning.a T pace of 6:20. Two weeks before that half-marathon I ran:
Workout 1: 14 miles, with 3x2 miles in 12:50 (6:28/6:22), 12:37 (6:18/6:19) and 12:36 (6:17-6:18). Half-mile recoveries. I remember debating doing a 4th set, but opting to call at 3 just to be sure not to overdo stuff.
Workout 2: 17 miles, with 2x5 miles in 33:32 (6:46/6:40/6:35/6:40/6:51 - 6:43 pace) and 33:52 (6:45/6:51/6:40/6:50/6:46 - 6:47 pace); one mile easy between two.
Based on the above, 4x2 miles at 6:20 pace doesn't seem all that excessive. OTOH, I ran a good marathon off of 3x2 - perhaps 4x2 would have been the straw that pushed me over the edge?
What is the recovery for the 4x2 miles?
Jmac - I heartily recommend CIM. Really fantastic race. The worst part is that Thanksgiving is 10 days pre-marathon, which kinda interferes with enjoyment of that holiday.