Sub-3:30 Marathon in 2012 Goal Thread (Read 4592 times)

Planning for it in sunny SA in November!!! It'll be my first marathon in 11 years

My next sub-3:30 attempt is going to be either Philadelphia (signed up this morning), or New York (if I win the bib lottery).

Goal time to be determined later: I have no idea how much I can expect to improve off 3:32 over the Summer.

 Stadjak,

I took a quick look in your log, you seemed to go kind of stir-crazy and did a bunch of fast running in your taper - that 1 mile time-trial one week before your race may have taken more out of you than you think, and it seems like you're doing a lot of easy and long runs faster than your race was, especially in that taper, and your last two long runs. 

I know a lot of it is mental in having the confidence to basically not train for two weeks and trust that you won't forget how to run, but next time, try taking it easier those last couple weeks. Might surprise yourself.

Looking forward to hearing from MolsenRunner...

Week 16 was my first taper week.  Pfitz doesn’t drop the mileage that much during the first week, so it was still pretty difficult.  No freak outs and I managed to catch up on a few things I’ve neglected while training.

I had my last tune up race today – a 10 miler.  I’ve been kinda “meh” about the race all week mostly because it seems awful close to my goal race and I've been wondering if I should run it at all.  What if I get injured?  What if I have a worse result than my other tune ups and it wrecks my confidence?  But, I dance with the date that brought me (okay, not always ) and I follow Pfitz so…

It was an event race, so I got to the site early so I could be at the front of my corral – I’ve gotten a lot faster since registration and now probably would be in the first corral.  People were being very chatting at the start but I already had my game face on – I had a front row view of all the people I knew I was faster than and wanted to beat.  (The only thing that broke my concentration was the woman who did the National Anthem - I'm thinking it's the best rendition I've personally heard live.  Not sure if it was pre-recorded but she was amazing.)

Our corral was released a few minutes after the first and I take off like a shot. Some people passed me but by Mile 3, I’m doing all the passing.  I pre-programmed my splits to a 7:00 pace so my Garmin was telling me to slow down since I was running 6:45ish but I manage to ignore it.  I was doing well navigating the crowds but at about Mile 6, I have to say “Watch your line, please” to a guy who was going slower than me and drifting into me.  (Note: I said, 'Please").

By about Mile 7 the crowd started to thin out.  A woman asked me if I ran the National Half a few weeks ago and I say I did!  (Okay, given the pace, probably without the exclamation point.)  We exchange 2 or 3 sentences and then I realize I can’t talk and hope to hold this pace.  I was torn, though, because she seemed nice so I would have liked to talk to her more.  But, she wished me a good race, I did the same and then I take off.  At Mile 8, I thought maybe this was too fast and I should have ran with the nice runner lady and made a friend.

By Mile 9, I made the conscious decision to slow down and not trash my legs so close to Boston but my split begs to differ - last split was 6:34 pace according to my Garmin.  No official time yet, but I think it'll be 1:08ish.

Miles Last Week: 65

Goal for This Week: Start watching my diet.  Less mileage means less calories burned.  I'm pretty thin already so nothing drastic, but if I could start Boston at my current weight, I'd be pretty happy with myself.  (Although...  Probably no scales in the hotel room, so, I could just tell myself I am the same weight.  Hmm...)

Hey skinny, you've already had a sub 3:30, what's your real goal? I would love a 3:20...one day

Wait, was I "skinny"?  Didn't mean to ignore your post but didn't register that was me. 

I really am surprised by how well I've done in my tune-up races.  I really did start out thinking I just wanted to just get back to where I was last year but I guess the layoffs from this summer really didn't hurt me as much physically as they did psychologically.  Now that I'm tapering, I'm looking back on the last 6 months or so and I think the layoffs really lit a fire under me.  When I had a certain level of fitness and then suddenly I really didn't, even though it was temporary, it motivated me to work harder.

Anyhoo, as far as a goal time...  I think the calculators I've checked have me anywhere from 3:12ish to 3:21ish, which is a pretty wide range.  I'm a bit worried about the hills, though.  Deep down, I'd be happy to run sub-3:20 and feel like I pushed myself and ran a good race.  If I can run as hard and do something like 3:18, I'll be over the moon. 

Just about a week to go!  No taper madness yet but I did have a phantom injury.  On Wednesday, I was sitting in my chair at work and all of a sudden, I felt this intense spasm along my right quad.  When I woke up on Friday, that same area felt like I had pulled something.  It seems to have gone away but it was kinda scary.  I thought my legs would be toast given the race I ran on Sunday but generally, they felt good.  I tried to keep the efforts hard since the goal during the taper is just to cut mileage, not intensity.

As posted earlier, I’m telling myself I’m shooting for sub-3:20.  That’s probably on the conservative side but the race calculators are all over the place and there are so many variables that could slow me down (hills, weather, corral assignment).  I feel like I could number crunch forever and still not feel confident about it so at this point, I just want to run a smart, hard race.

I’ve heard from a couple people privately about meeting up before or after the race.  Do we want to have a group meet up?  If so, I don’t mind coordinating although if we want to go out to a bar/restaurant I might want some suggestion since I haven’t been to Boston in ages.

Miles Last Week: 62

Goal for This Week: Continue watching my diet.  So far, so good – despite the decrease in mileage, my weight has pretty much stayed the same.  Mostly, I’m just cutting out sweets and alcohol.

Re: mileage/intensity -- didn't know that.  I thought the goal was "rest dem pegs".

 

I think the idea is that the reduced mileage and the built in easy days will help your legs feel more rested.  And then maintaining the intensity in the harder workout helps keep the legs sharp.  If there isn't any fast stuff in there, the legs lose their snap...  I think I've also read that the less mileage you run, the less tapering you need.  And, I think there are also people who run a good deal of mileage and don't taper at all.