2017 Sub 3 Marathons...and beyond! (Read 403 times)

Haha. Official race results haven't been posted yet. I will let you know. Last year we ran with the same 6 guys and finished in 32:12. Despite the race being longer, we improved to 29:23. Last year that would have put us in first place in the Ultra division of the Outback in the Ozarks, but I believe that one team may have beat us this year. I'll keep you updated!

Andres - I discovered yesterday that a former work colleague had fallen into a similar trap.  He was aiming for sub-3, and ended up running exactly 3:00:00.  Brutal.

Randomly struck up a discussion with someone at the gym this morning who pointed out that Auckland counts as a Boston qualifier (it is an AIMS certified course).  Which would mean I have a decent BQ for 2019.  The focus for the next little while will be the Auckland HM Series and in particular the Waterfront HM on April 8 (which is dead flat and a potential PR course if the wind isn't an issue)... but running something like Boston is one of two things that might drag me out of marathon retirement (the other being my daughter wanting to do one which is at least 20 years away!).

Swim - Really sorry to hear about the injury, but if you’ll only be out for 10/12 days then it seems crazy that you won’t be racing a marathon until Philly next year??? Keep your options open and maybe look at a Dec or early Spring marathon and just get more racing experience at that distance without worrying about time.

Andres - Wow, I’m very impressed with the Sub18/1:22 combo. Great stuff!

IAM - Another huge week and good luck with the 5k! You seem to be the most clued up runner on here. 

Weatherboy - Excellent 5k time on a 76 mile week!

JT - Good luck with the Sub18 5k attempt next weekend! I think it’s looking good.

DT2 - Congrats on the Sub3 and 2nd place Masters!

Paul - 66 miles in 5 days is good, and you still have another 6 weeks of training. You are the last race of the year and we won’t abandon you. 

Flash - 103 miles at an average pace of 6:45 is...pretty good!

Fly - Nice week, but don’t be obsessing or worrying about the weather at 6 days out!

 

JT - Where are you getting your 5K workouts from? I'm going to focus on it next spring and already thinking about what some good workouts would be.

JMac: I am just making things up as I go and not following any plan. Though I do want to break 18, I am not that ambitious about the 5k to get into a long/specific plan for it. So I'm just playing around with some track workouts. I'm already starting to get antsy to get back into marathon training!

Mark - I'm asking this just out of pure love of the sport and to learn more, not to start anything! With that being said, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on easy pace given we had a nice little chat about it in this thread over in the old place. I believe you had talked about how this (running generally 6:30 to 6:45 pace) had worked for you (which it obviously has) and that your coach was okay with it, but have you or him/her thought about it now that we know your easy pace runs are faster than your marathon pace? I'm asking because I struggle with easy pace too, especially now in the taper where my legs feel really fresh and I'm starting to push to MP+30 or faster. If you are still happy with it, what is the logic behind it, and how would you handle a LR with MP segments?

Mark - I'm asking this just out of pure love of the sport and to learn more, not to start anything! With that being said, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on easy pace given we had a nice little chat about it in this thread over in the old place. I believe you had talked about how this (running generally 6:30 to 6:45 pace) had worked for you (which it obviously has) and that your coach was okay with it, but have you or him/her thought about it now that we know your easy pace runs are faster than your marathon pace? I'm asking because I struggle with easy pace too, especially now in the taper where my legs feel really fresh and I'm starting to push to MP+30 or faster. If you are still happy with it, what is the logic behind it, and how would you handle a LR with MP segments?

Fair question and a few thoughts on this after the marathon cycle (my "actual" MP ended up being 4:11/km - 6:45/mile):

• I'd tended in the past to run easy runs at circa 4:15-4:20/km (call it 6:50/mile).  This was always HR/effort based aiming for the upper end of HR zone 1 / maybe lower zone 2.  This off maybe 60km/week (40 mi).  So basically MP or a little slower.
• Over the last couple of months, my easy pace was probably more like 4:30/km (7:15/mile) - my long runs (without MP sections) and recovery runs were all around this mark - with a similar HR/effort level.  Incidentally my slowest couple of km's in the marathon when I was really battling were around this pace.  So, definitely slower than MP, but not a lot slower.  My coach seemed to think easy run pace was OK based on effort and training stress balance (I think I did one at 4:15/km and she told me to slow down a bit).
• In hindsight, the increased mileage (75-90km/week i.e. 50-60mi) was forcing me to run the easy stuff slower.  There was definitely some fatigue creeping into the legs - this was not something I had to deal with previously.  If I was to increase mileage further, I would certainly slow down more.  In hindsight I have gotten away with fast-ish easy runs in the past (based on perceived effort) because my legs have pretty much always been fresh due to lower mileage and only running 4-5 days/week.  The day before the race I ran 7km at 4:23/km and was doing my absolute best to go as easy as humanly possible - average HR of 141 was close to an all-time low for me on a run- so I guess this shows the impact fresh legs can have.
• I think natural cadence plays a big part.  Even my slowest recovery runs are generally not below 180spm.  Going any slower feels like I would do something weird to my technique and potentially injure myself.

Incidentally I did an easy 7km run this morning, my first after the marathon... 4:39/km - 7:30/mile!  Mostly I was just taking it very gently on the legs as the effort felt very easy.  Still a little tight in places but they still seem to work OK.

So, when all is said and done:

• I still think running to effort/HR is the right approach for me, rather than pace, with a focus on 80% of mileage being in Z2 or below.
• This means LR/easy pace will be variable based on relative fatigue (and weather conditions)
• For LR's with MP in future, I would probably not change much.  I was tending to run big MP blocks (10-18km) towards the tail end of the run on relatively flat areas.  But important to adjust that based on feel/fatigue - I had one LR where I felt crap the whole run so just avoided any MP section
• There are obviously a small minority of runners around like this.  Thanks Fly for the Norm Green example.  There are a few local guys too, definitely a minority of runners but enough to suggest to me that I'm not a totally weird exception! 
• The reality is that any training programme has to incorporate the right balance of slow and fast, and I guess for some people (me) the gap between slow and fast is narrower than for others (although it does widen with fatigue).  

Finally all of this probably also has to be considered in light of the fact that the longer distances are also not my natural running 'home' if you look at AG percentiles from my PRs - my best is actually 79th percentile which was the 3000m I did off no specific prep in the middle of marathon training, whereas my FM is 71 (albeit with mileage on the low side for marathoners).

 

My 10K was Phoenixville last weekend.  Beautiful weather, well organized, and it always gets out speedy runners.  The course has a couple pretty bad hills, but a lot of flat places too.  It had been more interesting (running more through the town) but they changed it last year.

 

Ok, nice job -- I thought it was possibly the Philly 10K which I'm told is flat and fast, you may shaved another minute or two off in Philly.

I'm over in Skippack, so not far from Phoenixville, in fact, I used to run some of the 'All Kinds of Fast' folks in town, but I'm closer to the North Wales Running Company folks and run there more frequently. We're getting quite a crew here running Philly, I'll be excited for that, plus I have about a dozen local friends running it. We should be heading to Tir Na Nog after the race for food and beverages.