Hi! Currently training for April 30 Tacoma City Marathon. This will be my 6th marathon (4th road marathon). My goal is to break 4:30 and then never do another one. Marathon training is HARD! When I started on this road in 2013, it did not feel that way; but I've aged a lot since then. I don't know if this is a "support group" for marathoners in training, but that's what I'm looking for.
Don't make excuses for why you can't get it done.
Focus on all the reasons why you must make it happen.
Waltons ThreadLord
I've said "never again" in the past, yet I have a marathon on my calendar for this November. I agree 100% that the training is hard, yet after a while of training less, I get the itch to do it again. I'll admit, though, that my favorite race is the half marathon.
5k 23:48.45 (3/22); 4M 31:26 (2/22); 5M 38:55 (11/23); 10k 49:24 (10/22); 10M 1:29:33 (2/24); Half 1:48:32 (10/22); Marathon 4:29:58 (11/23)Upcoming races: Clinton Country Run 15k, 4/27; Running is Back 10k, 5/12
Thanks for your response Fred. Looks like you have a HM next month. What are your goals for that race?
Yes, I've also said "never again" before -- after last April's marathon. This time though it'll probably stick! Probably depends on how the rest of my training goes.
Yes, I'm running a half next month and two in April. I'd really like to break 2 hours in at least one of them. I also have a marathon goal similar to yours - breaking 4:30 - which I hope to do in November.
This group doesn't have a lot of activity. I'm in another RunningAhead group you might find to be more active. The link is below. We have a range of marathoners from 5 hours+ to one who BQ'd and is training for this year's Boston marathon. The forum there tends to run in weekly threads with occasional extra threads for race reports or special topics. Just become a member (no special permission required) and check out the current week's thread.
https://www.runningahead.com/groups/TurtleRoom/
Pace Prophet
This group doesn't have a lot of activity, but if you post here, people will respond! :-)
Well then I have a question. Is it better to do a midweek faster effort like intervals or tempo run OR be able to run MP miles in the weekend long run? I'm finding it impossible to do both.
I lost my rama
I doubt I could do both either. I've never run MP miles on the LR because I'm usually pretty trashed by then. I know some recommend it though but more towards the end of the cycle. I was still able to negative split a marathon with only MP runs mid-week (nothing faster). IMO more miles is more important vs the type of miles. YMMV.
3/17 - NYC Half
4/28 - Big Sur Marathon DNS
6/29 - Forbidden Forest 30 Hour
8/29 - A Race for the Ages - will be given 47 hours
How many, and what %, of your long run miles are you trying to do at MP? Daniels' book recommends no more than 10% of weekly mileage be run at MP.
I average about 40 mpw. Lately that hasn't worked out to be the case as my work schedule impacts my running schedule to some degree. I don't think I exceed the 10% "rule." Tonight I ran two reps of 2-miles at pace within my 8-miler. So there's my 10%. Doesn't seem like much, but my legs will be feeling it tomorrow night when I run and even on Sunday's LR. I'm keeping an open mind though - one of these days I'll feel stronger on the weekend, right? To answer your question, Fred, I haven't actually tried to run any of the long run miles at pace because it's been obvious that's impossible. I'd be happy just not to slow down at this stage of the game!
I feel I run best when I average 40 mpw and have been angling to edge that towards 45, but work and run-recovery have held me back a bit lately.
Thanks for the input, guys. I'll continue to prioritize my midweek workouts and soldier on.
I am not a fan of MP in training at all except in the taper/sharpening period. It's a pace that is not as optimal as traditional threshold work for building fitness, but hard enough that it wears you out and requires recovery. I prefer to have a single midweek workout which begins as short intervals and lengthens into tempo or lactate clearing intervals (I alternate them; I run the former as HMP, the latter as intervals at a little faster than HMP alternating with a little slower than HMP). I also run hill sprints at the end of an easy run, and strides within an easy run, and surges during some of my LRs. But I don't run MP within my LR except MAYBE in one of my last LRs.
I get what you're saying, Ilana. I guess I should clarify where I'm at pace-wise. My goal marathon pace is an average of 10:10. It's been several years since I ran a 10-minute mile and in that timeframe 11 mpm has felt challenging due to chronic low thyroid and low iron. These are resolved for the moment and I started in October with strides and pick-ups at the end of my runs. Then November, began a weekly "tempo" run doing several mile repeats of 10 mpm within my 8-miler. It felt anaerobic at first, but I progressed to stringing together several, and finally running a half marathon in January at a 9:58 average pace as a test to see how that felt and if my marathon goal was realistic. whoo hoo! It felt "comfortably hard," which was encouraging. Now I've increased the pace of my intervals to range between 9 and 9:30. I started with a half mile and have progressed to last night's two sets of 2-miles within my 8-mile. I was very happy to find that my 5-mile run tonight was completely doable. I'm making a lot of progress because only a few weeks ago, I seriously thought I should try to take the day off after the tempo run because of how stressed my legs felt.
I'm not as sophisticated a marathoner as you, Ilana, and I don't know what my lactate clearing interval pace would be. However, I understand the concept of doing regular runs (or portions of runs) at faster than race pace so that MP feels easier than it otherwise would. That's my intention with the tempo runs.
I appreciate your input. To be honest, there is so much info out there about marathon training that it is overwhelming. I'm already maxed out on stress in my life. Running needs to continue to be a simple and satisfying activity for me. Thanks again.
I've managed one sub-10 minute mile in the past 7 months, so I know where you're at! :-) But I will start off by saying that choosing a goal out of the blue is not really a good way to go about goal-setting. Have you run any shorter races recently, other than the half? Do you track your heart rate on runs?
The thing is, on 40-45mpw training, a 2:10:45 (ish) half doesn't translate to a sub-4:30 marathon (and a 10:10 pace is quite a bit faster than merely sub-4:30). Obviously the point is to improve your fitness so that you would be able to run both a faster marathon and a faster half. But without doing tune-up races (or time trials), it's hard to assess where you really are fitness-wise, and in my experience the most important preparation for a good marathon is a realistic goal. If you can run a 10k or another half in early to mid March, it will provide a good data point for this assessment.
I don't mean to make it sound complicated; it's not. My short answer, I guess, is that training at MP is less important than training at HMP, and there is latitude on all sides of these paces so you shouldn't feel that you need to run X pace precisely in order to have a training effect. Also, there's no real benefit (and a lot of possible downside) to running your training runs any faster than a truly easy pace (other than that they take less time out of your day!) so if you're feeling fatigued, slow down your easy runs.
Thank you for your thoughtful response, Ilana. Makes me feel a bit like I'm taking a shot in the dark with my endeavor! I agree that it would be great to pinpoint my fitness more precisely. No I don't have a heart rate monitor and have not run any road races since last April's marathon. So far, I haven't found any upcoming road races in the next month to sign up for. You'd think someone would have a St Paddy's Day 10K, but I live in the farthest northwest corner of Washington state, so that's not a given. I think there will be a 5K though. I could do a timed trial (mile?) at the high school track, but I don't know what I'd do with the information. I'm guestimating my HM race pace at 9:30, which is why I'm currently working with the 9 to 9:30 range for my midweek workouts. The recent HM was a test to see if I could run it at a 10 mpm average pace and see what that felt like in order to judge the success of the past couple months. Guess I wasted my real shot at a fitness assessment there .
A 5k isn't great, but it's better than nothing. What I would do is project a half from that, and then use Maclin's RTE spreadsheet (which takes mileage into account) to come up with a full goal.
A workout that predicts half pace for me is to warm up 2 miles easy, run 6 miles at a tempo pace, and then cool down 2-3 miles easy; I can generally run a half at that tempo pace, if I can do this workout and not be wiped out during the cool-down. This assumes a good feel for what is all-out vs tempo, though, and ~45mpw.
I will add that at 45mpw, though, 9:30 half pace might get you a 4:30-4:35 marathon, but I would not try for a 10:10 pace.
Very interesting! I'll give that half-predictor workout a go in the next 2-3 weeks. This week is out bc of my work schedule. Many thanks for sharing your knowledge, Ilana!