Increasing mileage too quickly?

Depends. Age? Goals? High school, collegiate, hobby jogger? You could be really durable and be able to pull this off no problem. But on the other hand it's likely that you're churning out junk miles - quantity over quality, which isn't good. What are your PRs and what's the pace you usually run your miles at?

Dat info wrote:

Depends. Age? Goals? High school, collegiate, hobby jogger? You could be really durable and be able to pull this off no problem. But on the other hand it's likely that you're churning out junk miles - quantity over quality, which isn't good. What are your PRs and what's the pace you usually run your miles at?

Collegiate age, no team affiliation. Goal is eventually to run a 2:19 marathon.

Not too much race experience, but prs are

Marathon - 3:27:xx (off 40-50 mpw, probably had fitness to run more like 3:10 or 15, but raced too conservatively)

Half marathon 1:35:07 (coming off of an injury that I traced to being caused by not stretching after runs - caused me to miss 6 weeks of training in the 8 weeks leading up to the race)

5k - 18:36

Goals for this year are marathon sub-3, Half sub 85, and 8k sub 30.

This week's training looked like

Sunday - 12 long @ 7:08 per mile

monday- am 5 miles @ 7:43 PM 5 miles @ 7:40

Tuesday - 8x400 at 84 seconds per, 400 meter jogs to recover in 2 min or less

Wednesday - 7.5 miles @ 7:30 per mile

Thursday - 6 miles @7:50 per mile

Friday AM 2 mile warmup, 4X1200 in 4:29 with 1/2 mile jogs in 4 minutes inbetween, hit the last couple intervals in more like 4:26. 2 mile cool

PM - 4 miles @ 7:15 (track).

So I think I'm busting some decent quality. If it matters I'm planning on my 85 mpw coming from one of the pfitzinger plans.

thanks!

pfffffft wrote:

Collegiate age, no team affiliation. Goal is eventually to run a 2:19 marathon.

You might want to adjust your goals....

pfffffft wrote:

Not too much race experience, but prs are

Marathon - 3:27:xx (off 40-50 mpw, probably had fitness to run more like 3:10 or 15, but raced too conservatively)

Half marathon 1:35:07 (coming off of an injury that I traced to being caused by not stretching after runs - caused me to miss 6 weeks of training in the 8 weeks leading up to the race)

5k - 18:36

thanks!

You still need to develop aerobic fitness, I would toss out that 8x400 workout for now.

you need to slow down some of those runs, you need to be doing a tempo run 1x a week for 30-60mins @ something around 6:30-7:00 min pace, slow down your other runs and maybe add a day where you do intervals. but nothing crazy, could be a progression run.

I think you are running on average too short and too fast for what you are trying to do. marathon training is build around base miles. everyone is different but being able to run 10-12 miles a day week after week without breaking down should be your goal.

I'm not trying to run the "easy" miles quickly, I usually do those by feel rather than using a watch. That pace definitely feels easy to me. If it's not affecting my workouts is it a problem to run easy workouts too fast?

So given that I'm doing 60 mpw right now, what should a good week look like for me keeping in mind that I want to go sub 3 in october?

bump

You can't do the same workouts every week. Look at doing a 3 three week plan that you can repeat over and over, gradually increasing the volume of each workout.

I think one of the most important workouts a marathoner should do is a long run where you start out easy and gradually push the pace to sub-marathon pace. A marathon is all about strength/endurance and you need to toughen your body to handle long training sessions around race pace.

Finally, I recommend a long run of at least 22-23 miles. That was my biggest downfall when training for my first marathon...I just DIED at 19 miles.

Maybe some more seasoned marathoners can chime in with their training plans. If I were to run another, I'd probably buy the Hanson-Brooks book by Sage Canaday and base a lot my workouts off of what is found in that book which includes Drew Polley's Training Log.

http://www.amazon.com/Running-For-Hansons-Brooks-Sponsored-ebook/dp/B0055LH5ZM

Good luck!

You can only tell. Let your body and mind determine your own limits, but do ensure good time off after a serious progression. The limits of your own body and mind can only be determined with personal experience and not by formula. That said, you must consider the price you pay for the experience comes with down time. If not you might find that you may experience diminished returns.