Advice for fall marathon training

Your college PR's are all over the place. Your 10k is way stronger than your 5k and your half is way weaker than your both of them.

well the 5k/10k were run on the track and ran multiple times (was always much better the longer the distance in college, had a very weak 1500 time. As for the half it was on the roads and only raced one when fit.

A 1:11 half is weaker than a 15:35 5k? From everything I've seen it's quite the opposite

Do you need to drop weight?

Are you looking to run the marathon as fast as possible or to just increase the odds you will run 2:59 as high as possible?

A 31:48 10k is a standout effort. Easily his strongest performance. He could run 2:30 in top shape, but 3:00 hrs should be easily doable if he builds up his weekly mileage enough. 60-70 for 6 weeks/3x a 20 miler then a taper should do it. When is the marathon?

He is a long distance guy and really under trained especially for running fast. I don't think he should taper longer than 3 days.

Weight is fine. I'm pretty close to what I raced at in college. I eat really well and have stayed pretty active during my 5 year hiatus. Ive run off and on but with little consistency but have played other sports with friends as well.

Running under 3 is the main goal but 26 seems like a looonnnnggg ways right now. Farthest run I think has been 9. I'm definitely planning on going out at a conservative pace but would like to go as fast as possible while limiting the possibility of a blowup.

Oct 5th Twin Cities

my perception is you are closer to 3:10 than you are sub 3...

Just build up those miles like you're planning. Throw in one tempo run per week and, if your weekly mileage feels comfortable to you, one hills/track/fartleks day per week as well.

It sounds like you know what to do. Get out there and git 'er done!

To minimize the odds of blowing up you can run 7:00 pace for the first half and 6:40 for the second half. The 7:00 can be a little faster if you end up stopping at a porta-pottie.

While your 18:11 might suggest more like 2:55 and even thinking 17:00 for 5k on Oct 5 wouldn't be crazy, your idea that 26 is a long way only 7.5 weeks from now is correct.

The problem with 7.5 weeks is that your body doesn't have any time to recover from training mistakes. You have done little enough lately that almost anything you do will signal your body to improve as much as it can in the limited time you have unless you try to do too many miles or run too fast.

I would do 2 90+ min runs a week with 5 mile runs each of the other days. One of the 90+ min runs should be an easy long run one week and 90 min but include some 6:50 pace the next week.

This is great advice. I'd add that it would help to micro-manage your running, and try and block out some 3 day cycles.

Specifically, your mileage is too low to be considering doubles, but you can still build mini-peaks into your week to simulate marathon stress. You do this by running 10 one day and 16 the next. You cover the marathon distance in two runs instead of one. As you get fitter, you either increase the distance of those runs or increase the speed. When you're really fit, a 3 day period would go 10,10,16, and you'd be covering all of it a comfortably fast pace (7:00-7:30 pace for you). It's better to work on the distance first, and frankly at your level that's all you need to do. You don't need speed as much as you do endurance.

if the distance intimidates you, then run long and slow. 2 hours working up to 2.5+ hours.

jog 90 at 8min pace, then go by feel until you hit the 120min mark. don't worry about pace or distance covered, just get in the time on your feet.

if it wipes you out, take a day off afterwards.

start with something like this:

d1 - 50min progression, last 15min @ goal M pace

d2 - 30-40min easy

d3 - 120min long run

d4 - off or easy jog 20-30min

repeat cycle (could do 10 times in the next 6 weeks). as you get fit 1) lengthen the progression run & include more time @ goal pace, and 2) extend the long run.

Hey guys, I go to tell you how grateful I am for all the advice. I've always kept my long run for the week if I have one ~20-25% of the weekly volume but I realize I'm going to need at least a couple runs around 2 hrs. I kind of like the idea with 2 90 min runs very easy every week to 10 days or something depending on how my legs are feeling and I think running as fast or faster than MP when fatigued is probably a really good idea. I can run one of the 3-8 mile days with some a couple miles a bit slower than tempo just to run at paces that are faster than MP and throw some strides/form drills in at the end of these runs as well.

I don't really know how I'll react to 10 miles followed by 16 the next. You have to remember the last time I ran 10 miles was probably 4 years ago and even when I was fit in college I was chronically injured. Following 10 miles with 16 even if both runs are very easy efforts might ruin me structurally. One of the things I've realized since college is NOT getting injured/consistency is so big.

I used to self study some ex-phys and distance training but its been years since I've really thought about these things. Its nice that people within the running community are always willing to help and for that I thank you guys for your responses.

Took the day off today from running because I traveled and had a hockey game. Probably going to run 45-50 minutes tomorrow and try a really easy 90 minute run Friday.

MarathonMind wrote:

A 31:48 10k is a standout effort. Easily his strongest performance. He could run 2:30 in top shape, but 3:00 hrs should be easily doable if he builds up his weekly mileage enough. 60-70 for 6 weeks/3x a 20 miler then a taper should do it. When is the marathon?

sub 2:30 was always kind of my marathon goal and ultimately if this goes well I hope to get fit, stay healthy, possibly hire a coach, and shoot for sub 2:40 in the spring.

ie-aVM-893 wrote:

He is a long distance guy and really under trained especially for running fast. I don't think he should taper longer than 3 days.

could you expand on this? Seems I could really pull back the entire week before.

To keep from making a mistake, the idea is to be under trained and only run 50 mpw with a couple 55 mile weeks for the weeks you run 120ish min or try Marathonmind's 10 and then 16. The 10 + 16 is most likely a better idea than trying a 150 min run.

If you get used to running 2 x 90-120 min a week with 5 miles per day in between your last week can be:

Sun 90 min with 4 @ 6:40

2 days of 5 miles

Wed 91 min first 2 @ 8:00 then 10 @ 7:30

3 days of 5 miles

Sun Marathon

2 or 3 days at 5 miles per day for someone who is better at 10k than 5k is so easy that you really need the Wed 91 min run to keep from detraining.

This is very different than trying to cram as many miles as possible in and hitting 70 mpw for a couple weeks. If you cram miles, then you would need a longer tapper but you will most likely just feel sluggish from a large volume drop.

I don't really know how I'll react to 10 miles followed by 16 the next. You have to remember the last time I ran 10 miles was probably 4 years ago and even when I was fit in college I was chronically injured. Following 10 miles with 16 even if both runs are very easy efforts might ruin me structurally. One of the things I've realized since college is NOT getting injured/consistency is so big.

OK. This changes a lot of what I wrote. You are very much like me in needing to be conservative and avoid injury. You are also smart to recognize the value of consistency. So that said, I'd just focus on single runs for time, with a lot of rest. So a 5 day weekly cycle (in minutes) would go: 45,60,rest,60,60,90,rest. Progress duration of the 2nd and 5th day runs by 5 and 10 minutes each week, so after 5 weeks you've added a total of 75 minutes of running, and are doing an 85 minute run the second day, and a 2 hour 20 minute run on the 5th. Unfortunately you only have 6 weeks left before you have to taper, so this is the best you can do- you might top out at 60 mpw and a 20 mile long run. I'd also lower my goal to a 3:10 as suggested above. Good luck and don't get inured! There will be another marathon after this one and you'll break 3 then.

For what it's worth, IF you do the work and show up on race day in decent shape, your race day experience will be greatly determined by the weather.

The marathon is much different than your college XC or track events. You can try to gut it out and power through bad weather in a 6 mile race, not so much when it's 26 miles.