what marathon shape am I in?

You are in a 3:00 to 3:05 range I think.

If this is your first marathon I would lean towards 3:05 or so.

Basically I think you are capable of 7:00.

3:04:xx fallback 3:09:xx if you blow up.

Thanks, that's about what I was thinking. This will be my 4th marathon. I'll probably target 3:05 conservatively and pick it up at the half if I'm feeling good.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, this is a super easy course. Net negative downhill with a single turn at mile 11. All on a paved trail on a converted railway.

3:05-3:10 depending on how well you are at pacing. What's your current half marathon time?

My half PR of 1:28:35 is from a year ago. I ran a 13.1 mile tempo effort in 1:27:27 a week ago that didn't quite feel like maximum half effort (could have probably gone around 3 more miles at that pace).

Still going with 3:05-3:10...I ran 1:19:09 in November for the half and finished 2:55:13 in Boston. Granted it was alittle hot and was in 2:49 shape.

marathon_rec wrote:

Oh, and I forgot to mention, this is a super easy course. Net negative downhill with a single turn at mile 11. All on a paved trail on a converted railway.

\

Out of interest, what race is it? Sounds fun.

Thanks, I was thinking I was in roughly 3:05 shape with an outside chance of a BQ. May be a tad optimistic but you never know. I ran a marathon last fall and was on BQ pace until I blew up at mile 21 (it wasn't pretty) and I feel like I'm in much better shape now than I was then.

It's called the Lake Wobegon Trail Marathon.

marathon_rec wrote:

It's called the Lake Wobegon Trail Marathon.

Thanks, looks great. Good luck.

As an update for those that helped, I completed the marathon this weekend in 2:57:43.

Congrats man. I am impressed. Gives me hope for a sub 3hr performance in a couple weeks

Marco Brolo wrote:

You are in a 3:00 to 3:05 range I think.

If this is your first marathon I would lean towards 3:05 or so.

Basically I think you are capable of 7:00.

OP said he did 13.1 miles in 1:27 in TRAINING! I'm 1:22 half marathon runner and do 1:37 through 13.1 miles in training. I could never pull off 13.1 in training at 1:27.

A 3:05 marathon would be be disappointment.

OP is definitely in sub 3:00 shape or he's racing his workouts.

marathon_rec wrote:

As an update for those that helped, I completed the marathon this weekend in 2:57:43.

100% honest. I didn't see this before my post above.

I knew he was way better than 3:05 shape based on those workouts.

Why does LRC make the marathon harder than it is and discourage decent runners from going for it?

A 3:05 marathoner could NEVER do those workouts. The OP had solid training, IMO, for even 2:50 to 2:55

To be honest, I think I got a little overzealous on the half I ran during training and it was approaching "racing". It was supposed to be a 10 mile tempo effort that I extended because I felt good. It probably wasn't the wisest decision in terms of my training plan but there were no negative impacts (as far as I could tell).

During the marathon, I do think I could have shaved off a bit more time but I wasn't confident in sub-3 before I started so I went conservative. I'm not sure about 2:50 though, 2:55 might've been on the outside edge of possible.

He said he was drained after so I figured it was a hard effort.