55 mpw for a marathon sufficient?

If you're looking for 50-60 mpw I'd check out Hanson's plans. I PR'd on 3 60 mpw and felt strong after the run.

55 is enough depending on your time goal. Hal Higdon has some decent training plans for new marathoners.

This is a horrible question. Enough for what??? Enough to finish?-yes Enough to run 2:18? Most likely not.

It will be more than 80-90% of the other runners.

Depends. How good do you want to be?

Sure, just get up tomorrow morning and go run 26.2 miles.

Well, it'd be a PR so long as i finish, but i want to finish with no less than a 3:45:xx or I wont even bother running it. I see alot of peoples paces dramatically fall off right around mile 21 to mile 23. I assume they're hitting "the wall"? Currently my half marathon PR is a 1:34:xx off of 40 mpw.

You see, people already know what they have to do, but they don't want to do it.

It's all talk..............blah,blah............3:45...........if I can't run it......why bother...........I'm lazy..........blah,blah........I cant run 100 miles a week....................blah,blah,blah

Dr Tryptamine wrote:

You see, people already know what they have to do, but they don't want to do it.

It's all talk..............blah,blah............3:45...........if I can't run it......why bother...........I'm lazy..........blah,blah........I cant run 100 miles a week....................blah,blah,blah

Some people aren't 21 years old and have only themselves and their egos to stress about. Some people are older, have kids, have jobs, go to college, among other things while trying to still see if they can achieve goals outside of all that.

Thanks for the help.

LRC reader wrote:

Dr Tryptamine wrote:

You see, people already know what they have to do, but they don't want to do it.

It's all talk..............blah,blah............3:45...........if I can't run it......why bother...........I'm lazy..........blah,blah........I cant run 100 miles a week....................blah,blah,blah

Some people aren't 21 years old and have only themselves and their egos to stress about. Some people are older, have kids, have jobs, go to college, among other things while trying to still see if they can achieve goals outside of all that.

Thanks for the help.

Hard to help given you are not specific in what you want to achieve.

My experience under similar circumstances:

~4 to 3 months out: decided to do a marathon, bumped mileage up from 40-45 to about 60. Did 2-3 weeks at this mileage.

~3 months out: life changed, 'decided' not to do the marathon. Mileage dropped to about 35. Long run aroun 12 miles (~ hour and a 1/2)

~1 month out: decided to just run it anyways. Added a few longer runs. Longest was 2 and a half hours... I did something like 4 x 15 minutes at marathon effort it the latter portion.

The race: the first 15 miles felt very easy and surprisingly fast. Then a few miles with my legs getting increasingly heavy and quads getting increasingly sore. The last ~8 miles were brutal. It reminded me of showing up to summer running camp up in the mountains (high school) out of shape.

You'll likely last a while longer before the wheels fall off. My advice, load up the mileage on the weekends/short microcycle and be conservative with your pace during the race.

Is your 1:34 half pr recent? If it is, 3:30 or even quicker should be very doable off of 55 miles per week, as long as there are some quality miles of training in there.

Yes you can run a marathon off that mileage. You should be able to run 345 based on your half. You might not run much faster.

Depending upon your innate ability and age, sub-3:30 could/should be very doable on 50 mpw. Last month I ran 3:25 on three days a week training. Never two consecutive days. Only one week over 40 miles during the previous 12 years. The key, I think, was doing long runs, including mileage at marathon pace. Two 20-milers and a 23. And a few 18s. I'm 57, and had experience with the distance, although it had been 13 years since the last one (2:56 at age 44 ... 46 average mpw with max of 63 during 12-week program). Good luck.

Allen1959 wrote:

Depending upon your innate ability ...

Since I cited myself as an example, I should say that in my youth, I had some talent, but not great ... never broke 16:00 or 5K, nor 34:00 for 10K, nor 2:40 for marathon.

Also, I've now started training five days a week to get closer to my potential. But those two extra days are a challenge to schedule ... I'm so used to having those "off" days.

Sounds like you're doing 55 miles per week off of 5 days, with 2 days of rest a week. That's a decent amount of work for a marathon. Your long run should be aiming for 13.5 miles or so. With a 1:34:xx PR, you're realistically looking at a vDot of 48. I would recommend training at this level.

Easy run pace: 9:10

Moderate "uptempo" pace: 8:20

Long Tempo (30+ mins): 7:51

Short Tempo (

Sounds like you're doing 55 miles per week off of 5 days, with 2 days of rest a week. That's a decent amount of work for a marathon. Your long run should be aiming for 13.5 miles or so. With a 1:34:xx PR, you're realistically looking at a vDot of 48. I would recommend training at this level.

Easy run pace: 9:10

Moderate "uptempo" pace: 8:20

Long Tempo (30+ mins): 7:51

Short Tempo (

Sounds like you're doing 55 miles per week off of 5 days, with 2 days of rest a week. That's a decent amount of work for a marathon. Your long run should be aiming for 13.5 miles or so. With a 1:34:xx PR, you're realistically looking at a vDot of 48. I would recommend training at this level.

Easy run pace: 9:10 | Moderate "uptempo" pace: 8:20 | Long Tempo (30+ mins): 7:51 | Short Tempo (

I've run (2:54, 2:58, 2:55) the last three years in Boston off of 35-55 mpw. I recently ran a half (November 19th) in 1:17:06 and plan on running 2:48ish on Saturday in a local marathon. It can be done and off of three runs per week.

Sunday 18-22 miles (6:40-7:10 pace)

Tuesday 8-10 miles of track work (1 mile, 2 mile, 3 mile repeats)

Thursday 8-12 miles hilly (6:45-7:15 pace)