Speed work for a sub-3 marathon?

Those sessions are too short.

You should get the distance up to 5-8 miles and run the intervals anywhere between 6:00 - 6:30 pace. That's more important for pretty much the entire cycle. If you want to do ~3 miles of faster paced running you can save it until final 2 weeks.

It sounds like you have a pretty good system in place, but I'll take a shot at answering this. 57 year old male, ran 3:04:42 last year September, just ran 3:16 last week coming out of low mileage winter period, but was 1:31:45 at halfway, so I'm in the pace neighborhood you're looking at.

For me, running 10 or more miles at goal pace every week becomes a trap, where I end up "racing my workouts" trying to set course records. Many schedules will have you run longer, like 12-15, but with the last 6-8 at goal pace. Vary your pace workouts; don't get in a rut.

At my age, I've evolved to a more relaxed approach, often running trails and not worrying about pace per mile. For me, the total volume of aerobic training in the 6 months prior (including cycling in my case, as I'm primarily focused on triathlons) is more important than the "hard" workouts. If I can run 40-50 per week along with cycling 100-200 miles, and have a long run of 18 or more every 10 to 14 days, I'm ready to run between 3;00 and 3;10.

But you asked about speed training. Last summer, the only speed training I did was when I would bike home from work, hop off the bike, and go right into a run to practice my transitions for triathlons. I would often do a 2 mile run, gradually accelerating from 7;00 pace at the start to about 6:15 pace at the end, focused on smooth running form, not all-out speed.

But perhaps when I do hard bike rides and really push on the uphills, I'm getting the kind of heart workout you would get from sets of repeat miles or 800s. I guess I'm just suggesting that the marathon is a different animal than the 5k-10k- half marathon. For those races, sets of repeat miles or 800s, with progressively shorter rest intervals, will help you prepare to bash all the way through the race on your red line (anaerobic threshold). But for the marathon, you'll be running maybe 20 seconds per mile slower than threshold. While that kind of high volume of repetition training will improve your fitness and make your A.T. pace faster so you can theoretically have a faster marathon pace, too, I think it's not as important or even desirable for the marathon, that maybe smaller doses of speed work can suffice.

Just one man's experience. And who's to say I wouldn't be running faster if I did more workouts like 6 X one mile in 6:30?

Good luck.

First, if you're doing both of these workouts every week, are you in addition also doing a long run? That seems almost too much for me, doing all three workouts every week. I'd rather do the long run every week plus just one other workout. You could also incorporate the 10miler into the long run at the end (probably you wouldn't start with 10miles at MP at the end of a long run though).

Second, the repeats seem quite easy compared to the other workout. I would rather do 5-6 x 1600m, or 10 x 800m (the 1600m repeat is probably more useful for the marathon).

Third, the 10miler at close to MP is a key workout as I've heard. I'm not sure if more than 10miles is even necessary (anybody?) - well, I guess it's good to do more than 10miles once or a couple of times, but certainly not every week, sounds too hard.

I've also run just one marathon long time ago, on 30mpw without any speedwork, 3:38. This time I want to do 50-70mpw + speed work. I'll see how my training goes, will probably aim for something between sub3 and 3:15, which should be realistic as my 5k PR without any speedwork was 19flat.

...I have so many questions.

What was your workload like when you ran 3:40?

What are your PRs at other distances?

What sort of mileage are you currently doing?

What supporting evidence do you have to think such an enormous PR jump is reasonable (maybe related to PRs at other distances)?

How many prior marathons have you run?

Why are you calling that second workout a marathon pace run if you want to get it down to 6:40 (sub 2:55 pace), and then run 2:59?

It'll depend on your history, but I feel like someone running 14@6:40 every week, plus a 800-1600m intervals workout, plus 65-70mpw is either not ready for that and going to get injured or burnout, or they can coast to 2:59. Seems like a really heavy workload for a 3:40 marathoner unless they've run like a 1:25 half or 38min 10k. Can't run sub-3 if you can't make it to the starting line.

I agree that this is not the best long term approach. You don't want to just plug away with the same workouts over and over.

I am assuming that the 800s and 1600s are at roughly 5k pace. Those are good workouts, but they really won't help your marathon too much as they are intended to result in vo2max adaptation and vo2max is not a limiting factor in the marathon. They are great for the early part of your training cycle to improve your overall fitness, but you can dispense with them after doing them a handful of times.

The main goal for the marathon is to stay aerobic, so most marathon training programs will have a heavy emphasis on doing work at tempo pace (or lactate threshold pace, aerobic threshold pace, whatever you call it in your terms).

Those marathon pace runs do probably help with that, but they are awfully taxing on your body. You can achieve the desired adaptation (and probably a higher degree of adaptation, to be honest) if you focused on working at your LT for shorter periods of time, and the end result would be less stress on your body.

That is why you see lots of workouts like 6 x 1 mile at tempo pace with 1:00-1:20 rest; 3 x 2 miles at tempo pace with 2:00-3:00 rest; 3 miles, 2 miles, 1 mile at tempo pace, etc. They are intended to bring down your LT pace, thus allowing you to stay aerobic at a faster pace, and thus run a faster marathon.

I view the long marathon pace runs to be used sparingly (I do 3 per cycle). Many folks think that finishing many of your long runs at marathon pace is really helpful, and I wouldn't dispute that at all (and will probably include more marathon pace miles (maybe 3-4) at the end of some of my longer funs.

If anything I think you are probably over emphasising "speed work" and running those workouts too fast. The shorter repeats are not really necessary on a regular basis and you are probably running them at a pace that is leaving you tired and damaging the rest of your week for minimal gain in terms of your objective which is to maximise your marathon fitness. What do you mean by a "10 mile race pace run".. you mention your best pace currently as being 7:04 and that you are aiming for 14 at 6:40 pace eventually so it sounds like you are going out and running a 10 mile time trial type effort every week??? If so that's way too fast and not the optimal way to get the gains you are looking for. 10 miles at race pace is absolutely one of the best marathon workouts you can do on a regular basis provided the race pace you are talking about is your marathon race pace. Otherwise known as tempo runs you should be looking to get 1 or 2 of these in every week..ditch the 800/1600 repeats and run at marathon pace, perhaps a shorter one of 5-6 miles one day and the 10 miler later in the week. Don't race these runs, run them at around your current marathon race pace and let them increase in pace as your fitness improves. The idea is to feel that effort level where you are running hard but controlled and finish feeling somewhat tired but not whacked so that you are ready to go again in a couple of days. If you get the intensity of these runs right you will be able crank them out regularly week in week out, fill in the rest of the week with steady runs as often as you can (think frequency rather than distance) and your marathon fitness will improve massively.

I think that's an adequate amount of weekly speed training, as long as you're maintaining intensity on your 800s and 1600s. You may even want to shorten the 10m effort to 6-8 some weeks and run it harder, then push the last 5 miles of your long run that week. Weekly increases of a 10+ mile race pace effort seems like it could burn you out.

OK, here is some of that information. (I never want to overload people, but since you asked ...)

My workload was 40-55 when I ran the 3:40, which was last fall. I can't tell you precisely, because I wasn't entering treadmill work into my log. But I'd say 40-45 most weeks, and I started training pretty late in the game. It started as 5K training.

My 5K PR is 19:47. My six-mile (not quite 10K) is 40:42, i.e. 6:46 pace. (Both late last fall/early last winter.)

I've been consistently at 55 mpw for about 5-6 weeks now, I believe.

I believe that such a jump is possible based on continued improvement and my 7:04 pace over 10 miles. This question also ties into your question about prior marathons: From 2001 to 2004, I went: 5:05, 4:59, 4:29, 4:22. Last year, running the distance for the first time in 12 years, I went 3:40.

I also could stand to lose 10-15 pounds. My waist is in the 33.5 to 34-inch range. So I feel there is still some room for speed and endurance improvement available via my diet.

I'd be thrilled to run 2:55, but the goal is to run the race pace run at 6:40 in order to give myself some margin for error.

My goal marathon is in November.

Knock on wood, I've never been injured.

Fast training for a slow guy is just going to make you run too fast at the start of the marathon and die a thousand deaths at the end, or peak way too early in training. You're not a sub-3 runner, sorry.

Jaggy wrote:

Fast training for a slow guy is just going to make you run too fast at the start of the marathon and die a thousand deaths at the end, or peak way too early in training. You're not a sub-3 runner, sorry.

i agree with Jaggy. You're not a sub-3 runner...currently. maybe you never will be. going from 3:40 to sub 3 is a huge leap. especially if you started in the 5.xx then down to 4.xx.

I'd try to move in increments. move the 3:40 to 3:30, to 3:20, etc.

unless you have your half time in the 1:25 kinda timeframe, i wouldn't start out at a sub 3 pace. imho.

i have run 3 sub-3 marathons myself so i'm not completely full of sh!t. partially yes but not full of....

good luck. slow and steady is your best bet.

it takes time wrote:

Jaggy wrote:

Fast training for a slow guy is just going to make you run too fast at the start of the marathon and die a thousand deaths at the end, or peak way too early in training. You're not a sub-3 runner, sorry.

i agree with Jaggy. You're not a sub-3 runner...currently. maybe you never will be. going from 3:40 to sub 3 is a huge leap. especially if you started in the 5.xx then down to 4.xx.

You may be right. But I will say that I had no running background going into those 5:xx's and 4:xx's, followed half-heartedly the Hal Higdon beginners' program, and was deep into my beer-guzzling early 20s at the time. I wouldn't pay them a ton of mind.

None of your times indicate that sub 3 is reasonable right now. Like do you expect to PR by more than a minute and a half in the 5k? If this seems like a possible improvement to you based on current fitness, then maybe you're ok.

agdagdagadgad wrote:

None of your times indicate that sub 3 is reasonable right now. Like do you expect to PR by more than a minute and a half in the 5k? If this seems like a possible improvement to you based on current fitness, then maybe you're ok.

I think it's possible. I'm still improving workout PRs, steadily, from when I started taking things seriously early last summer, so that seems like a good sign at least.

My feeling is 2:59 is ambitious. You have never been injured, but bumping your mileage 25% and running that much quality mileage is going to be tough.

I'm sure your 10 miles at 7:04 is an improvement, and I know this wasn't a race environment you were running it in, but McMillan puts your 10k and 10 mile equivalent times for your 5k at 6:37 pace and 6:52 pace. Do you think you could go out and run a 68min 10 miler right now? The fact that you're longer distances are worse is an indicator that you're aerobically/endurance limited. This means if I were you I would focus more on mileage and volume than on the speedwork side of things.

It's tempting to look at the 19:47 5k and say "that's not sub-3 equivalent so I have to get faster so I have to do more speed work", but it's your best result of the 3 distances, so your greatest weakness (and thus greatest room for improvement) is probably based in getting that mileage up.

As for the actual structure of your weeks, I think one of the advantages of running MP runs is knowing what MP feels like so it becomes automatic and getting comfortable with that for an hour or more at a time. There's a place for 6:40 miles, and there's a place for race pace miles, but those aren't the same thing if you want to run 2:59. Better to structure it how Smoove suggested, with those 6:40 miles acting as threshold runs in more manageable segments and the actual MP runs run as practice for race day at 6:50. You also didn't mention what pace you wanted to run 800-1600m intervals?

I'd also question the idea of bumping up to longer runs at "race pace" that isn't actually your target race pace. Is the idea to increase the speed you're running these at while also increasing the distance? Or you'll hit 14 miles and then work on bring the pace down? I'd consider building the other direction. Go out and run 6:50 for as many miles as you can while staying comfortable but focused (and without wrecking the rest of your week), then build up till you're doing like 10 of those in a row.

Sub-3 is an alluring, nice round goal to hit, but have you considered setting an intermediate goal of something like a BQ? For example, if you can run 3:10 a year after a 3:40 that's still a huge PR and noble accomplishment. And improvement continues, but the rate usually slows down eventually. At the very least, maybe train with paces for a slightly more conservative goal for the next month or two, then reevaluate with a shorter race to see if you're closer to the equivalency tables (which are usually best-case estimates anyway). That would leave you with plenty of time to adjust to more aggressive goals rather than risk putting yourself in an overtraining hole so early.

I kind of view the goal time as irrelevant, since in my world view his or her training should be the same regardless of the goal time, and that training should drastically differ from the original post.

OP, I am trying to think of ways to explain the problem with your current plan in a way that you can understand. Imagine having a form response to interrogatories that you deliver in connection with any interrogatories that you receive. Obviously, that wouldn't work at all - you would need to tailor your responses to the specific questions asked and to the fact that the answer to a question may differ depending on when it is answered. You can't just use one answer, regardless of the question or the time at which you are giving the answer. That is how it is with training. You cannot just use the same workout or two, over and over, particularly not the workouts that you have selected.

David S. Pumpkins wrote:

Sub-3 is an alluring, nice round goal to hit, but have you considered setting an intermediate goal of something like a BQ? For example, if you can run 3:10 a year after a 3:40 that's still a huge PR and noble accomplishment.

I've definitely thought about that, and BQ was actually my initial lofty goal. (So much so that in the 4:2x to 5:05 days, I didn't even mention it to people, it seemed so ridiculous.

My age group pace would be 7:26, officially, but I assume I'd have to shoot for 3:10 (7:14) to ensure I would get in.

Basically, get Pfitzinger's book, or Daniel's book, or Hanson's book or others I'm forgetting right now, and follow a plan in the mileage bracket you can do (they have different plans for different mileage). There will be explanations for why you do for different kinds of workouts and what physiological changes you hope to gain from those workouts. Usually these are like 18 week plans, so you can use the next month or so to continue to build mileage. Find a 5k or 10k to race and use the prescribed workout paces based on that race (assuming PR, because you seem pretty confident you're in the always PR phase of your running life) for the start of the program. After a couple months find another reasonably distanced race and see if you've improved drastically enough to change your workout paces.

If you look at the equivalency tables and don't think you can run the necessary 5k or 10k times now, it'll be tough to make up that speed AND pull in the best case scenario marathon projection in just 5 months.

For some additional context on my history, when I ran the 3:40 last November, my last three miles were:

9:32

10:27

9:49

So obviously I hit the wall. I was aiming for sub-3:30 going in.