12 weeks to go in a Sub 2:20 Marathon Plan, how would you write it?

Sage - Thanks! I've run a couple 20-22 long runs over the past weeks and plan on doing a few more after the half. I'd like to get in some of those longer pickups in the middle as well. I have run a marathon in 2015 in 2:31:58 with the first 18 at 2:25 pace then a fantastic blowup the last 10k. I was hoping this weeks long MP run would be a bit quicker but the course was rolling loops so I could practice nutrition a bit.

Smoove - I agree with the difference in intensity with the 10+ mi tempos. It's never easy but something that is absolutely necessary I think.

Thanks everyone for the input as well! I'm going to do around 120 this week with a Wednesday/Friday/Sunday workout then a short taper for a half marathon on 10/15 and update after that. I appreciate the advice from all!

2 week update in case anyone is following:

10/2 through 10/8

M - 11 / 6

T - 10 / 5

W - 8 / 3mi warm up, 8 x 1k threshold effort with 200 jog on road, 3mi cool down.

R - 9 / 4

F - 6 / 8

S - 9 / 6

S - 7.5 warm up, 4 x 1mi 2min jog 5:00, 4:56, 4:48, 4:48 on bikepath. 4 cool down. / 5 PM

Total: 116

10/9 through 10/15

M - 11 / 5

T - 10 / 4

W - 2mi warm up, 2mi 10:23, 3min jog, 3 x 2 min @ 5:07 avg pace for ons, 6x100m stride. 2mi cool down. / 4.5 PM

R - 6 / 6

F - 5 / 6

S - 6 / 3 with strides

S - 2mi warm up. Half Marathon in 67:28 (4s PR), longer cool down.

Total: 100

So I ran a Half Marathon yesterday. Last year ran 67:32 and was 8th overall. I was shooting for top five overall. Got out in 5:10 in the lead in a pack of four other Kenyan guys. We ran the next mile in 4:50 and I knew that was way too hot for me. Backed off and ran in no mans land for the last 11.1 miles. Conditions were 68F, 68 Dew Point, 93% humidity at the start so it was a suffer fest by the end.

Top four guys ran between 63-64min and I was fifth. 6th place was 1:30 behind me. I wished I could've run faster but I was okay with the effort given. I'm planning on taking a few days easy then doing another couple harder weeks with longer more specific efforts before a taper for CIM.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with this below article, which states what OT qualifiers were doing in 2004. In part it states: "Results: Men and women ran 75% and 68% of their weekly training distance, respectively, below marathon race pace. Men trained longer than women (12.2 ± 5.3 vs 8.8 ± 5.6 years), ran more often (8.7 ± 2.8 vs 7.1 ± 2.5 times/wk), and ran farther (145.3 ± 25.6 vs 116.0 ± 26.5 km/wk)."

Your 120 mpw seems to be at the low end of "145.3 ± 25.6". So, you may want to see if you can go a little farther over the next 4 weeks.

http://fitnessforlife.org/AcuCustom/Sitename/Documents/DocumentItem/7107.pdf

120mpw is not on the low end, but way above the high end of 145.3 ± 25.6 km/wk which translates to 90.3 ± 15.9 mpw.

Of course, that might be why we weren't that good in 2004.

Although that number may be average over the entire year, in which case it's actually pretty high counting time off and down weeks. It says peak weekly mileage was 192.9 +- 27.7 km/week for me, which is 119.9 +- 11 miles/week.

*for men.

Ignore my statement above that 120 mpw are on the low end. The study was in km/wk, so 145.3 ± 25.6 km/wk is an average of about 90 mpw.

reading and common sense wrote:

120mpw is not on the low end, but way above the high end of 145.3 ± 25.6 km/wk which translates to 90.3 ± 15.9 mpw.

Of course, that might be why we weren't that good in 2004.

You are correct. I just misread the km/wk as mpw

Good articles! I dropped my jaw thinking uh oh I need to run EVEN MORE in the next few weeks? But I didn't immediately say no in my head haha. I've planned out the last few weeks and will probably hit another 130-140 one or two times but start doing more quality work. But again, good reading in those articles.

Forcerunner wrote:

Good articles! I dropped my jaw thinking uh oh I need to run EVEN MORE in the next few weeks? But I didn't immediately say no in my head haha. I've planned out the last few weeks and will probably hit another 130-140 one or two times but start doing more quality work. But again, good reading in those articles.

Just trying to get your heart racing! ;) I'm not sure what % of your runs are at or below marathon pace. That article says the average male OT qualifier did 25% at or below marathon pace. This is mid-way between the OTs who did 25% in 2004 and the BQ'ers who do about 15%, according to a RW / Strava survey:

Best of luck at CIM! I'll be running with the 3:27 pace group, so save me some beer at the finish!

WOW! Forcerunner, sounds like you got it covered Just wrap it up.

Please let us know how it goes for you.

Good Luck.

Keep it up Force, great knowledge in this thread and you are putting in the work.

gregmacd wrote:

I'm not sure if you're familiar with this below article, which states what OT qualifiers were doing in 2004. In part it states: "Results: Men and women ran 75% and 68% of their weekly training distance, respectively, below marathon race pace. Men trained longer than women (12.2 ± 5.3 vs 8.8 ± 5.6 years), ran more often (8.7 ± 2.8 vs 7.1 ± 2.5 times/wk), and ran farther (145.3 ± 25.6 vs 116.0 ± 26.5 km/wk)."

Your 120 mpw seems to be at the low end of "145.3 ± 25.6". So, you may want to see if you can go a little farther over the next 4 weeks.

http://fitnessforlife.org/AcuCustom/Sitename/Documents/DocumentItem/7107.pdf

What do folks think about 68-75% of running being below marathon pace? So 25% or more is supposed to be faster than MP?

Mon- easy double

Tues- easy double

Wed- workout- 8-12 faster than MP

Thurs- MLR

Fri- easy double

Sat- easy

Sun- LR w./ MP running- anywhere from 4 to 15 faster than MP or at MP

A plan like this needs to hit the high end every week if, say, one is averaging 100-110 mpw. 10 in a mid week workout and 5 on the weekend only gets you 15% when qualifiers are doing, minimally, 25% faster than MP. That seems like a big number to me.

At some point of course genetics and individual durability thresholds play a role, but generally it is fairly demanding for most guys to run over 120 mpw and then also do a lot of sub 2:19:00 Marathon Paced workouts all the time...so a higher percentage of "fast paced miles under 5:17 pace" is a fairly big injury/overtraining risk.

However for a 3:00 or even 2:40 marathon runner (who may be running say 70-80 miles per week) hitting marathon pace is much more manageable as velocity at Lactate Threshold is not as close to Marathon Pace velocity (and with this we assume that the sub 2:20 marathon runner has nearly maximized potential at the half marathon and run it very close to Lactate Threshold velocity....if they are at least a sub 1:06 type of runner).

Now I failed to qualify for the 2016 Trials (missed by 12 seconds at Boston in 2015 where I was 16th place) so I've for sure messed things up in the marathon a lot before....but I did run in the 2007 Trials (standard was only 2:22:00 then) and the 2012 Trials (hit the "A" standard of sub 2:19:00 and also hit a sub 1:05 half marathon). I've also trained with a lot of guys who ran in the Trials who have run in the 2:17-2:11 range (bascially when I was one of the slowest guys at Hansons-Brooks).

I'd say most guys for sure are running over 100mpw for weeks (if not months) on end. You can get some super talented guys that go sub 2:19 on less for sure though. When I ran 2:16:52 I probably averaged about 120 miles a week for 8 weeks straight with a high of 130....but in the 6 months leading into that I was coming off a 1:04:32 half marathon on about 90-100 miles a week most of the year and a lot of sessions at sub 5:00 mile pace.

Now you can read my "book" "Running For The Hansons" for some of our exact training in there, but I can tell you it was basically a lot of these types of workouts:

20-mile Long Runs starting at 6:15 pace down to 5:30 pace for most miles with miles 15-18 at low 5:00 pace...under M.P).

5 x 2-miles first starting at MP but then later on being 10sec/mile faster than goal MP. with half mile jog recovery (8-min).

3 x 3 miles (same paces at the 2-mile repeats pretty much).

8-mile "Tempo runs" starting at M.P. for the first 4 and then faster than M.P. for the last 4.

Then some 1000m repeats (like 8 x 100m) at 20sec/mile faster than M.P. with a 2-min rest.

OR 5 X 1600m repeats also about 15-20 sec faster than M.P. with a 3-min rest.

These harder workouts were usually every 3rd day (so 2 "Easy Days" in-between)..often on 10-12 day "cycles"

Of course those are all "bread and butter" type of marathon workouts and when you get into the nitty gritty of it the timing the execution really does matter (as well as periodization). Sometimes I got cooked in that program.

Even though I ran my PR in this program, I still consider my 2015 Boston (which was only 5-6 weeks after LA) on par as the best marathon performance of my life. I'd also usually recommend some 22-24 mile Long Runs (Hansons always cut me off at 20-miles for some reason and it drove me crazy).

There was also the infamous "16-mile Simulator" and 2 x 6-mile workouts...that we generally smashed and ran faster than M.P on...sometimes it was probably too much.

You could look into "Specific Endurance" sessions...longer efforts right around M.P. as it appears your speed is excellent and your mileage/volume have been excellent. If you did that 20-miler at 5:24 pace that is a very good indicator that you are pretty set already. Nice work!

Thanks for the advice and workout suggestions Sage!

I'm planning on hitting the next three weeks or so with some higher mileage and longer workouts. This is last week:

M - 12 / 4

T - 7 / 7

W - 10 / 6.5

R - 10 / 5

F - 7 warm up, 6 miles of fartlek on hills, 2 cool down / 4

S - 7 / 6

S - 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 min on with 1min off between in the middle of a 17 mile run / 4 with strides

Total: 116

This week planning 2ks Tuesday, Wednesday LR, 1:00 on 1:00 off Friday, longer harder run Sunday.

Last week:

M - 12.25 / 6.25

T - 6 / 8 x 1mi with 90s jog: 5:14, 5:11, 5:11, 5:08, 5:09, 5:07, 5:04, 5:05

W - 20 @ 7:01/mi / 5mi on grass

R - 7 / 7.5

F - AM 6mi of fartlek on hilly .75 loop / 5mi on treadmill at 5% grade

S - 9.2 / 4.2

S - 4 warm up, 3 x 15min uptempo + 5min harder, cool down to 20. Paces on segments were 5:27, 5:26, 5:27 for 15min and 5:11, 5:10, 5:08 for 5min. Overall run avg 6:06 pace. / 5 with strides

Total: 136

Forcerunner wrote:

Monday - Easy Double

Tuesday - Workout

Wednesday - Long Run

Thursday - Easy Double

Friday - Workout

Saturday - Easy Double

Sunday - LR + Workout

I would do your mid-week workout the day after a long run. Preferably with the long run in the PM and the workout the next AM. That way, when you start the workout, you are already in a state of glycogen depletion.

Which workout? The Tuesday and move to Thursday? I usually do the Wednesday LR bc it's my day off work and that's the only day to reasonably fit it in and have a decent bit of recovery afterwards. Or are you saying swap the Tuesday/Wednesday days on the schedule? I can def see that points with that, maybe that could be a consideration for the future.