Sub 2h30 Spring Marathon - The Quest for Amateur Glory is back!

In for a follow, even though I'll be many, many minutes behind you guys this spring. That thread was awesome, and I learned quite a bit.

Nice. I'll follow along as well. My target race isn't until June 22, but I'm always up for a quest for Amateur Glory!

I've been taking it pretty easy since Chicago. Over the last few months I've hovered around 50-60 mpw with a couple of low ones due to holiday travel/laziness. The tentative plan is to spend the winter working on mile-5k speed, which is something I have very little of. There may be a couple of indoor races, and the Shamrock Shuffle 8k in Chicago will likely serve as the end of the middle distance training block and my pivot point back into marathon training.

I may end up in a late spring-early summer marathon if my ultra-racing doesn't go as planned. I have a 50 miler in April but if I have to DNF or DNS I'll find a marathon to target 2:29.

2:29 is seeming to be in the cards as I just did 4 weeks of conservative half marathon training and ran a PB of 1:11:50 largely alone. That confirms that I'm likely in 2:30-2:31 shape currently and could likely get to 2:29 with another 6-7 weeks, but that won't happen as I have trail races on the calendar.

I do plan to race a 5000m in April, a week before the 50mi. Because why not? PB there is 15:28 and with some consistent workouts I think I could break that, even while focusing on long runs and hills.

Starting today with a 13 week programme till Boston. Targeting 2h28 / 2h29, though I know that will be fully dependant of good weather. Hoping to find some of you there!

This week I will pretty much cover ~ 10 miles easy every day with a workout on Saturday (perhaps 4 x 2 miles to see where I am), and a 15 miles longer run on Sunday.

Next two weeks will be tricky as I will have my first trip to China in the year, so I will just try to keep running easy as much as I can and the weekly mileage around 70

February will be the key month.

I have planned the following workouts on Wednesdays:

8 x Mile

5 x 3 km

4 x 4 km

3 x 5 km

Plus progressive Long Runs on Sundays

30

32

34

36

March

The Wednesday workouts will be shorter and quicker; I will run more tempos on Fridays or Saturdays (depending on Wednesday recoveries).

Will potentially run the Stramilano on March 24th, TBD If I will be looking to run a PR (1h11:52) or slower at target Marathon Pace (~1h14)

Will do two special workous from Hanson's book:

26.2 km run trying to simulate Boston conditions and pace (March 10th)

2 x 10 km on March 31st (2 weeks before Boston)

Key point is the mileage, I managed to run 2h30 in Amsterdam averaging 60 mpw. Am hoping to increase to at least 70. Main challenge as usual will be the work activities and long travels.

Good luck everyone and hope to see you all around.

Hey reed, I can see you have made great improvements since last year thread, congrats. That HM is already 2s faster than my PR, no doubt that you could challenge the 2h30 barrier (also considering your 15.28 ability which is enough for it!) How high has your weekly mileage been? I suspect you've been running a lot considering your ultra running objectives?

reed wrote:

I may end up in a late spring-early summer marathon if my ultra-racing doesn't go as planned. I have a 50 miler in April but if I have to DNF or DNS I'll find a marathon to target 2:29.

2:29 is seeming to be in the cards as I just did 4 weeks of conservative half marathon training and ran a PB of 1:11:50 largely alone. That confirms that I'm likely in 2:30-2:31 shape currently and could likely get to 2:29 with another 6-7 weeks, but that won't happen as I have trail races on the calendar.

I do plan to race a 5000m in April, a week before the 50mi. Because why not? PB there is 15:28 and with some consistent workouts I think I could break that, even while focusing on long runs and hills.

You dont need to up your mileage. Just need a perfect training system.

You're right in the sense that there's certainly room to improve on any training schedule, however my workouts have been pretty solid within those 60 mpw and my most obvious discrepancy to other high 2h20 / low 2h30 runners is that I dont run as much. Maybe I am wrong but I tend to think the easiest way for me to improve is just to run more.

rfmaioral wrote:

Shinonde wrote:

You dont need to up your mileage. Just need a perfect training system.

You're right in the sense that there's certainly room to improve on any training schedule, however my workouts have been pretty solid within those 60 mpw and my most obvious discrepancy to other high 2h20 / low 2h30 runners is that I dont run as much. Maybe I am wrong but I tend to think the easiest way for me to improve is just to run more.

Maybe wrong? I can tell you for sure you are wrong!

Uh oh, I sense a DANCAN post coming...

Over the course of 2018, I ran 3120 miles which works out to 60 mpw exactly. Much like yourself, I feel like my workouts went fairly well for my volume but I need to find the motivation to get out the door and stay out longer during the midwestern winter.

I think I’d like to jump on this thread - hoping to run a sub 2:30 at Boston if the gods will it... my training has been mostly good the last 6 months or so and I did a 1:12 low half last month which was definitely encouraging.

Right now I’m actually tapering for a low(er) key marathon this weekend, hoping for around a 2:33ish then 12 weeks to bounce back for Boston!

Looks like this is the right thread for me. Ran my first marathon last September (Erie Marathon). My build up to that was let's just say less than ideal.

This was my buildup

May 28: 19.3 miles (4 days of running)

June 4th: 19.1 miles (4 days of running)

June 11th: 21.5 miles (4 days of running)

June 18th: 9.1 miles (2 days of running)

June 25th: 15.4 miles (4 days of running)

July 2nd: 30.2 miles (5 days of running)

July 9th: 23.6 miles (5 days of running)

July 16th: 63.5 miles (7 days of running, 15.4 mile long run)

July 23rd: 18.3 miles (4 days of running)

July 30th: 70.7 miles (7 days of running, 18 mile long run)

August 6th: 27.3 miles (5 days of running, 14 mile long run)

August 13th: 80.1 miles (7 days of running, 20 mile long run)

August 20th: 23.8 miles (5 days of running)

August 27th: 31.5 miles (5 days of running, 10.1 mile long run)

September 3rd: 37.2 miles (4 days of running, marathon)

Ended up running a 2:41:05 with a 4 minute negative split but got hurt as a result. Spent fall trying to get healthy for club cross and am finally feeling healthy.

I've really struggled balancing my career and running and up until just recently I've just been incredibly lazy with it. A PR at club cross got me motivated to try and attack the 2:30 barrier for my second marathon, Boston. Goal is to run consistent mileage throughout this buildup with a goal to get to 100 sometime in the month of March. I'll also be racing Shamrock Shuffle with my team. Hoping to run close to 25:00 there. The tough thing will be trying to schedule workouts during this. I add as many miles as I can during my lunch breaks since I work outside of town. So far the only chances I'll really get workouts will be during my long runs.

So far these have been my weeks post club cross:

Dec 10: 60.9

Dec 17: 37.3 (5 days, traveled back to CA)

Dec 24: 54.7 (6 days)

Dec 31 : 44.7 (5 days, traveled back to OH)

Jan 7th: 70.1 miles

Wow, and I thought my training had been not consistent with my peaks of 80s and lows of 40s. Looks like you have the talent to do it, just keep healthy!

Shinonde wrote:

rfmaioral wrote:

You're right in the sense that there's certainly room to improve on any training schedule, however my workouts have been pretty solid within those 60 mpw and my most obvious discrepancy to other high 2h20 / low 2h30 runners is that I dont run as much. Maybe I am wrong but I tend to think the easiest way for me to improve is just to run more.

Maybe wrong? I can tell you for sure you are wrong!

Ok, I'll bite. Prove me wrong with posting. I am not a freaking talent, have never consistently averaged more than 60 mpw and can run 15.30-45 for 5, 32.30 - 33.00 for 10, 1h11 to 1h12 for Half and 2h30 for the Marathon.

Can handle hard weekly intervals at the track, weekly long runs and eventually a 2nd hard workout at the same week.

What is the "easiest" path to the 2h20s if not increasing the mileage?

I'm in! Running Boston in April. Haven't run one since last year's race, where I ran 2:48...

PRs: 4:20 mile, 8:37 3K, 15:04 5K, 31:34 10K, 1:14:03 Half, 2:41:07 Full

All of the times 10K down were run in college (graduated 2016) and the Half and Full are post college when training was not so serious (40-60 mi/week). But I'm all in for Boston 2019 and have built up to running consistently in the high 80s and above over the last 8 weeks or so. Ran 102 this past week so I've built a good base. Going to keep doing that and hit 110 as a peak leading up to April.

Goal going into the race is 2:27. Figure I should be no more than 1min/mile behind Kipchoge, right? Think I have a good shot at it, but definitely would love to run 2:30 and probably will be going out at about that pace. Would love to find a crew to run with. Hope I'm in the first Corral, that 2:48 is doing me no favors. Running the New Bedford Half in March, goal of 1:10.

be careful of people who say they have a perfect training plan. especially if it's for sale.

I did run fairly high mileage recently. I biked all summer due to an injury from Boston, so skipped running CIM in December and decided to instead have a good base training season, which I have lacked in recent years. I built mileage very slowly and deliberately from zero (with cross training, at level of about 60 mpw if running) to 90 over the fall. I was only able to stop cross training in late September, when I was around 60 mpw. from that point I ran 320 miles in October (520km), 336 miles in November (540 km) and 401 miles in December (640 km). My goal to race the half marathon only came 5 weeks ago, so training before then was not focused on any race, but mixing in hills, trails, roads, long runs.

rfmaioral wrote:

Shinonde wrote:

Maybe wrong? I can tell you for sure you are wrong!

Ok, I'll bite. Prove me wrong with posting. I am not a freaking talent, have never consistently averaged more than 60 mpw and can run 15.30-45 for 5, 32.30 - 33.00 for 10, 1h11 to 1h12 for Half and 2h30 for the Marathon.

Can handle hard weekly intervals at the track, weekly long runs and eventually a 2nd hard workout at the same week.

What is the "easiest" path to the 2h20s if not increasing the mileage?

The easiest path to 2.20 ? The answer is pace, the correct individual pace. And what you need is the Master of this . Coach JS himself!

That's what I thought.

thank you coach JS, but I have zero interest in your services, and reminding last years' thread, I don't think you will enjoy a lot of success here. Perhaps you should just get out and try to sell your individual paces elsewhere. This will be my one and only post directed to you here. Good luck.

rfmaioral wrote:

thank you coach JS, but I have zero interest in your services, and reminding last years' thread, I don't think you will enjoy a lot of success here. Perhaps you should just get out and try to sell your individual paces elsewhere. This will be my one and only post directed to you here. Good luck.

A ton nicer than I would have said.