Am I stuck at a 2:59 marathon if I’m unable to increase volume?

It seems I am in the same situation as you are. I have a recent 2:58 marathon PR, no fitness history, started running at 35, am now 40. Also have a full time career and family. I am doing Boston in 4 months. Hoping, for at least a PR. Without diving down a deep rabbit hole of training methodologies, I would say the things I am focusing on, are being very deliberate when I am training. Which means, doing the prehab, rehab, and nutrition. Gaining fitness is a 2 step process: Stress the system -> Recover. I think I have always been fine at stressing the system, but admittedly not the best at recovering. Best of luck in 2024!

IMO your two workout days would be better spent doing threshold intervals with short rest like 6x 10 minutes with one minute rest or 10 x 5 minutes twice in one day. If you build the weekly volume of your threshold intervals while keeping your overall mileage about the same, you will see better results and be fresher for your long run which is important.

6x10 minutes or even one 10 x 5 minutes at LT, let alone 2 in a day? Who, exactly, does this?

You already got some good advice. Running 2:59 with a 1:24 HM time, is actually quite impressive. I think you should focus on bringing down your HM time to around 1:20-1:21 if you want to sniff 2:50-low. If you are not already doing it, try racing often, in particular on the half-marathon distance (but also 5K and 10K).

Work on getting your 5km time down

This was a game changer for me…

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=advanced+marathoning&adgrpid=59691312607&hvadid=580806291565&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=9029015&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=8261603285077546163&hvtargid=kwd-321112112154&hydadcr=4942_13195426&tag=hydsma-20&ref=pd_sl_7a3we5jsi_e

Exactly

It was a joke. How do you down-vote it?

I ran 2:33 off of 50 miles/week when in my 20's. I was a West Point Cadet with very limited time so I could not really run high mileage. The secret was to fit 3 harder workouts into each week. Intervals of 800M - 1 Mile, tempo run of 45 - 60 minutes, longer run that was typically only 10 - 12 miles. It is obviously better if you can run 70 - 80 miles/week but if your hard days are hard and you are cover Max VO2, running economy at speed and endurance in the course of a 7 day or 10 day cycle you should not be stuck at 3:00

That's a great point--the shorter races will give you the speed you need to keep your legs sharp for the longer races too...I'm having to learn that versus slogging away at breaking 3:20....going down to 5k/10k and working on that for a few years/cycles before trying the full again.

The thread is a great example of why asking for advice about your training on this message board is a bad idea. What you'll get is a bunch of opinions and many contradictory ones, based off of people's limited experience or friends, or guys they know or what they think and/or want to be true. You'll get a few good expert opinions, but you have to weed through and try and find them out of many bad ideas or ideas based on something someone read or wants to be true or believe.

Good luck I won't add to the clutter you have to weed through.

I think a lot of runners can go under 2:55 on 60 mpw (~100km).

I don't even think you need two workouts a week and a long run.

Make Tue, Wed or Thu a tempo workout day, and aim for 6-8 miles of work at HM to marathon pace within that.

On Sat or Sun, don't just do long runs, but 18-22 miles of running, including 6-12 miles of marathon pace work in them. e.g. 10x1k, 8xMile, 5x3k, 3-4x5k.

These two workout days can be endlessly varied.

Basic scheme:

Mon - 8

Tue - 8

Wed - 10 (with tempo workout included)

Thu - 8

Fri - 8

Sat - 20 (with marathon pace effort included)

Sun - off or other activity

Tot - 62 miles

People that want to achieve their marathon goals. I did this and ran 2:40 first marathon just jogging because of stomach virus at age 48. I will run sub 2:30 in three weeks while everyone else is training wrong

I came here to say this. Also running is a weight game. Do you know what your optimal race weight is? No point in running a marathon if you’re too heavy. Plus you’ll eventually hurt yourself during the training.

Lactate threshold? Isn’t that roughly the pace at which a person can run at race pace for an hour? So wouldn’t that be close to racing the workout, even with those rest intervals?

Based on your PRs, I'd spend a good six months or so working specifically on the 5k/10k.

This means less emphasis on the long run (keep it at an easy effort and not ridiculously long), more volume in your 5k/10k workouts with shorter recoveries (preferably jogged), and more volume in your thresholds. Also, try doing the thresholds as intervals, in order to get more volume in at the desired intensity.

Once you've done 3-4 races at each distance, hopefully you'll have significantly lowered your PRs. You can then return to the marathon specific training with far more room to move.

Lactate threshold is roughly 85% of maximum heart rate, depending on the person's training and conditioning. It is not dependent on a certain time span or distance.

Absolutely and utterly incorrect. 85% on Max HR is not Lactate Threshold. Aerobic Threshold maybe close but not Lactate Threshold. Yet you come on here and spout ideas with certainty misleading others. shame on you. Get your physiology correct or change your vernacular.