Marathon failure - 20miles to finish

I'm going to give a weekly update here starting from next week to get some feed back from people on here.

Just completed 1km x 6 with 2min recovery tonight.

done between 3.07 & 3.10 and felt really good.

But will give full weeks training Sunday week.

I've been running most of my life on and off but never seriously attempting to train specifically for any distances until 1.5 years ago. I wanted to do Pikes Peak at that time...

Well every marathon I have done I found myself slowing down a few miles after my longest commonly run distance. 1 year ago I ran a 1:43 half and a 4:30 full marathon. I slowly changed to increase mileage then increase long run distances then increase shorter faster long runs.

Result is doing 3:45 and 3:36 full marathon distance during training targeting a 3 hr marathon this Jan. BTW hit 1:32 sub half in the middle of marathon training program!

I have been doing 24-26 easy and started including faster miles at the end plus about 21 fast (2:30 baby!) while ~50 miles per week.

Im getting excited. I want to start winning some races!

Week review Monday 22nd - Sunday 28th Dec 2014

Mon - 6 miles easy / time: 36:54 pace per mile: 6:09

Tue - 10 miles ( 2 mile warm up + 2min on with 1min off by 8.

3min recovery and repeat. 2 miles cool down)

REPEAT 1: distance covered 4.75km pace 6.06 average

REPEAT 2: distance covered 4.96km pace 5.51 average

Wed - 12 mile mid long run / time: 73:32 pace per mile: 6.07

Thur - NO RUN

Fri - 4 mile road race Time: 21:09 / pace per mile 5:18 / 2 miles warm up & 2 miles cool down

Sat - NO RUN

Sun - 15 miles easy / time: 1hr:54min 11sec / pace per mile 7:36

Note: not starting 15 week marathon training until 5th Jan

You pretty much have it figured out with the long runs. My tip is that you run one every other week running progressively (not too hard).

For instance, every two weeks start at 2hr, 2hr 15, 2hr 30. The pace can be by feel, but I've had better success with easy for the first 4 miles, moderate to steady over the next 15-20 miles. I usually don't run MP or a specific pace, but I tend to progress naturally. The workout is in the duration, not the speed.

The other workout is a tempo of 9-15 miles at a steady pace. This will be somewhat close to MP, maybe slower.

3M easy + 12M steady, find a rhythm. What makes Marathon training way tougher than it needs to be is when people get too specific on paces. You are trying to generally accomplish running longer at a "faster" pace. Don't overstress the pace, focus on duration to get adapted to the demands of marathon training.

Good luck

Hi Amerikano

Thank you on the feed back. I will give weekly updates here so I can get feed back from people like yourself who may have some good advice.

I'm looking for coach Renato to give his view on where I have or are going wrong.

I'm looking for coach Renato to give his view on where I have or are going wrong.