What do you consider an acceptable marathon time? I'm 43 and went a month between sub-3 hour marathons. MP for both races was somewhere between easy run and tempo pace so recovery time was pretty minimal. Obviously if I pushed harder the recovery time is going to go up but really it's all dependant on what you want to do.
MM3307 wrote: MP for both races was somewhere between easy run and tempo pace so recovery time was pretty minimal.
Doesn't that pretty well describe everyone's marathon pace?
If you're going for pr, I think 2 a year or maybe even just one a year. After all out marathon, recovery time is usually longer than what people want to take time off or go easy. So after about month of no running or easy running, you have 4-5 months to get into shape for your next marathon so that's about twice a year. Or if you want to try to pr, it may be best to focus on shorter distance for the next half a year, then go for the marathon the following year.
This is my understanding, thus the question.
If you want to PR or be +/- 5 min of a PR for each marathon you run, optimally you would require a certain block of training, with taper, and then off time to recover, which, from my view might mean 3-4 marathons a year.
Sure you could in theory "run" one a week, but all that means is you are doing a long run each weekend as part of a non stop year long training fest with no real chance of PRing or coming close to same.
marathons are just long runs wrote:
December 1,
December 31
That's not a month, idiot.
googoo wrote:
ok, let me rephrase this question: For a masters age hj, what is a 'reasonable' number of marathons to 'run' without compromising health, etc.
Since racing a marathon (as opposed to just finishing) compromises health, the answer is ZERO.
You compromise your health by racing two marathon a year, and you try to make up for that by taking care of your health during the other 363 days.
Last year, aged 40, I ran four marathons (2:42-2:49), with three in three months and two 13 days apart. I am now nursing a sacral fracture (proper fracture), so maybe this was too much for me.
At around 3:30 pace, I'm confident I could have run one a month. I know of two HJs who run 25-30 per year and have amassed over 300 in total.