Sub 2h30 Fall Marathon

BouldeRunner wrote:

Here's a question, for those of us looking forward to spring, do we revive the Boston thread, forge on with this one, or start fresh for 2019?

I'm all in for sub 2:30 at Boston 2019 after a busted fall, and wondering where the discussion starts.

I'm way, way, way slower than all you guys. But these threads are awesome. Just read through the whole 17 pages tonight and learned a ton.

Last spring I was running my own marathon and followed along with the sub 2:30 Boston thread.

For whatever my vote counts as, I'd say keep this thread going through CIM and whatever comes later than that (Dallas? other international races?) and then do a 2019 sub 2:30 for spring AND fall marathons.

And awesome running and thoughts from everyone!

Hi gentlemen,

I ended up going 2:32 at Philly. 1:15-high/1:16-high. Not an amazing race, but a 3 minute PR so I have to be happy with that. Plus everyone here is way more fit than I am..didn’t even feel right posting on here!...So I’m happy to be running within a couple minutes of you folks. The journey continues. I’m not sure yet if I’ll try to run a sub-1:11 half to qualify for American Development at Chicago or if I’ll find a spring marathon. or maybe just focus on developing at shorter distances and then hammer Berlin next fall.

Great thread.

JReddy- hammer it at California Intl.

Reed- keep up the great rebuild

slo-twitch wrote:

I’m on the fence about taking it out in 1:15. I like the idea of chasing the sub 2:30, but am a little afraid of blowing up. My PR is only 2:35 and, with decent conditions, I think I can knock out a 2:32 with even pacing.

sounds like you knew your fitness. congrats on the PR, and at least you're now in the 5:40s instead of the 5:50s.

and my mileage progression had ended. got a cold this week and am still planning to race a turkey trot, so am resting a bit extra.

with my last few weeks at 81, 82, and 83, I feel like I must be in decent shape by now and I'm gonna shoot for getting within a minute of my PB, which should be within reach even while sick. that would be 33:41ish. I ran 33:29 in February and looking back at workouts, I think I'm in a little better shape now.

quick result bump - I ran the turkey trot. cold didn't seem to bother me although you never know for sure. didn't feel rusty or stale from a super easy week either. weather was perfect although the course was soaked from a night of rain and wind, so there were slippery leaves everywhere which don't jive with VaporFlys. so nobody was really hitting tangents today, making the course roughly 10-15 seconds slower for the slippery course plus a few extra seconds for wide turns.

my plan was to go out at 5:20 at best, probably 5:25, and no slower than 5:30 even if I felt awful. 3 guys took off and there seemed to be a race to be the best of the rest. split 5:26 a couple seconds behind 4th and 5th. held about 4 seconds behind them in the 2nd mile (5:25ish) and started reeling them in in the 3rd mile, although a few people behind me seemed to be catching me as well. took over 4th place right after the 5k split (16:53, another 5:25ish) and then I hit the gas to try to drop the chasers and the guy I had just passed. only split 5:20 for the 4th mile but running probably 5:15 pace with the wider turns. seemed to do the job and I held steady in the 5th mile, with a 5:25ish, and then at mile 5 I got scared of the people behind me who were definitely within striking distance. picked it up with a 5:18ish and then really hit the gas in the last 0.2 just for fun. 33:24, which in those conditions was definitely a 33:00ish effort. split 16:53 - 16:31 and had a lot left in the tank. the last non-XC race I did was a 5k, all-out, in 16:42, so literally the same exact pace for half the distance at a much higher effort. got 4th in the race, winner ran 29:49 so I got destroyed. even 3rd place was 31:30ish.

what I learned: never bail out of a race because you had a cold or some off days that week. maybe the gun will go off and you'll forget about the cold and just race. sometimes backing off from the sickness can be a blessing in disguise.

BouldeRunner wrote:

Here's a question, for those of us looking forward to spring, do we revive the Boston thread, forge on with this one, or start fresh for 2019?

I'm all in for sub 2:30 at Boston 2019 after a busted fall, and wondering where the discussion starts.

good to know, my plan is also to try the sub 2h30 in Boston next year. I got close this year with a 2h30:41 in Amsterdam and signed up for Boston.

when i started this thread didn't expect that many people would come and share their trainings and races. It was great and I learned a lot here.

I am happy to create the sub 2h30 Boston thread just after the new year...

reed, good stuff!

A week after my 2h30:41 Marathon I ran a 10k in 33:15. Couldn't push very hard as my legs were tired but my 10k shape was probably around 32:30. Reading your description it doesn't sound you're far. Keep going and you'll certainly have a shot at the 2h29 in the near future...

@reed, I’m impressed. Great race and great progress.

Unfortunately I seem to have aggravated my hamstring. It doesn’t feel as sharp or painful as a tear, but it’s very tight. It started Monday afternoon on my second run. I took Tuesday and Wednesday easy and just ran about four miles each day. I could still tell it was tight, but it didn’t bother me. Then I stupidly decided to trot yesterday. Did a 5k opening in 5:07, but it wasn’t feeling quite right, so I settled into about 5:20 and thought that was fine. Then it got super tight about 300 meters from the finish, and I just jogged it in. Feels much better today, but I think I’m going to do pretty close to nothing until CIM. Might bike to work to burn calories and jog a few miles easy on the treadmill, but I think it just needs rest.

@reed Great 10k! Your progress over the course of this thread has been fun to watch.

@Jreddy Have you dealt with this kind of hamstring issue before? I just coincidentally started to develop some tightness and pain in my right hamstring following a few runs on the treadmill that left me really sore. I'm starting to return to training and ran a five mile tempo yesterday at 5:33 pace and it felt ok until the cool down.I'm not sure if this is something that I'm going to need to rest completely or if I can get by on some light stretching and/or icing throughout the day.

As far as the spring goes, I pulled the trigger on Grandma's with a goal of shaving off 2 mins for a 2:29. I'm planning on just trying to survive the winter with some kind of consistency...hopefully 60-75 miles a week with a 15ish mile long run and at least a weekly tempo. Whatever happens thread wise, I'll be on board for the 2019 version.

conservative treatment of hamstring injury using treadmill: turn on slow, face backwards, resist movement of belt, one foot on belt and one to the side. Worked for me in a couple weeks.https://www.jospt.org/doi/pdf/10.2519/jospt.2015.5762?code=jospt-site

I don't think I have PHT. It's much, much lower down the leg, closer to behind the knee. Not painful, just tight. It seems to be responding very well to rest, so I'm going to stick with that as CIM is only a week away.

Never felt anything like it. I've had pulls/tears before, but this is totally different. There's no pinpoint of pain. In fact, it's not really painful at all. Usually I can put my fingers on the exact spot where I have a tear. The only thing I can think is that I was sitting in traffic for 4+ hours when driving home from the Philly Half, and my right leg was probably tense that whole time as I bounced back and forth between the brake and accelerator.

My rule of thumb for most injuries is partial rest. Very few things seem to get better when I stop running completely, but if I reduce the total stress load, it seems like things usually resolve themselves.

@itsallbeendone, I do appreciate the suggestions, though. I'll keep it in mind if this turns out to be a bigger deal than I hope.

@Jreddy - sorry to hear about your hammy and hope a bit of rest sorts it out in time for CIM.

I think it was the 1984 Olympics where both winners of the marathon had unexpected time off beforehand (Lopes a car accident just before the event and Benoit knee surgery before the US trials I think). Maybe a bit of unplanned rest will put you in Olympic marathon winning company.

@Reed - Sounds like a good day out at the Turkey Trot and a good sign of fitness!

My event, Valencia Maraton, is this coming Sunday so fully tapering now and excited to race. I've got a 6 x 800m at 5:20/mile pace tomorrow and a 3 x 3minutes at 5:40 pace on Thursday but otherwise all easy running. The only slight spanner in the works is that it's snowing in Chamonix where I live, so using the treadmill next few days to avid slipping on ice or snow.

Will come back and update after the event. Got my last pre race blog to write for Fast Running tomorrow.

Run easy everyone.

Haven't checked on this thread in awhile - glad to see it's still alive.

@marathonNoob sounds like tough conditions, you'll get it next time on a better course. Solo wind running is so tough.

@slo-twitch that's a fantastic PR! you're in great position to nail it on your next one. I was 2:36 last year before dropping under 2:30.

@reed that is blistering, well done! I would say your build up is going well. Do you think you'll keep ramping up the overall mileage?

@Jreddy yeah I agree I think better to do some mileage as long as it's getting the recovery it needs. I think given your incredibly high mileage it might throw you off to all the sudden go to 0 for a week? With your base it shouldn't really matter much if you did decide to rest for a week. Anyway hoping for great things and I think you'll crush it on Sunday.

As for me nothing exciting, have been ramping back up the miles and am close to getting back down to race weight. Ran a 5:25 avg for a 4M turkey trot which was faster than I had feared, but still shows I probably have a month or two of work to get back near Chicago shape. I'm going to be pacing the 2:45 group at CIM so come say hi and hopefully don't see any of you during the race!

@mikemike: I should clarify that in Jreddy-speak, "nothing" means like 50 miles/week. The hamstring seems 100% resolved now. I went out on Sunday planning to run an easy 5-6, and I ended up doing 10 feeling fantastic at around 6:30 pace. No hint of tightness at all. Not sure what it was, but I think I'm good to go.

I've got a couple of female teammates trying to qualify at CIM, so you may be escorting them. Look for singlets with a DC Flag and a fist in the middle.

Yeah, one of the women in coaching is also shooting for her OTQ at CIM, so you should see her at some point.

Some of my Sacramento lady-friends are relying on you too Mike. No pressure lol. Is it just you or do you have a partner?

Somebody asked if I plan to keep building the mileage. Last week was just 60mi with Friday completely off and the two easy days before the race, so my "perfect" mileage progression is done anyway. I think the smartest plan is to hold around 80-85 mpw for as long as I can. I'm now 19 weeks out from my goal 50mi race, and just 14-15 weeks out from my tuneup 50k. The good news is that it seems like I'm only 5-6 weeks out from good 50k fitness so I should have a lot of time to get even fitter.

My training is now getting away from road race training as I'm doing some of my hard days on trails now, which makes paces and stuff more effort-based and harder to explain. I'd like to still do a standard workout every week or two just to track fitness and maintain road fitness.

I think my nextrace will be a 10 miler on New Year's Day, on trails but not extremely hilly. Will probably run between 62-65min, and it will be competitive. So it will be good to hit some trail tempos between now and then to get a feel for race pace on technical terrain. Hats a big factor in trail racing.

24hr runner, good luck in Valencia! I'll check for your blog post so don't wait too long!

reed wrote:

Hats a big factor in trail racing.

I totally agree. Can't be a serious trail racer without a good trucker hat.

How do you run a guaranteed 2:30 marathon? Well....the schedule can look like this:

Monday: 6-10 miles 6: 50 mile pace

Tuesday: 20 x 400m at 74 sec , rec= wait easy walking until back to 120 bpm.

Wednesday: 5- 8 miles 6:50 mile pace

Thursday: 6-10 miles 6:50 mile pace

Friday: LT-intervals 6-8 x mile at 5:22 min , rec= wait easy walking until back to 120 bpm.

Saturday: RESTDAY , do something else you like to do.

Sunday : Specific long run of 2 hours 20 min at 6:50 mile pace ...........last 20 min at intervals 1 min fast- 1 min slow..........fast pace 80 sec/ 400m .

Of course this is only for a runner at this level of workouts with a controlled feeling. Looks very simple at a first glance......but it works every time.

- Magic Winter -

/thread

I guess, if that's all we need to do every week of the year

Sounds like it's going to be a huge group going for OTQ for both men and women - I hope I don't screw it up! They have just found a partner for me which will be nice because you never know what can happen over almost 3 hours of running.