Marathon Disaster - Thoughts?

Piggy backing off this one...what were the courses like from your first to second marathon? Were they pretty equal in terms of elevation and hills and where the hills were on the course?

When you did your first marathon, how did you pace the first 10k and/or 10 miles compared to how paced that 60-70 mins in the second? You may have went out a little to hard on tired legs.

I'm also going to second the motion another person said in an earlier comment...training plans are written out with a certain logic in mind and tossing away an endurance-building MLR for high energy and power demanding speed work may have been more of a hindrance as it introduced a new stimulus your body had to start adapting to at the expense of what all the previous training had you adapting to.

I am way slower than you (masters woman) but I have a very high success rate getting PRs using Pfitz plans. One key is that I always target a race with cool weather. Early in my running "career" I trained for this half marathon. I put in more miles than previous efforts, and I just couldn't figure out why I felt like crap on race day. Well, it was in the 60s and humid. Ideal race conditions are right around 40 degrees. There is a huge difference between 50 and 63, and some people are affected more by hot weather than others. For your next race, I would try to find something that is under 50 degrees on race day. I know lots of pros seems to motor right along to amazing times in hot weather, but you're not a pro. Set yourself up for success by picking a colder race. 63 at the start is just not great. I'd rather run in a rainstorm. In fact, I did nearly set a HM PR in a rainstorm.

Get that physical. Knowledge is power.

And your effort was not wasted. Success in running in all distances, but especially at longer distances, is created through years of consistent mileage. Your work didn't translate into a great race this time, but it'll make you faster in your next effort, as long as you take the time to recover first.

Incidentally, to pick your cold marathon, if you want to stay in the US, I highly recommend https://findmymarathon.com/ The site is kind of wonky, but last time I was picking a marathon I think I looked for one with a MEAN (not start) temp of close to 50 degrees, lower if possible. I settled on CIM, registered, ended up getting sick and skipping it and turned to Houston marathon as a backup plan. The last thing I felt like doing was flying to Houston for a race during peak Covid, but I ran a PR, and Keira D'Amato ran an American record. The perfect weather conditions set that up for both of us.

In addition to the general consensus of overcooking the build with the added speed workouts, and the too-high-mileage of a taper, I would also consider shortening the entire buildup to Pfitz's 12 week plan.

18 weeks may be necessary to someone new to running, or at least new to high volume aerobic conditioning. But with your cycling background, plus a very good sub-3:00 marathon under your belt, 18 weeks might have been too much and just put you past your peak. I would try the shorter 12 week buildup next time, plus reduce your mileage more during your taper, and see if that helps.

Great feedback - much appreciated. I am just glad this was not all for nothing. I should be able to have some good races next year with the fitness gained and lessons-learned from this build.

The weather was definitely a concern yesterday, and I am sure it was a factor. I'm looking to do a half marathon in Carlsbad, CA, in January, which should have perfect weather. That will offer a great chance for redemption here.

Regardless of where you were in the world, it was also unseasonably hot as it's been so across the country the last couple weeks. That alone might have screwed your race even if everything else was fine.

You are contradicting yourself.

First you tell how your successful marathon training featured no speed work and lots of easy running (so that's the way to go, right? ).

Then you start talking about getting more out of your speed workouts (it's probably those workouts that left you flat).

You need endurance more than speed in the marathon, and your training should reflect that.

You didn't mention the amount of sodium either but in general the weather is what made the difference and just being inexperienced. Not every race is a PR especially in the marathon. The more you run the more likely you will do better at the marathon.. that doesn't mean your next marathon will be a PR/PB but it would mean the next 5 will yield some great results.

Another thing I have noticed. Sometimes people get over confident in their training and forget that the last 10 miles of an even paced marathon will hurt like crazy. They remember the good long runs they had and how they felt and forget you aren't promised that in race day.. the only way to build that confidence is running more and more. Idk what that training plan you followed if but in general you ran the mileage for great 10K training with marathon long runs.. with that training 26.2 miles will always be more of a question than confidence. Keep grinding keep slowly bumping that mileage and you'll hit your marathon goals within a couple years.. keep mileage the same or lower and enjoy 3-8 bad races for every good one

Really a 24 miler is in one of his plans? (I looked and see two different people posting that there is one in the plan with 7 weeks to go.)

I would echo a bit. If you have only been running a year going from 0 to 85 mpw is a huge jump.

You were probably exhausted. 90 mpw is too much for someone aiming for 2:50. Speedwork likely finished you off.

Put me in the camp of those that think that maintaining a decent amount of sustained running in the last month is important. That is what those MLR's were for, so skipping them probably undermined the basic endurance they were meant to maintain.

Not to mention that to many people, myself included, the mid-week MLR is one of the most crucial elements of the pfitz plans.

Am I understanding correctly that you ran 24mi at 5s off your MP? You might have been over trained, might have had a less than ideal taper, might have low iron, but that’s an insane effort. The body doesn’t know pace, it doesn’t have an internal speedometer, it knows effort. You ran your marathon the day you ran 24mi at MP.

Not quite. The marathon pace was high 630s. I was using the example of my 24 mile long run pace being almost my race day performance to indicate that something clearly went awry and caused my self destruction on race day.

This website really highlights what a joke the downhill marathons are

Sometimes the running gods decide it's not your day

You blew up your legs during Training. You only need to consistently stack B+ workouts. Yes you get tired during marathon training but if you can’t hit paces it means you are getting over cooked.

Doesn’t matter if you train hard in running if you aren’t training smart.

What were your "speed work" days like? I think improving that top end turnover IS important, but can mean a lot of different things. If you had days that were specifically about speed work towards the end of the build, that could have built up some fatigue there as a new training stimulus, when really you needed to get fresh. You can get a lot of the benefits of improving running economy that you're looking for by consistently doing drills and strides. Doesn't have to be the main thing of any day, it can be at the end of a training run or after a workout. 3-5x a week. To work on speed consistently like this is a more sustainable way for many people to make faster paces feel smoother during a marathon build, rather than lumping speed work in towards the end.

I agree with the poster who said that those MLR days are important in the last month or so for maintaining fitness as you get into the taper.

Also, I know you said you hit some high mileage, but maybe as a relatively new runner, your legs just don't have that true marathon fatigue resistance yet. It's a slow adaptation and it will come, especially after you absorb all this training. My friend just ran their third marathon and, though they slowed down a bit in the last ~4 miles, they held on for a PB and felt better recovered walking around afterwards than in previous marathons. Speculated that it just gets easier for your legs to take that pounding the more times you do it.

Definitely overtrained.

20 mpw is a huge jump in one block (6 months apart).

Also, some of those workouts are just too hard. Unless you have great conditions and are well-rested going into the 20 miler with 12 at MP, that workout (and others like it) have the potential to take a huge toll on the body.

Until you become more experienced, I'd recommend doing shorter efforts at MP at the end of long runs - or separating your MP work from your long runs completely.

I just know from experience that hitting MP at the end of a long run is not only much harder on the body (my HR is always inexplicably high when doing these efforts - even if I've gone fairly slowly for the preceding portion, and sometimes not even that far), it's also somewhat demoralising when MP feels so hard.

I prefer to go with the Canova 90-95% MP long runs, and then do marathon paced intervals as a separate workout; usually maxing at 4 x 5k with a 1k float recovery.