Sub 3HR Fall Marathon Thread - The quest for less amateur glory begins?

Things are starting to look up.

Got some superfeet insoles with a met pad, and have managed two runs over 5k virtually pain free with no increased pain the next day or afterwards.

Seeing a rheumatologist tomorrow as I’ve also developed ra in my shoulder. The doctor thinks I might have some ra in my toe joint too. Expecting cortisone shots, with fingers crossed.

I’m tentatively optimistic that I’m on the mend. Plan at this point is base through spring, with some races thrown in here and there for fun. Target a late summer early fall half, and then try for a sub 3 at cim (I fully expect to have adjust this plan).

Thanks for reading my diary post lol

highhoppingworm

Nice to see that your training has been going well. Too bad with the achilles tendon. Hope you get well in time for the marathon. One thing is for sure, it is almost impossible to get through a whole marathon plan without any issues. Niggles here and there, kids barfing on you, flu, whatever :-). But you have managed it as well as you could so far and it looks good. The only thing that I urge you to do next time around is to force yourself to keep the E miles slower!!! I can't stress this enough. It will keep you on the right side of the razors edge. Stick to 8' and force it there. Especially in your Q-sessions. Just a piece of advice.

Your sessions look solid. You had a nice base to start off with from your autumn training and you’ve built nicely on that. Your 12M @ M looks good, shows that your specific stamina is there. But dude, stick to the pace!!! The 12M is perfect, but the M session week ending 1/18 is totally off. Waay to fast (6’05 is probably not your M at this point). Try this: before starting each Q-session, ask yourself what is the purpose of the session. Then answer it. In case of M-session: purpose: teach body to become efficient and run on autopilot at projected marathon speed. What is the one most important thing in this session? Answer: don’t run too fast.

You have to remember that there’s an overall training load built into the program. This is to keep you on the right side. So when there’s a shorter M-session like 3E+4x(2M+1E)+1E, it is giving you the chance to bounce back from training load and stay on the right side. The last rep should not end at 6’13, it should be dead on 6’25-6’35. Otherwise, what you’re doing is to gradually increase the overall fatigue and by week 12-15 into a program this catches up to you in the form of injury or fatigue. Don’t walk into that trap. You came a really long way in a short period of time, don’t mess it up. I walked into this trap for many years before actually getting it right in my stubborn head.

As for the half marathon coming up. I can only give you my input on what works for me. Everybody is different, and react differently. For me, if I go all out in the half 2-4wks before a marathon race, I’m coming from 10-12wks of hard marathon training and it will affect me for approximately 1wk after the race. That’s all out on pretty tired leg from a lot of training. In this case, I need a week of only E running to bounce back. What works best for me is to run the half at approx. 1-2min slower than all out. If you check back in the thread, you find my race from the cph half before my goal race. I divided the race into 5ks and ran progressively 10 sec faster each 5k starting the first at 20’ (6’24). The last 5k is all out. By running the race this way, I bounce back well the following week. So, if the following week post half race (on a sunday) has 2 Q sessions (say wed, sun), I rest Monday and stick to only E for Tuesday and Wednesday. I skip the planned Q session on Wednesday and then jump back into the program for the remainder of the week. This works well for me and skipping a Q session for a 80-90% effort half marathon is fine. Whatever you do, don’t force a Q session to early after the race if you don’t feel 100% recovered.

For your goal marathon race, I think your target is good. Sub 2’55 is a good target for your first marathon. There is different ways to get there… Either you go out like a bat outta hell and experience the shuffle of running in the zombie twilight zone for the last 10k and finish at 2’53-54. We all have done that, but save that experience for another time. Or, you find the right pace and cruise the first half, have to work a little bit harder to stay at the pace for the second half but manageable and you still finish at 2.53-54. This is preferable ?.

My recommendation for you is to pay attention directly after the start. Force yourself to find 6’25-6’35 pace within the first mile. Then just stay there. Kill all thoughts of increasing to 6’10-6’15. Running that pace would feel good, but you will pay, trust me, you will pay in the end. Before the start, close your eyes, go through what you have to do (this should include the mantra, not too fast, not too fast, 6’30, 6’30..) Take a deep breath, know that you are ready, relax and then execute.

As for nutrition, I take maurten gels every 25-30min and just a sip or two of water at every water station. I never drink more than that unless it’s hot and sunny. This works well for me.

In my eyes, overall you’ve done a great job this cycle and given yourself a good chance to run well. Let’s see to it that it happens. Good luck to you!! Don’t forget to report back!!

Thanks for your comments. I have done. Better job in recent weeks Of running closer to 8 for my normal E runs. Totally agree the M pace runs have creeped up too well beyond accurate E pace. The 12M run was intended to be an honest gauge of fitness.

As for my race plan I was definitely leaning towards trying to negative split. I was actually going to be even more conservative than what you recommended. Below would get me to sub 2:55 for example... thoughts?

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1:27:54

1:27:00

One other comment. I am actually doing the full first and then the half 5 weeks later. We are having a second kid in late April/early May and my wife did not feel comfortable with me doing a full so close to the due date. So the question is more how to bounce back from a full to run a half a few weeks later.

highhoppingworm:

Nothing wrong with your race plan at all. Only thing though is that you didn't train at 6'50, so it might actually feel harder than 6'25-6'35. If it doesn't, stick to the plan. For me personally, that plan is too specific. I like to hit the right pace +/- 10-15 seconds and just find the flow. Once there, I just stick with it as long as I can. But I do know how it should feel based on previous marathons. You don't have that experience. Just go out hitting half in 1.27.xx and you should be in the zone.

Sorry about the mix up in dates for the half. I have never done that before. Running a half a few weeks after a marathon. So can't give you any input on that. My legs would be totally dead for the half. I wouldn't be able to keep HM pace for very long so close after the marathon.

Congrats on the increase in family size!

Thanks! I really appreciate the continued back and forth. Running can be a lonely sport at times so it is nice to talk this stuff through.

Here is this weeks training.

Stats: 34/m/6’2”/180 lbs

Goal Race: Hyannis Marathon on 2/23 (14 days out)

Goal Time:

C) Sub 3

B) Sub 2:55

A) Sub 2:53

Week ending 2/9:

M: Off running. Heel drops/rolling

T: Q2 (16 total) - 3E+4x(2M+1E)+1E. Goal was to run a notch faster than M but not quite T. Overall avg. 7:05. Segments were 6:37/6:34/7:26, 6:13/6:26/7:56, 6:25/6:28/7:42, 6:13/6:13/8:02. Achilles seems be improving but can still feel it.

W: 8 @ 7:58. Felt pretty solid. Achilles feels about the same as Tuesday.

TH: 6 @ 7:47. Achilles felt noticeably better. Barely felt it. Was in Hartford for work running along the river. I slipped on some mud going down a decline and almost slid into the river. Scary.

F: 6 @ 7:05. Felt really really good. First completely pain free running day in more than a month. Zero reason to run this fast other than I didn’t have much time and just felt like having fun. My son was in the emergency room the night before so only got like 3 hours of sleep.

S: Q1 (15 total) - 5E+8 hard w/ last 2 fast finish+2E. 5 up @ 7:44 and then 8 @ 6:09/6:22/6:17/6:06/6:07/6:02/5:42/5:32 followed by 2 down @ 8:10. I wasn’t planning on running quite this fast but I felt incredible. The first mile split surprised me so I slowed down a bit. 6:22 and 6:17 felt too easy so decided to press it a bit. Never went all-in but definitely an effort. Heart rate stayed below 170 which is a good sign. Another pain free day.

SU: 9E @ 7:54. Felt somewhat sluggish. Slept poorly last night. I think Thursday night plus the 5-6 hours I got last night are adding up. I need to focus on getting rest this week. Achilles was a little bit sore at the end but nothing too worrisome.

Total: 60 miles.

Notes:

-Reduced volume and eccentric heel drops seem to be solving the achilles problem.

-Saturday workout was a big confidence boost for me. I felt really strong. Clearly the 2 6 miles days leading up helped.

-I am feeling fresher on 60 miles than I have in awhile. Will probably try to keep things in the mid 50s this week and then reduce to 35-40 leading up to my race.

-This is the second time my son has gotten croup this winter which seems a bit odd. Hearing your child having trouble breathing is one of the more terrifying experiences in life.

highhoppingworm:

Nice job with the training. And good to hear that your achilles is getting well. To be honest, I think the drop in mileage probably helped you overall in your preparation for the race, not only your achilles.

Training looks really solid. You're in shape, but dude... That saturday workout... It's good with confidence boosts, but you are close to race day. Hold it back a little and save it for the race.

You are in great shape and have a really good shot at breaking your A goal. If you had 1-2 marathons in you and we knew how your stamina profile looked like, I'd say 2.53 is too conservative if you're a stamina guy, but if you're more of a speedster, then the fade that inevitably happens puts you around 2.53.

Mind you, your training has been solid in both aspects regarding speed and stamina. There is nothing here that points to the fact that you will fade as a speedster would. I think you are on a path to be much, much faster than 2.53 a couple of years down the line. Will be very interesting to see how you tackle your first marathon.

Sorry to hear about your son. Croup is nasty stuff. Hope he's well now. As a father of two, can urge you to get as much sleep as you can now... I forsee sleepless nights ahead..

When I had my second child, I had one 2yr old and an infant. I tried to stick to training plans etc, but the overall pressure with not enough sleep and trying to train according to plan was too much. It all changed when I decided to scrap all plans, no pressure on racing, just go out and train whenever I had time/felt like it. And what happened was that I was in great shape a year later. I just jogged and threw in a Q-session here and there. Worked for me.

So, last two weeks. You are going to be bouncy and have excess energy because of reduced mileage. I cannot stress enough the importance to stick to the correct pace for your Q sessions. You should leave those sessions feeling that you had to put a break on. Save it for race day.

Thanks northener. I think I basically am in the clear now with the croup. Steroids really are magical.

I did my last real Q workout yesterday. I had to do it on a treadmill due to snow which may have been good as it forced me to keep to pace. Ended up doing 12 with 7M progression in the middle 6:40/6:35/6:30/6:30/6:30/6:25/6:20. Felt pretty crappy honestly but that is always the case for me on a treadmill. From here on out it is just E days and a slow 13 miler on Sunday. I will do a small rust buster on Tuesday before the race. I was thinking 3 up, 1M/1T/1M with 800E 1 down. Does that sound about right?

Ha ha, yeah, treadmill is what it is. Kind of boring and miles feel veeery long.

Your tuesday workout in race week looks fine. Whatever feels good. I usually do 2-3M in a total of about 6miles on the tuesday. Then I do 3-4 miles at E (8-8'20) with 4-5x20" strides at the end on thursday. Makes my legs feel bouncy come race day. If the race is sunday, I sometimes do a repeat 3miles+4x20" on the friday.

34/M/6’2”/180

Goal Race: Hyannis Marathon

(next Sunday)

This weeks training. 7 days out.

M - 8E @ 7:54. Felt Ok.

T - 8E @ 7:22. Felt fantastic.

W - Off

Th - 3 up + 7M progression + 2 down. Had to run on treadmill @ 1% incline due to snow/ice. M progression was 6:40/6:35/6:30/6:30/6:30/6:25/6:20. Felt pretty crappy honestly. I really do hate the treadmill.

F - 8E @ 7:40. Felt great.

S - 7E @ 7:26. -1 w/ windchill but felt good nonetheless.

Su - 10E + 3M mild progression. 7:08 avg. overall w/ 6:50/6:40/6:30 at the end. Felt really relaxed/easy. Also wore race day upper outfit underneath a jacket to practice gel carrying.

Looking forward to next week. This thread was a huge help to me when I was just getting started both from a motivation and a knowledge standpoint. It has since been mostly deprecated but to anyone out there still reading it... thanks for the support.

Stay frosty next week. Trust your training and save everything for race day.

GOOD LUCK!!! Hope you have a great race. Crush it!

highhoppingworm:

How did it go???!!! Eagerly awaiting race report!

Hey Northener. Not particularly well. See below.

Pre-Race:

I woke up on Sunday morning around 5:30 and ate a quick breakfast of oatmeal, banana, peanut butter and yogurt along with some coffee along with 20 oz of. Gatorade. At around 7:15 I met met dad downstairs at the hotel and sat with him while he ate breakfast before heading back to the room, organizing my stuff and sitting around until about 9:00. At 9:00 I headed down to the expo and sat around for another 30 minutes before lacing up my vaporflys and heading out for a short jog. My wife and son came in on Sunday morning so they were there when I got back. I gave my little guy a big hug and my wife one of those hugs you give an extremely pregnant woman where you have to sort of tilt your hips back and lean forward. I quickly ran back to my room. To use the bathroom before heading to the start line. I lined up 2-3 rows back and talked to a few other marathoners that were looking to run under 3 hours, Bill Rodgers said a few words and the gun went off.

Mile 1-5:

The first mile felt insanely easy. It was a pretty large crew of half marathoners but no so many that there was any real weaving going on. I was checking my watch a ton and saw the current pace roll up to 6:20 before cooling it and crossing the mile mark in 6:36. The next few miles were pretty uneventful. I just kind of turned my brain off and tried not to get too carried away. That said, I did run a few miles faster than was advisable. Overall the first block was 6:36/6:33/6:29/6:39/6:38. At mile 5 I took a quick status check. Aerobically I felt great (HR was 166), legs felt fresh and I had been able grab 2 gatorades. I took non-caffeinated gel and settled for the next 5 miles.

Miles 6-10:

Miles 6-10 were also pretty uneventful. I fell in with an older gentleman who told me he was planning on pacing his friend to a 3:10 but they had gotten separated so he was just kind of going with it. Later on in the conversation he mentioned that he ran 2:55 at Chicago the previous fall which made a bit more sense. I continued to grab water whenever I could. There were a lot of rolling hills on this section of the course but nothing too exciting. Overall I still felt awesome at 10 miles. I did another diagnostic check and aerobically I felt great still (HR was 164) and legs still felt pretty darn fresh. Splits were 6:34/6:32/6:38/6:32/6:27. My watch was showing me a projected finish time of 2:52 at this point and I was feeling confident. I took a caffeinated gel and focused on getting to the half.

Miles 10-15:

At around mile 12 I started to feel like I was working a bit. Nothing too crazy but it definitely wasn’t effortless. I focused on getting to the half and then focusing my efforts on getting to 18 miles. I finished the first loop in 1:26:05 ad saw my family. The gave me a big cheer and told my dad gave me some words of encouragement about being dead on pace. I hit a bit of a rough spot at 15 miles but thought I got over it quickly and continued loping along through 15 miles. I had separated from folks by this point and was mostly alone. I managed to get 3 more gatorades down during this section so was feeling pretty good about hydration. Splits were 6:34/6:31/6:33/6:32/6:42. I took another caffeinated gel at 15. My heart rate was up a bit to 170 or so and my legs were starting to feel a bit heavy but nothing I hadn’t felt before in training.

Miles 16-26.2:

Somewhere in mile 16 things started to go wrong. I began to feel my hamstring catching a bit on my left leg. This is not something I had really felt over this entire cycle. I adjusted my stride a bit to try and stretch it out a bit. This didn’t seem to do much I hit mile 16 in 6:47 and right at the outset of mile 17 my left hammy had a total meltdown. It Charlie horsed hard and I had to stop for a second. I could feel it spasming as I tried to massage it. I walked for about 20 second and tried to start jogging again. I made it about 200 meters and then it hit again. I continued to repeat this hoping it would loosen up no cigar. I realized my day was pretty much done but there was no real way to get home so I resigned myself to walk jogging it in the last 9 miles. I was able to put together .5-.75 miles before my hammy (and eventually elements of my groin) would flair up again. Folks were passing me and it was embarrassing. I started taking down multiples gatorades at each rest stop and eventually got a bottle of water at 24 miles which seemed to help a ton. Last section was 6:49/8:09/8:47/8:20/8:45/8:59/8:46/9:19/8:23/8:51/7:37/7:18 pace for the last bit. I crossed the line at 3:14:08.

Post-race thoughts:

I think I got badly de-hydrated. That is the only think I can really attribute this to. I was 183ish when I left for Hyannis and was down to 174 when I got home Sunday afternoon. This is after eating a Big Mac and fries and drinking probably 80 oz’s of gatorade. Maybe sweaty beasts just aren’t meant to cover 26.2 miles. I am mainly frustrated because I don’t feel like I ran the distance and gave it my all. I never felt like I was really pushing the line. I would have been OK with a true bonk but am not even sure how to respond to this one. I barely slept Sunday night thinking about where to go from here. I decided overnight that I am going to put in some time trying to work on my 5k and 10k speed and see if I can crack 16 and 34 minutes. I ordered a pfitz 5k-HM book and will try some different training. I also have a HM I will run on 4/5 where I may try to get a PR but won’t try anything too crazy.

Sometimes you need to keep things in perspective. Here is a before/after picture of me 8 months ago vs. yesterday (240+ vs. 170ish at the finish line?).

https://imgur.com/gallery/nN0UNQj

Other stats:

Total cholesterol last year/this year: 320/180

Resting HR last year vs. this year: 60/39

Mile time trail first day of running (6/20ish/2019): 6:37

Sometimes you have to keep things in perspective I suppose.

HHW--I've been lurking on this thread. I'm glad you are keeping things in perspective. You are fit. Your progress looks amazing. Seems to me that hamstring thing was probably just a fluke. You're in shape. Lots of little things have to align perfectly on marathon day. Some of those things are out of your control.I have no doubt you can rebound and hit your marathon goal.

The most important thing is your closing thoughts. You look about 10 years younger in the first photo (and, despite pushing through a marathon, happier). Good for you! That is the most important thing in life--health and happiness.

Keep that perspective. Rest up. And then go crush some other races.

highhoppingworm:

Uuhh. I feel for you that you didn't get the chance to execute according to your fitness level. That really sucks! It's hard work doing all the training and then something happens when it's time to race, be it cathing a cold or cramped up hamstring etc. It has happened to me on multiple times and it's tough. There is nothing one can do more than to evaluate what went wrong, learn from that and move on. And as you pointed out, your journey to where you're at now is the biggest reward. Never forget that! That work is impressive! Your time will come when it comes to performing, don't worry.

When it comes to what might have gone wrong, sure dehydration could be part of it. But I think maybe there is another explanation as well. You are quite new to this and you have great talent. Since you don't have thousands and thousands of miles under your belt, your muscles, tendons and joints are not yet hardened by years of pounding. That's why I was urging you to stay on pace for all your hard (and easy) miles in the build up to this race. For you, just to do the 18wks of Daniels 2Q is a big stress on your body, and you were probably on the border for what your body could handle. Sure, you don't notice this in training, but maybe your muscles were at the edge. And then, when race day came your hamstring just gave up because of a little too much for too long. Could be an explanation. Regardless, by just doing this build up, you've hardened everything for next time around. Try to hit the right balance in the paces. If it says Easy, do easy, not distance, regardless if you feel on top of the world.

Seriously, you do have great talent. Rest now, bounce back and keep at it and you WILL crush races in a near future. I understand it feels tough now, but just stick with it, your time will come.

It's been great following your journey in this thread. Good luck with everything, both in running and family life.

Thanks Northener. Already bouncing back over here. Taking this week easy and then ramping up for a week or two before going back to normal mileage. I have a HM on 4/5 that I will try to put a good effort into taking advantage of some residual marathon fitness and then I am going to start a 5k/10k training cycle for some target races in late May-mid June. I'll decide on a Looking forward to some faster stuff. Thanks for your support over the last few months. I post my training on the road racing weekly thread if you care to lurk there.

I know the cramping feeling, it’s sucks. Happened to me on my first marathon, quad seized up, and deathmarched it home.

Was on pace for 3:40 at half and finished over 4:20. I attribute it entirely to lack of prep though, I was running 35km a week and signed up on a whim. You clearly were more trained than me, but you were also pushing the pace more.

I’ve ran two marathons since(An even paced 3:20 and a big bonked positive split 3:14) , with more consistent training and haven’t had a muscle cramp or seize in either.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you were able to go 2:45 or so next marathon.

Love this thread, thanks for everyone’s input it’s a great read for sub 3 hopefuls like myself.

My marathon training is going really well, 5 and a half weeks out and knuckling down now before taper.

I’ve got my next 4 long runs planned in using various races for getting MP work done and I’m looking for suggestions for mid-week sessions for this final phase (I’m running 55 miles a week average with one midweek session and a long run).

I’ve got 4 quality mid week sessions left to nail, I’ve decided on 2, looking for 2 more.

• 6 x 1 mile repeats with long warm up and down

• 10 x 800 again with warm up and down

• ???

• ???

Maybe a structured fartlek and one other speed orientated session? I’m after specifics.

I’ve already bagged lots of MP work totalling ten miles each time and just ran a 1:23 half last week so feeling good.

Thanks

12 miles with 6 miles at 15k to hm pace.

Do this on this week. Then stick with speed work.