Sub 2:30-2:25-2:20 what does it take training wise? 26.2

My PR (from 1983 Boston mind you) is 2:33 but I ran 1:10 for the half so I under-performed at the marathon distance. I think to run 2:30 or faster you need some long runs of 10 - 16 miles at paces like 5:45 - 6:00 mile, weekly if possible. You need interval workouts of 800M - 1600M at significantly faster than race pace, say 4:50/5:00 mile to help you become more efficient at race pace. Having some form of core/strength training several times/week would certainly prove helpful. You also need to be smart about both pacing and fueling/hydration. Back in the early 1980s I didn't even stop to drink in a marathon which probably wasn't that smart, at least not smart on hot days and I would run the first 10 miles too fast. Even running say 2 minutes too fast for the first 10 miles can really hurt you in the later stages of the race. Ideally, your weekly mileage would be in the 70 to 80 mile range which would probably require 2X day workouts of slow 4 or 5 mile runs several days/week

What type of core/strength work did you do?

Did you train 70-80 mpw year-round? I know it's up for debate but is there anything special about hitting 100+ (with appropriate speed work) that will help get to sub 2:30 times?

Thanks!

Naperville Runner wrote:

I think to run 2:30 or faster you need some long runs of 10 - 16 miles at paces like 5:45 - 6:00 mile, weekly if possible.

You need interval workouts of 800M - 1600M at significantly faster than race pace, say 4:50/5:00 mile to help you become more efficient at race pace.

Ideally, your weekly mileage would be in the 70 to 80 mile range which would probably require 2X day workouts of slow 4 or 5 mile runs several days/week

I disagree with pretty much all of the core-running related advice given in this post.

Weekly runs of 10-16 miles at M pace to M+15 seconds is very intense if done at M pace, and still hard at M+15 pace, but doesn’t yield any real efficient adaptations at M+15.

Lots of work at 3k-5k pace is also very intense and will be great for vo2max development, but vo2max isn’t really the limiting factor in marathon performance - avoiding exceeding your lactate threshold is.

The volume suggestion is reasonable, but the suggestion that you do that with lots of shorter doubles isn’t ideal. Better to get used to utilizing all of your glycogen pathways by way of doing a fair number of 70+ minute runs that lots and lots of 30-35 minute runs.

Focus on long runs, medium long runs and lots of work at threshold pace with a little bit of 5k paced work very early in the cycle to boost your fitness before you jump into the heart of your training cycle.

Combine some of those threshold efforts into your long runs every three weeks or so. Do 3 or so runs at goal marathon pace Over the 10 weeks before your taper.

Sleep well, eat well, hydrate well and do the core and strength work that the other poster suggested.

There are probably 10 different ways to get to those times assuming you aren't hindered in some way. Doing the standard two workouts and a long run a week can get you there just fine. Just as focusing on high milage can probably do the same. There is no real secret to it nor is it is as good as people on this board seem to think. It is hard to give guidelines because of this and perhaps the sub 2:20 mark is easier to talk about because then doing the generic stuff such as only focusing on mid/long runs becomes less real and only possible by the very talented. The real thing I disagree with Smoove about is the importance of MP. I think running near MP is very important even though it isn't sitting on a threshold. If there is a secret I would say it is the doing the specific workouts. Endurance, muscle memory, mentality, and even some level of lactate training happen there. That pace certainly isn't needed every week of a cycle though. Mainly towards the end.

LowTwoTwentyDude wrote:

I think running near MP is very important even though it isn't sitting on a threshold. If there is a secret I would say it is the doing the specific workouts. Endurance, muscle memory, mentality, and even some level of lactate training happen there. That pace certainly isn't needed every week of a cycle though. Mainly towards the end.

A lot of other work is close enough to mp specific that you can get by without doing it. But I would agree that things like 60min runs at MP have a value but a 16 mile run is getting close to the crossover approach between training and straining.

For the generic schedule something like

Sun - 90-120 mins

mon easy

Tues tempo. 8x1 mile @HM 60s rest or 20-30 min straight. Do like 4x400 @1500/3k pace afterwards to maintain leg turnover if your only running 30 mins hard.

wednesday easy

Thurs alternate 12-14 miles with 8 at MP (i.e. looking for 70-90 of running time) and 4-6x1 mile at 5k-10k pace

fri easy

sat easy

is a pretty generic training plan to get you a lot of time at quality aerobic paces with enough faster work to maintain what you have. Throw in some doubles and you are likely in the 80-90 miles/week range. Some people recover quickly and can sort of squeeze in more work (things like do a12 mile run on Thursday and the workout friday).

What I would really like to see is a guy go nuts with tempo work ala Ingebrigtsen where you do 2 workouts/day of tempo type work. I am too old to try that but I remember doing the daniels back to back workouts (tempo run followed by some rep work) and they were pretty doable. You would end up with some high mileage days (5x6mins in the morning will be 10 miles after warm ups and 8x1k in the evening would also get you close to 10) of pretty specific work. Surround those workouts with a some 90+ min runs and you are setting up a solid base for 8-12 weeks of marathon specific work.

Definitely do not need to run 100mpw to run sub 230. I did it off 80 on 6 days. I think the key is two workouts a week with one of them being incorporated into long run. 8 mile lactate threshold or 5x2 miles at half marathon pace. Run a half marathon 6-8 weeks out and run sub 71. Build up to 16 miles at marathon pace.

I ran 2:27 in a marathon about 5 years ago without really training. I was running about 30 MPW at 6:40 pace for about 2 years prior and I would race an occasional 5k at 15:30. A friend asked me to run a marathon with him 2 weeks ahead of time and I was able to complete it in 2:27 but I was pretty sore for 5 days after.

Below is a link to my training plan For when I ran 2:30. It’s based on 8 or 9 day “weeks“ depending on where I was in the training cycle. The longer weeks were a concession to my age and injury history, but the concepts and the workouts were similar to my prior marathons when I trained based on conventional weeks. My actual training on the ground turned out to be less intense than this plan, but was still based on the same principles.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q8B64JFY27NJsZnM08z64PDqgUzHa6-hfl_u5E_nOo0/edit

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Smoove wrote:

Below is a link to my training plan For when I ran 2:30. It’s based on 8 or 9 day “weeks“ depending on where I was in the training cycle. The longer weeks were a concession to my age and injury history, but the concepts and the workouts were similar to my prior marathons when I trained based on conventional weeks. My actual training on the ground turned out to be less intense than this plan, but was still based on the same principles.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q8B64JFY27NJsZnM08z64PDqgUzHa6-hfl_u5E_nOo0/edit

I love how earlier in the thread you pushed back against the guy saying you need longer runs at marathon pace saying that was too hard. Yet here I see you doing at least 3 long runs at marathon pace. So it seems like they are key.

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I've always struggled to get the mileage up for the marathon, getting over 80 miles a week seems to always lead to injury/illness, and also I'm not naturally the fastest runner so prefer to keep some work around V02 max most weeks otherwise my form really drops. My best marathon was a 2.22, and the training was as follows, despite running a 2.28 marathon five weeks before.

Mon - 10 miles - 60 to 80', usually about 72'

Tue - Target 10k pace work (72"/400m - my pb is 30.05), starting at 12x400 with 200m jog in 1', adding 200m a week to the distance of the effort but reducing quantity of reps. 10 miles total

Wed - 10 miles

Thu - 10 miles

Fri - Rest

Saturday - Specific Long run - 15-22 miles.

Sun - 10 miles

The long run progression was as follows:

2 hours (15m, very hilly route)

2 hours 15 (20m, flat)

2 hours 50 (24m, quite hilly)

12 miles at 5.47 pace (18m total)

15km alternating 3.10/3.30 (15m total - this was on Tuesday of this week with 10k Race in 31.00 on the Sunday)

14 miles at 5.45 pace (20m total)

4x 5k averaging 16.41 with 4' jogging (20m total)

16 miles at 5.41 pace (22m total)

Long Progression run (21m total) - 5m@6.50p, 5@6.29, 5@6.08, 5@5.42, 1 mile jog

3x5k averaging 16.27 with 4' jogging (15m total)

Marathon 1 - 2.28 in very bad conditions, but finished strongly and placed well.

Easy week of 37 miles jogging, recovered well so decided to try another marathon

3x 2 miles averaging 10.40 with 1 mile jogging recovery (16m total)

4x 5k averaging 16.45 with 4' jogging

5 mile tempo in 26.34

Marathon 2 - 2.22

Unsurprisingly I wouldn't advise the 2.28 marathon on the way, but I think in spite of low mileage, spreading the marathon pace work over a long time helped the result. Also I personally found continuous running at marathon pace too difficult/destructive, but running 90-95% marathon pace continuously was much more managable.

I ran 2:29 doing about 65 mpw. Typical week for me:

Mon: AM 10-12km tempo - HM effort PM 5km easy

Tues: 7km easy

Wed: AM 8-10x1km around 3:15-3:20/k PM 10km Fartlek, efforts at around MP

Thurs: 7km easy

Fri: AM 30km long run, usually steady pace building to fast finish if feeling good PM 5km easy

Sat: Rest

Sun: 7km easy with strides/short hills.

Didn't do any lifting/core. No specific MP running.

Ran 70:50 HM about 6 weeks out.

Typically ran about 3200-3500km (2000-2200miles) per year.

bambam wrote:

Wed: AM 8-10x1km around 3:15-3:20/k

What was the rest period? 1 minute? 2 minutes?

bruges wrote:

bambam wrote:

Wed: AM 8-10x1km around 3:15-3:20/k

What was the rest period? 1 minute? 2 minutes?

I usually took 90s rest but would increase to 2 min if times started to slip or I felt I wasn't recovering enough.

bambam wrote:

bruges wrote:

What was the rest period? 1 minute? 2 minutes?

I usually took 90s rest but would increase to 2 min if times started to slip or I felt I wasn't recovering enough.

Very helpful. Thank you.

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