Sub 3hr first marathon

What is your current 10k PR?

If it's not around 38 minutes, forget it.

If you ran 50 miles per week for the next eight weeks in a row, with one day of intervals (1min hard, 1min easy, 20 times) and then a weekend long run of 14~20 miles.. that is enough. Consistency will beat out some complex, impossible training plan that burns you out any day of the week. For your first marathon, I'd aim for consistency. Keep the on/off fartlek like you're doing once a week, but make it longer (1 or 2min hard sections, not 45sec). Then stick with your long runs of 18~22 miles. If you wanna let it rip for the last few miles of your long run, by all means go for it.

Other than that, just run your marathon and see what happens. 5:09 is not slow and I bet you're in good shape. So just go with it. Hard to make it any more specific than that when we don't know how well you actually run marathons. After the first marathon, then it's easier to dial in a specific training program.

firstmarathon wrote:

Did a 13 mile long run with my friend last weekend around 7:20 pace, mostly chatting and cruising.

This is an excellent place to start marathon-specific workouts. It's a long tempo at goal MP + 30. If you can get up to 13-14 miles at close to goal MP (6:50-7:00) along with everything else you're doing, you'll give yourself a good chance of reaching your goal. Keep progressing this run every other week or so.

Soap seller in SE Portland wrote:

What is your current 10k PR?

If it's not around 38 minutes, forget it.

Not sure to be honest, but I'd guess somewhere around 39-40 min, a bit less on a good day? Based on my 20 min tempo @6:30 pace

Appreciate the advice! If I do a 20 mile long run on 50 miles/week, then I'd be averaging 5/day the other 6 days, which feels a bit low. Would you recommend taking a day off and doing 6/day, or still try and run every day to be consistent

I would recommend building up your long run to 18-22 miles. Get two 20+ mile long runs in if you can. Give yourself plenty of rest afterwards (take a day off if you need). Don't race them, but a steady pace would be good if you can at least for the second half of them.

As for workouts, start with 1 a week. Think building on your tempos - by the end hopefully doing a 20-30 min tempo run (@6:15-6:25 pace, but run what feels sustainable and do not strain to hit a pace). Alternatively you can do things like 4xmile with 1' rest (slightly faster race), 2x2mile(6:05-6:20 pace), 6x1000@(5:55-6:10 pace) if intervals are better for you.

Sleep is important, as is nutrition. On your long runs, I'd recommend getting used to taking a gel 45" in and 90" in, so you're ready for that on your race day. I'd think about planning out a day off every 15-20 days, so you don't burn out.

don't do a 20 mile long run every week. some weeks its ok to do 16 miles with last 6 @ MP pace instead for example

also you don't need to run days to hit 50 MPW. it might be good to give yourself a day off or to cross train one day a week

va runner wrote:

don't do a 20 mile long run every week. some weeks its ok to do 16 miles with last 6 @ MP pace instead for example

Yeah to be clear planning out your long runs like 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 16, 21, 18, 15, 10 (last one before race). That's far more exact than you need, but you don't to average 20 miles on them. I broke 3 on 6 days a week pretty much as well.

You’ve been training a lot more than this guy, and he ran under 2:47 with no training and a 15 minute negative split for the second half. Lol. Not.

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=10056042