Sub-2:20 here we come? Sara Hall runs marathon in practice with last 12.2 miles at 5:17 pace

Would love to see her crack 2:20

Love Sara Hall as an athlete, but I think she leans slightly toward overtraining and certainly over-racing. A marathon is not a “workout”. I think part of the reason she did so well in London is because she didn’t really do any other races since the Olympic trials in February

I feel like a lot of marathoners will be excited about a big tempo or long run prior to their race and then have a mediocre performance. Maybe leaving her race in training or she is really fit and it wasn’t that hard for her. Best of luck to her regardless.

Agree; mildly concerning that it looks like she is peaking a month away from the race, let's hope she doesn't overtrain as she may be able to run a great time on Dec 20.

Probably using some new cheater prototypes

Maybe Hall over races (not this year!), but she is really good at recovering compared to most, given some of her back-to-back performances the last few years. A marathon can be a workout if (a) you are prepared to handle that volume and feel fairly recovered in a week or so and (b) the intensity of the run is definitely not all at race pace. I have no idea what Hall did for the first 14 miles of the marathon--hopefully an easy or at least moderate pace. My guess is that she is putting in some fairly heavy volume so hopefully can recover well.

Most amateurs don't have the desire/time to reach the fitness where a 26-miler with a 12.2 tempo on the end is reasonable as a tuneup. All power to her.

troll, not even a funny one

mid D guy wrote:

Agree; mildly concerning that it looks like she is peaking a month away from the race, let's hope she doesn't overtrain as she may be able to run a great time on Dec 20.

When do you do your biggest marathon workouts in a build?? 3-5 weeks out usually, with a steady progression from 12 weeks out until then.

A lot of MP 4 weeks out from a goal race seems to be right where Hall should be. I'd be concerned if she replicates this much quality over the next couple of weekends. She does seem to toe the line of overtraining/racing & getting it right but that's how she trains & she has had some really good results. Will be hoping for another good result.

I'm not worried that someone who wants to run sub-2:20 is putting in a workout that shows that potential 4 weeks out from their goal race.

VaporBoi wrote:

Probably using some new cheater prototypes

Here we go again with the BS!!!

I would say, however, if she is relying on Garmin-type device to measure the distance ran, she would need to add at least 1% which would add no less than 3.17 seconds per mile to her result--- which would be 5:20.2 pace.

Thoughts? [from serious thinkers only].

If I’m not mistaken, back in the 70s/80s those guys raced a lot more often than we do now. And we have shoes that are designed to give us more energy return which should help not beat up your legs as much with all that cushioning. I’m sure she is recovering just fine let her do what she wants to do.

Here we go again with the BS!!!

I would say, however, if she is relying on Garmin-type device to measure the distance ran, she would need to add at least 1% which would add no less than 3.17 seconds per mile to her result--- which would be 5:20.2 pace.

Thoughts? [from serious thinkers only].

Typically i'd agree. But, she ran on the pre-measured marathon project course that she'll be racing on in December. I can't imagine she stopped early or ignored course markings because her watch said differently.

I was recently shocked how accurate my garmin fenix 6 pro is. My running club wanted to do a 5k TT since no races. Anyway, I got a measurement wheel from amazon and walked the course. My Garmin was hitting every mile split within +-10 feet.

It's very difficult to get an accurate measurement with a measuring wheel as compared to the calibrated bicycle method. Too much wobble + other factors

Assuming this her last big MP session it's great news. 5 weeks out and provided she recovers deep from this session then I say she runs 2:18 high

Marthoner1285 wrote:

Maybe Hall over races (not this year!), but she is really good at recovering compared to most, given some of her back-to-back performances the last few years. A marathon can be a workout if (a) you are prepared to handle that volume and feel fairly recovered in a week or so and (b) the intensity of the run is definitely not all at race pace. I have no idea what Hall did for the first 14 miles of the marathon--hopefully an easy or at least moderate pace. My guess is that she is putting in some fairly heavy volume so hopefully can recover well.

Most amateurs don't have the desire/time to reach the fitness where a 26-miler with a 12.2 tempo on the end is reasonable as a tuneup. All power to her.

In general it takes you a week to recover from a workout, your workout is too hard. There are exceptions for some crazy thing like Canava's Special blocks but even there I think we are talking about 4 days recovery. But I expect she is doing a workout 2 days later since it just isn't that hard. If you write it as something like 45 easy, 70 mins at mp, 45 mins easy that doesn't seem too extreme. It is just their 45 easy is 6 miles instead 7 and their 70 mins is 10 miles instead of 13.

You would need to know what her past history with workouts like to know both if it is a good idea and how she recovers.

reluctantly nike wrote:

Typically i'd agree. But, she ran on the pre-measured marathon project course that she'll be racing on in December. I can't imagine she stopped early or ignored course markings because her watch said differently.

I'm more concerned that this course has two U-Turns per lap, and I believe it's a 4mi lap.. so six laps, 12 U-Turns. Thats a lot, especially late in a marathon. And they're not the big round about U-Turns like the INEOS thing had.

Aside from that, it's about as flat as you can get, and the weather in Dec will be probably 40~50deg, low humidity, clear etc. It's gonna be good.

CaptainPhillips wrote:

I'm more concerned that this course has two U-Turns per lap, and I believe it's a 4mi lap.. so six laps, 12 U-Turns. Thats a lot, especially late in a marathon. And they're not the big round about U-Turns like the INEOS thing had.

Per the googlemaps image below, if they were to set cones to maximize the turn radius, they could be at least 40 ft in radius:

time to go make a Strava segment for the route, then we can see a nice leaderboard come Dec 20th. (i live closeby)

updated map

https://themarathonproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Marathon-Project-2020.jpg