Is 3:30 possible for a first marathon with one year of training?

No one is going to be able to give you a very good answer if you don’t have any race times. You Should do your time trial and then come back.

Kevin, I went from not being able to even jog a mile when I was in middle school to running 2:18 for the marathon, but it took me a long time.

Running a marathon is very, very hard, at any pace. Why one year? Why 3:30? Why not 4:30? Why not 2 years? What are you going to do in a year if you achieve your goal, just quit?

First, I suggest that you get up in the morning and go out and run 3-4 miles. Do about the same thing in the afternoon/evening. Rinse and repeat this every day for a month. You'll get extremely tired and sore, but your legs will adjust. "This is going to hurt a little."

There are a lot of people on this website who have been running many, many years, and I am one of them. It's a life long obsession for a lot of people.

Rules to live by:

(1) Run every day.

(2) Let your mind and body dictate your pace.

(3) Eat well, cut down on drugs and alcohol, hydrate well.

(4) Get a lot of sleep.

(5) Keep up with a good strength training program for your "major movers" (glutes, hamstrings, quads, hip flexors)

I wish you well.

Kevin, sorry for not reading your full post.

Just keep training. You can probably lose the weight.

Don't worry about the Jack Daniels VO2max stuff. Keep it "simple and stupid."

Start increasingly your mileage to about 70-80 per week and lengthen your long run a mile a week, until you are doing a solid 20 miler every weekend. You'll likely have to make some sacrifices in the rest of your life in order to manage the fatigue and need for increased sleep, but the sacrifices are worth it.

Just run, lift weights and eat right.

I wish you well.

Are you old?

Noobs aren't usually running 40 mpw.

Running a 3:30 marathon should be totally doable after running 40-45 mpw for a year, but then again I wouldn't think that someone running 40+ mpw would be going at a 10:20 min./mile pace.

I agree with Mayeroff. I started running 40 years ago when I was 16. I have many years of experience like Mayeroff but he is much faster. First of all running 10:20 mile pace won’t prepare u for a 3:30 marathon pace. U need to learn 8 minute mile pace. In order to run 3:30 8 minute pace must be a very easy effort. Start with building a base. Also my question also is why 1 year. If I were u first make your short term goal a 5k at 8 min pace then 10k then 10 miles etc etc. get mileage in and progressively build your base over time. Don’t move up to the next level u til u master the current level. Good luck!!

Michigan guy, and Kevin,

A 5km and a full marathon are totally dissimilar events. Based on my experiences, I think that it's absolutely pointless to do a 5km time trial. Start getting in the long miles if you want to run a marathon.

What I am trying to say is that you should just enjoy your running. If you run 4:30 instead of 3:30, what will it really matter? You'll still be a MARATHONER.

One of my best life-long friends has a PR of 4;26, and he hasn't broken 5:00 in well over a decade. Does it matter? Think about it.

Go enjoy your running.

Mort McMurray wrote:

Are you old?

Noobs aren't usually running 40 mpw.

Running a 3:30 marathon should be totally doable after running 40-45 mpw for a year, but then again I wouldn't think that someone running 40+ mpw would be going at a 10:20 min./mile pace.

Thanks for your reply. I started running in May of this year. Had to take 3 weeks off in July due to family stuff. I've only done 40-45 mpw for the past month. When I started in May, 2 miles at a 12:00 pace left me going home obliterated. I'm going to run this all out and give it everything, but I am kinda curious to know what the possibilities are. Thanks!

I don't know how old you are, and 10:20 sounds like a pretty slow easy pace for someone hoping to run a marathon at 8:00 pace. But if you're young, presumably male, and basically healthy, and willing to do some work, I don't think that's unreasonable.

I ran my first marathon in 3:47 as a 25-year-old, 15 pounds overweight, female with no running background, running about your mileage. So 3:30 for a youngish male seems like a doable goal.

However, I think a better goal for your first marathon is simply to finish without having to walk and without completely blowing up. There's plenty of time to work on speed later.

My two cents' worth.

I suggest you start adding a weekly speed day with alternating weeks of tempo runs and intervals or a fartlek. I think your first goal is a 1:45 half marathon, then a 1:39. Once you’ve done that, you know you can probably run a 3:30 with a good training plan.

Good luck.

To be realistic based on where you currently are, it may take a few cycles over the course of a few years to run a 3:30 marathon. See where you're at after stringing three to four months of consistent 40+ mile weeks together. You may advance very quickly, or it may take slightly longer for your body to adapt.

You can very likely end up injured or burnt out if you push too hard too soon. Listen to your body over arbitrary time goals. So many people set overly aggressive marathon goals, have a miserable experience and give up way too soon.

You may want to read the book Advanced Marathoning by Pfitzinger/Douglas. In addition to offering proven training plans, it provides great insight into monitoring your metrics to determine pace, etc.

kevin o'hara wrote:

My goal is to run my first marathon next year, Sept 2022. Right now I'm a noob hobbyjogger, doing 40-45mpw at a 10:20 easy pace with a 12-mile long as part of that mileage.

With one year of serious training (ie no 2-month breaks), 15lbs weight loss (currently 180lbs and 5'10", would like to be 165lbs), would <=3:30 be possible?

My plan is to run a 5k time trial next week to get a general idea of where I am fitness-wise. And so I can start having some paces to play around with in Jack Daniel's VDOT calculator.

Any advice for a total newb like myself?

Nope. Too much work, too little time.

I did 3:24 without chip timing after 10 month or running.

Is it possible for you?

We don't know.

It all depends on your talent and your 10k time.

The biggest problem IMO is what does "easy pace" mean? I've seen new guys say they ran "easy" which was an all out race-pace. But they said it was 'easy' because they didn't puke or pass out.

Do you have a running watch with a HR monitor? Go for a 10-mile run at your 10:20 easy pace. Ideally your HR should be low the entire time (<145 would be a decent start), that would be a good sign. Or go run your 5k time trial - if you run it in something like 28 minutes then your "easy" pace is probably too fast and your marathon goal is going to be tough to hit.

I think it MIGHT be possible to hit 3:30 in a year but it's going to take a lot of work, lot of miles, and 15-20lbs of weight loss - which isn't actually that easy to do if you're training hard, so I'd start on that ASAP before your mileage ramps up. The risk of injury is also high.

A better goal for now IMO would be sub-4, maybe 3:45 as a stretch goal. The best thing you can do to figure out where you're at is to run a half-marathon next April or May. If you can run it in <1:40 maybe 3:30 will be achievable with a tough summer of training.

Good luck!!

mayeroff wrote:

Kevin, sorry for not reading your full post.

Just keep training. You can probably lose the weight.

Don't worry about the Jack Daniels VO2max stuff. Keep it "simple and stupid."

Start increasingly your mileage to about 70-80 per week and lengthen your long run a mile a week, until you are doing a solid 20 miler every weekend. You'll likely have to make some sacrifices in the rest of your life in order to manage the fatigue and need for increased sleep, but the sacrifices are worth it.

Just run, lift weights and eat right.

I wish you well.

Kinda agree and disagree on a few points:

3:30 vs 4:30. You are right, selecting an arbitrary time is pointless, given that hes never run the event. If he runs a 3:30 in the year, whats he to do, quit because mission accomplished? Agreed that he should focus on the process and less on the end result. Reverse engineer it. Focus on the process and the result will come on its own.

5k time trial. Kinda disagree here on running it. If done at a quick effort, itll give at least some baseline of fitness, an indicator of a range of potential MP. This can setup the OP for workouts based on the 5k time (i.e. mile or 2 mile intervals @ 5k pace + 1 minute, etc). Slogging around permanently at 10:20 pace wont net a 3:30 in a yr.

The 5k can also be used as a 'sanity check' against the alleged 10:20 easy pace. If his 5k pace is something like 30 seconds faster than his 'easy' pace of 10:20 then he should be doing his easy runs even slower than 10:20 min/mile. Which would mean 3:30 in a year would be insanely difficult.

I agree the 5k is a decent, quick, easy way to establish a fitness baseline. But I'd definitely do a half-marathon next April/May to get an idea of what his actual potential is before starting a marathon training plan.

ClaytonHammer wrote:

The 5k can also be used as a 'sanity check' against the alleged 10:20 easy pace. If his 5k pace is something like 30 seconds faster than his 'easy' pace of 10:20 then he should be doing his easy runs even slower than 10:20 min/mile. Which would mean 3:30 in a year would be insanely difficult.

I agree the 5k is a decent, quick, easy way to establish a fitness baseline. But I'd definitely do a half-marathon next April/May to get an idea of what his actual potential is before starting a marathon training plan.

Yep totally, a half would be a great indicator. 5k is just a sanity check against what can or cannot be done. If 10:20 is 5k pace, 3:30 isn't even in the realm of possibility, within a yr.

My first 1600 in PE class frost year was 6:48 and I had to stop and walk.

A year later I ran 28:XX for 5k with stopping and walking during XC. I was able to get down to 23:XX with no walking that same season.

The following year I went 21:XX.

Senior year was 19:40 XC and 5:01 1600m and 11:30 3200 during track season.

3 years later I went 17:22 5k on 30 mpw. Then hopped in a marathon... 3:40ish, I went 1:30 at the half and walked 6 miles from 17 to 23 before being able to recover and jog in. Ouch!

Got my 5k down to 17:10, then went 3:11 in a marathon... Still 1:30 at the 1/2 and blew up.

The next year I went 3:11 again with better pacing. Followed that with a 4:3X downhill mile later in the year!

Enjoy the journey. Don’t stop believin’.

kevin o'hara wrote:

My plan is to run a 5k time trial next week to get a general idea of where I am fitness-wise. And so I can start having some paces to play around with in Jack Daniel's VDOT calculator.

Any advice for a total newb like myself?

A 5k time trial and a 6 minutes all-out would provide all information needed to have a good marathon ballpark calculation.

michiganrunner55 wrote:

U need to learn 8 minute mile pace. In order to run 3:30 8 minute pace must be a very easy effort.

Yes, he should learn to run 8 minute pace but not as a very easy effort. 10 minute mile is actually very easy effort for 3:30 marathoner. 9-10 minute is correct easy pace, depending on the day.

8 minute mile is more correct easy pace for a 2:50 marathoner.