Marathon Running

Why do you need to run 100 mpw?

More relevant question is how much are you running now, then you can assess how to get there.

Also 100mpw for a 3:30 marathoner is more work than it is for a 2:30 marathon, just by the amount of time you spend working. Time spent running is a far more important variable than overall miles when assessing work load.

As someone pointed out, if you're only running a 4 hour marathon you shouldn't do 100 mile weeks. Do more like 60-80 miles and focus on getting a few good quality sessions rather than trudging through a bunch of really slow miles that aren't actually easy for you. Think, 100 miles per seek is 15 miles per day. If you're only running 4 hour marathon (near 10 minute miles) then you'd be running 2.5-3 hours per day, probably too much. If you are kind of fast and can get your easy run down to 8-8:30 pace it is more attainable.

Anyway. If you're someone running around 7:00 marathon racing pace and can handle 100 mile weeks, I'd only do a few at a time. A buildup where you have 4 weeks going from 40-80 miles per week, then your high 3 weeks of 85-95-100, then have a down week of 80, then another 3 weeks of 95-100-100 and then start a 3 week taper before the marathon of 95-80-60, where the 60 is the week of the race (half of that week's mileage is race day)... So a total buildup of like 4 months, six weeks of it is at pretty high mileage. Be sure to do long workouts, it seems 10k-half marathon pace at varying intervals like 3 minute fartleks for 45-90 minutes or alternating mile on mile off, or even 4 x 2 mile or 3 x 3 mile is good workout paces, throw in one or two 10-18 mile marathon pace workouts, and then sprinkle in some shorter faster stuff to keep the turnover there like 10 x 400 @ 5k pace or 16 x 200 at mile pace, but not very often.

Data Miner wrote:

Why do you need to run 100 mpw?

Because it's a marathon?

Why do you assume the OP is a hobbyjogger?

runningawayyy wrote:

I am a college runner girl who has turned to marathons and I dont want to over do it with 100 mile weeks. How long should the buildup be in weeks at above 100 mpw before the marathon I am aiming for?

If your training is ready for it then think of it as an average of 100mpw. You might peak at 110-120, with the majority of weeks in the 90-105 range. Every 3 or 4 weeks, you might float in a recovery week of 70-85. So, in something like a 12 week build, you might have 8 of them at 90-100 or over, 2 of them as down weeks, & 2 as taper weeks.

I do agree with what has been said. If you ran in college & got up to X mileage then your first marathon build should maybe just be 10 miles/week higher for an average. Maybe you peak 20 miles higher. So if you did 70 in college consistently, aim for an 80 average & peak at 90ish. There's no reason to rush into the marathon & to rush progression. It might take a few cycles to get to 100+. Give the 10k/half a try on the roads. You might not find your true potential at 26.2 if you lock into 100 mile weeks now. You still have tons of time to improve your 10k-half, and probably your 1500-5k if you wanted to spend some time there.