I’m running a marathon in a month and I’m seeking suggestions on what an accurate MP would be. I don’t want to overestimate and bonk hard, but I also don’t want to underestimate and have something left in the tank.
For those of you who have run in the 2:20 range, what are some workouts you did that gave you confidence you could go out @ 5:15-5:25/mi for the marathon?
For me it was 6X1Mile @5:00 minute pace with 400M jog recovery, and 10X1000M @ 3:02-3:05 pace with 200M jog recovery
broken arrow wrote:
For me it was 6X1Mile @5:00 minute pace with 400M jog recovery, and 10X1000M @ 3:02-3:05 pace with 200M jog recovery
What were your long runs like?
either a 20-22 miler at a steady pace like 6:20-6:30 per mile although sometimes I would average 6:00 per mile. Or a 20 miler where the first 10 miles was comfortable at 6:30 pace average, but then the second 10 miles I would accelerate down to where I was running 5:20s the last 3-4 miles.
What were your "easy" / "recovery" days like? If you're doing 100+ mpw cruising 6:30s on your easy days, that's a different story than 80 mpw jogging 7:30s between workouts. Asking because 20 @ 6:00 is no problem for me, but I'm basically crawling on my easy days!
You need to do a few Brazilian runs. Run at least 2 hour 40 minute to 3 hours. No need to tempo pace it but can gradually increase to fast cruising. Okay to surge occasionally if feeling good. Then at least 12 hard strides, preferably uphill.
It will help a lot with finishing strong, and improving time and winning. Was talking to a Brazilian coach after a random local road race, telling him about trying to move from second to first around the 22 miles in Philly but then completely hitting the wall. After modifying training was able to drop a sub-5 mile 26 on at least one occasion
Also had a 3.5 mile workout loop, took a few minutes rest between reps, the pace I could manage on the fourth rep was usually realistic for race day
I ran 2:19:5x at Houston a few years ago. As some others have pointed out or hinted at your quality workouts matter way more than your easy runs.
I ran 120-140 mpw with most of my easy runs in the 7:30-8:00 range. But key workouts include:
20-milers progressing from 6:00 to 5:15-5:20 for the last 5-7 miles.
4x2 miles @ 5:00-5:05 (2-3 min recovery)
2x5 miles @ 5:05-5:10 with 5min jog.
hemorrhoid wrote:
What were your "easy" / "recovery" days like? If you're doing 100+ mpw cruising 6:30s on your easy days, that's a different story than 80 mpw jogging 7:30s between workouts. Asking because 20 @ 6:00 is no problem for me, but I'm basically crawling on my easy days!
This is where I errored because my easy days were sometimes too hard, I would try to run 7:00+ per mile but ended up running 6:30s which was a mistake. I would typically run ~110/week and when I went up over 120+ I started to have little injuries where a few turned into issues where I had to back off to ~50-60 mpw until they healed.