Spring marathon for a college runner

i think it may be a better idea to train towards a half, but if your mind is set on the marathon that's probably not gonna kill you, 6 minute pace is 2:36 and so 2:40 is a pretty reasonable goal. I don't think it's really a bad thing to do especially since you're a junior already and i agree that the added strength will carry over. and marathon and 10k training is fairly similar as we can see from Abdi, so it should be fine.

High mileage marathon training will definitely give you strength that will carry over for cross country. I'm not gonna compete this spring either and I'm thinking about doing the Flying pig half or full marathon. Do you go to school around here?

just noticed you spelled Cincinnati wrong, so i guess you're not from here

Hey man, I started running marathons in my Sophomore year of college.

I ran 2:27 in my Junior year (Cleveland) and 2:23 my senior year (Columbus Ohio, with a very stupid first half of 32:00/1:08:00).

My opinion for you is to skip indoor track entirely, start doing heavy mileage beginning right after XC, and start the hard tempos and hard long runs in January/February.

In my very last XC season (Junior year) I could not break 27 minutes for 8km in XC. You can go faster than 2:30 in the marathon in April if you do the right mileage and tempo runs. Do not worry about your 8km time at all!!!! JUST DO THE FK'N MILEAGE!!!! (There's a good slogan for Nike!!)

As for your marathon, consider making a trip to Europe, depending on when your spring break is. After one European marathon, you will be hooked.

All the best to you....

Jason

Thanks for the advice everyone, the one thing is I don't think I can skip indoor entirely but I will definitly be putting in a lot of miles over the winter. I really don't care how I race. Sorry about spelling Cincinnati wrong, I thought it didn't look right when I wrote it but I didn't think to look it up. I go to school in Indiana but my co-op will be in Louisville. The Flying Pig marathon works well because it is May 4th which is when I would be done with track anyways.

If you do get the right mileage in for the marathon then you really have a good shot at winning it. Last year's winner was only 2:34 but with saying that it is a very tough course but with your 5 and 8k times you definitely have a shot.