How should I change my training to qualify for the Boston

Go hard in the paint!

Strive for 26 miles a week MP. Worked for me.

Try this.

Sun 15 miles

mon rest.

Tues.15 miles.

wed rest

thurs 15miles.

fri rest.

sat 18 miles

sun rest

mon day 12miles

tues rest

wed 15 miles.

thurs rest.

fri rest.

Saturday 20 miles.

Sun.Return to normal program and repeat this 2 week cycle in a month's time.

More miles at faster than BQ pace. A 7:14/mile (assuming your BQ is 3:10) should be very comfortable if you're going to run it for 26 miles. You should do at least one day a week of either speed work or fast tempo runs @ low to mid 6 minute pace.

60MPW is plenty to qualify assuming you have the speed to do it. Maybe add in a couple 20+ long runs if you're having trouble in the 2nd half of the race. Good luck.

If you know you can't hold pace, as stated above, go out a shade faster (but still comfortable) and measure for the inevitable fade. who knows, you may hit the 20 mile mark and be pumped with confidence and churn the last 10k fast. even splits don't work for everyone, esp if you don't have time for heavily mileage. One thing I have found works well is trying to do 1-2 20 milers at close to MP during training. Those seem to give me a lot of confidence

More miles. A good many of them for an extended time. Sixty a week is not nearly enough to get your best marathon.

Walk daily + solicit a lot of donations for a charity cause = BOSTON QUALIFIER! YEAH FOR YOU! WEAR YOUR BOSTON SHIRT WITH PRIDE!

I think you need to train based on your current fitness and not fitness goal.

I would include some running at near 10K race pace from time to time.

I like to see 5 long runs (>18 miles being a LR to me). 3 in 8 weeks is not all that much.

This is simple. 60 is not enough. I'll bet money your aren't running doubles. Run doubles at least 4 days a week and bump your mileage to mid 70's. Don't worry about pace, long runs, tempos until you adjust to the mileage and you aren't dead on your feet every day. Then add in a tempo run of 4 building to 8 if you can. The long run is WAY overrated. Just get the miles. My wife ran 50-60 a week for YEARS (with long runs and tempos and track work and racing)and couldn't break 3:20. She bumped her mileage to 70 for 3 months, no long runs, no tempos, pretty much a steady diet of 5/5 doubles and PR'ed by almost 8 minutes the very next race (she's almost 50 with nearly 40 marathons under her belt). 75 a week, with doubles. End of thread.

Rofl

I ran 40-65 miles/week for about 10 weeks, peaking at 65 and my average over that time was about 50 mpw. I never ran a double. I ran one M pace run once a week on saturday, and a long run on sunday. I did a total of 3 20 mile long runs, now of which came close to marathon pace. During the week, I did slightly longer runs (~1.5) hrs on tuesday and thursday at an aerobic pace much like Lydiard suggests. I ran a BQ of 3:15 at San Francisco. Also all of my running was barefoot and I ran SF barefoot. Letsrun posters tend to like quoting big numbers for the miles but a lot of them don't know what they're talking about. If all you want to do is qualify for Boston (3:09-3:15) depending on your age, you don't need huge miles or a ton of speed work, just a block of consistent training. Good luck and see you there!

Efrem wrote:

I did a total of 3 20 mile long runs, now of which came close to marathon pace.

I meant "none of which"

Efrem wrote:

Also all of my running was barefoot and I ran SF barefoot.

That's gross.

HRE wrote:

More miles. A good many of them for an extended time. Sixty a week is not nearly enough to get your best marathon.

He didn't say he wanted to run his best marathon, he said he wanted to qualify for Boston.

More 20+ milers. And do your long runs with runners who are faster than you are. You won't notice the pace because you will want to keep up. Also, be patient. Some people just need a lot of time before they build up the endurance needed to race a marathon instead of surviving it. If you are a larger than the average boney runner and were a coach potato before you started running, it will take you longer than the skinny guy who was active before trying to run a marathon.

Surprise! wrote:

That's gross.

That's amazing insight you offer, thank you. The point I was trying to make is that it's not that hard to qualify for Boston and if I can do it barefoot without running a zillion miles a week then OP certainly can. All you need is some level of discipline and focus, and most importantly you need to be able to run consistently for several months without injuring yourself. If that means running slower or running less miles, then then so be it.

Seems to me like he's going to need to come closer to doing one to do the other.

Surprise! wrote:

That's gross.

That's amazing insight you offer, thank you. The point I was trying to make is that it's not that hard to qualify for Boston and if I can do it barefoot without running a zillion miles a week then OP certainly can. All you need is some level of discipline and focus, and most importantly you need to be able to run consistently for several months without injuring yourself. If that means running less frequently or running less miles, then then so be it, as long as you get the basic workouts in. You don't need to train like an elite to qualify for Boston.

And I'm not really suggesting he do something like double his weekly miles, which is along the lines of what most people would need to do to get an absolute best marathon. I was thinking more along the lines of what "bum" wrote, something in the 75-80 range.