Meltdown during a sub 3 marathon try

better luck next time

Looks like you shot your wad before 30K. Get a watch, and have a pace plan. Be like Ryan Hall.

Shoot for something more ambitious than 1:25 for your next half-mary.

[quote]ahnold wrote:

half-mary.

Thank you all for the nice tips. I think I will start "My goal is 2:59:00 marathon and I will not stop until I reach my goal" thread soon :-)

The first 1/2 should be run in a "sleep-running" state, where your eyes are barely open and you feel you are out for your morning easy run. Exert the absolute bare minimum to run 1:29:xx for the 1/2 then gradually start focusing. The race begins at 20 miles.

Yes true

inspire wrote:

No, the long run is much more important than some odd ball 10-15 miles per week thrown in there just add weekly volume. Push the long run up to at least 24, maybe even 26+ miles. The final miles of the long run could be run as fast or faster than marathon pace if you are fit and the total run has not been a hammerfest.

A big, fat NO to the part about running 24 or 26+ miles. Yes to running the long run as a fast-finish of some type.

What people have already said ... you went out way too fast. Wear a watch and hit your pace until mile 20 at the earliest then you can pick it up if you're feeling it. A marathon is a 20 mile warmup followed by a 10K.

I am a 2:55 to 3:00 marathoner and my 1/2 marathon times are about 1:23 to 1:24. I bet you're about 1:25 in an all-out 1/2 if you ran 1:27 for the first half of a marathon. You're right there. Keep training.

inspire wrote:

No, the long run is much more important than some odd ball 10-15 miles per week thrown in there just add weekly volume. Push the long run up to at least 24, maybe even 26+ miles. The final miles of the long run could be run as fast or faster than marathon pace if you are fit and the total run has not been a hammerfest.

This post is why newbies need to beware around here.

You are a moron for suggesting this. The only thing this will do is increase the chances of injury and ensure he's beat up going into the race due to lack of recovery,

So you are telling a guy presently running 60 mpw, who is going to bump up to 80 mpw, to also add another marathon length or longer run?

You are an idiot.

Actually, this is a summary of my running long the past four months (distance and avg pace for the month):

September:203.1 km 4:48 / km

August: 246.8 km 4:51 / km

July: 140.4 km 4:50 / km

June: 104.5 km 4:38 / km

I have missed to log some runs here and there, so we can say around 250Km in a month, roughly...which is like 35 miles per week (and my peak was 40 miles per week, the week I did the 32K (20miles) long run).

And I was running four times per week, tuesday recovery, wednesday and friday some speed work (either tempo or intervals) and long runs on sunday. For about a month and a half I was also doing some half hour of running drills I found at running times on saturdays and also doing the plyometerics from the p90x once a week.

So I think I should increase my mileage a bit, maybe around 50-60 mpw? and run five times, and make the additional one to be a medium long run.

Anyway, I will start running slowly next week, and take it easy till December, and by that time, I will have figured some plan and will post it here for some feedback :-)

Wait, am I reading this right. You only did 120 miles for the entire month of September??? Good grief. That isn't even starter miles for the marathon. On one hand, you are pretty talented to run what you did off essentially no miles. On the other had, you have some work to do. Yes, just do 50-60 a week, don't worry about pace or how you get there, run some doubles and I bet you will find you won't fade in the second half like you did. The long run is overrated. Go read some of Malmo's posts. Unlike most of the advice here, the advice from him comes from someone who didn't suck.

No, we don't know how many athletes you have "coached to prominence." Name some. Then stop being a DB and answer Sub_3_chaser's questions.

Oh yeah, good luck on your sub-3. I upped my mileage, and ran a PR, so up yours! ;-)

sub_3_chaser wrote:

Actually, this is a summary of my running long the past four months (distance and avg pace for the month):

September:203.1 km 4:48 / km

August: 246.8 km 4:51 / km

July: 140.4 km 4:50 / km

June: 104.5 km 4:38 / km

We ugly Americans aren't metric. But, let's see if we have this correct. Your average weekly mileage was:

June: 16

July: 22

August: 38

September: 32

Hmmm. I think I know what the problem is. I will say this -- you have some great natural talent running sub 3:10 on 16-38 miles a week of training.

This is it here. You're lucky you finished in 3:10ish. Assuming your long run wouldn't be more than 50% of your weekly mileage, which by any book is extremely high, your longest run would have been 19 miles. Your mileage is low for any race.I also agree with negative splitter. I ran a 2:56, but I've only done one half-marathon in 1:30 a few years before I tried the marathon. My peak pre-marathon mileage topped out at 85mpw, so upping my mileage was one of my keys to improving.

L. Tate wrote:

sub_3_chaser wrote:

Actually, this is a summary of my running long the past four months (distance and avg pace for the month):

September:203.1 km 4:48 / km

August: 246.8 km 4:51 / km

July: 140.4 km 4:50 / km

June: 104.5 km 4:38 / km

We ugly Americans aren't metric. But, let's see if we have this correct. Your average weekly mileage was:

June: 16

July: 22

August: 38

September: 32

Hmmm. I think I know what the problem is. I will say this -- you have some great natural talent running sub 3:10 on 16-38 miles a week of training.

About increasing the mileage, last year i was trying to do that (wanted to do 60mpw), but I ended up being injured within a month so that was the reason I tried to focus on low but high quality mileage this year. What measures should I take to ensure that I wont get injured if I up the mileage to 60mpw from around mid 30s that I did for this one. Will it be enough if I get to it progressively (for example, start around 30 in December, and increase it about 3 per week, and when I reach around 45 to start my marathon preparation, which will peak around 60mpw)? Or shall I do some other routines too (running drills, flexibility routines, stretching/yoga, etc..)?

Your post is why USA running sucks. Just keep repeating what isn't working, hoping to produce results. I never said add more miles to the week; but add to the long run, find a balance. WHY are you so certain the athlete will become hurt by running the marathon distance in practice? Why is jumping to 80 going to add to his fitness for the marathon?

12 weeks of at least 50 miles/week (80K) is the benchmark for the sub-3:00 marathon. It can be done on less, but only for those with special talent and careful coaching.

As for the long run, once you are solid at 50 mpw, building up to a long run of at least 24 miles (3 hours) about 5 weeks prior is extremely valuable (Geb goes up to 30, but he is...Geb). Combined with marathon-paced "trial runs" (taking fluids/gels, splits,etc) which peak at 14-16 miles at steady sub-3:00 pace 3.5 weeks prior to the race is key.

Using this structure, I coached a woman from 3:10 to 2:53 (and 1st woman overall). Before this she ran PB's at every distance from 5k-1/2 marathon.

Good advice here in general; several remarks:

1 3:00 was on the optimistic side but 82 @ 20km indicates that if you raced a Half, you could probably hit at least 1:25 (as noted or at least implied by several remarks above).

2 Not only should you negative split, but the first 5 km should be a bit conservative beyond that. You need to average 21:20 per 5 km. Start at 22+ for the first 5, then 22 for the next one or even two before going to 21:30, so that you hit 20km closer to at 87 rather than at 82. This will allow you to hit 21 for the next several and if you are capable of running 3:00, you will hit them to the end.

3 I liked to do some of my long runs at marathon goal pace (except a slower beginning and ending), and at least one where I was going faster for at least 25km and usually 30km after a warm up. That way my body was dealing with the type of 'running low on fuel' issues that it faces in a race. I sometimes did this in another marathon, where the setting was similar and there was traffic control and water etc. One way to do this is running a half by running a good 5km warmup and then warming down a bit after and not worrying about racing it as fast as possible, just at 95%. Also, I would ease a bit before and after this one hard workout.

4 During the last several weeks it is easy to train harder than you need to. You are more likely to work too hard the last two weeks then not hard enough. I think that malmo has referred to this has having already put the hay in the barn with several weeks to go. Sometimes this leads to feeling slightly sluggish the first 5-10km of the race, but that fits with the 'optimal' plan of slowly accelerating first the first third.

5 You might have been ready to run 3:00 but it was not the right day. Once things were out of reach, you had not much motivation to reverse things (which is ok), but which accounts for those 25s being 25 rather than maybe 23 which your body might have been ready for. If you had run 3:05 you would have been a little happier but you might have been there in terms of preparation.

6 One advantage of negative splitting is that the race is not 'hard' for most of the way (i.e., you are at least 10% slower pace than 10km PR pace that it does not hurt much the first 205-30 km. Then, as it gets harder, you are passing people rather than being passed and this is much easier psychologically that it is much easier to squeeze everything out those last 10 km.

Sub_3_chaser wrote:

About increasing the mileage, last year i was trying to do that (wanted to do 60mpw), but I ended up being injured within a month so that was the reason I tried to focus on low but high quality mileage this year. What measures should I take to ensure that I wont get injured if I up the mileage to 60mpw from around mid 30s that I did for this one. Will it be enough if I get to it progressively (for example, start around 30 in December, and increase it about 3 per week, and when I reach around 45 to start my marathon preparation, which will peak around 60mpw)? Or shall I do some other routines too (running drills, flexibility routines, stretching/yoga, etc..)?

The biggest thing is to get 2 pair of shoes (different brands, but the right shoes for your mechanics) and switch back and forth. Keep track of miles. If you get over 300 miles and notice some aches and pains after running with one of the pair, toss them and get new ones. Don't do any fast running without a good warmup. I for one think stretching is a 100% waste of your time, but that topic is highly debated. Do strides almost daily (I do them near the end of my short run of the day) - strides will help you keep your basic speed and cut down on injuries (don't do them all out - gradually accelerate, hold, then ease back easy, all over about 100 yards).

It's running. It's a simple sport. More miles = better running. Do doubles, do strides. The rest is gravy and will only improve you slightly.