I want to qualify for boston!

best of luck, thats a lot of weight gain in just 3 years

You should work on getting your diet under control first. And you might want to cross-train for a while until your weight gets down some.

Hey me too! My motivation is that my kid will be going to college in Boston and I think it would be awesome to be able to qualify and run there. At my age I need 3:35 so that's my goal. I ran one marathon a few years ago and got 3:45 off lots of long runs but no tempo or speed runs at all. So I hope I can do it. I make nonpretences - I'm just a jogger and had never planned to try another marathon until now. I wish us both good luck.

Thanks all for the support! So whats a good starting out mileage for someone who has run very sporadically? 20 miles a week while doing crosstraining?

Of those 40+ lbs I've gained I'd say 2/3 is probably fat which is terrible. Its a little embarrasing.

running towards Boston wrote:

Hey me too! My motivation is that my kid will be going to college in Boston and I think it would be awesome to be able to qualify and run there. At my age I need 3:35 so that's my goal. I ran one marathon a few years ago and got 3:45 off lots of long runs but no tempo or speed runs at all. So I hope I can do it. I make nonpretences - I'm just a jogger and had never planned to try another marathon until now. I wish us both good luck.

It sounds like you were pretty close before so as long as you put in the work, you will get there. When is your planned marathon?

I'm not sure. My kid just committed to school there, so this is something that actually just occurred to me yesterday. I'm thinking I'll try the PF Chang in Phoenix next January, since it's close to home, flat, and it's the one I did before. Or maybe Tucson in December. I'm out of shape too, so I've got to build up slow to avoid hurting myself. I think a year of prep ought to be just about right.

I'm also going to start slow. I'm thinking about the Miami marathon about a year from now. Possibly Chicago in October if my running progresses well enough.

myboyblue wrote:

Goal is a 3:09. I start tomorrow!

A 3:09 won't be enough. Mark my words.

For my sake I hope it doesn't change. If it moves 5 minutes faster or even 10, then hopefully I can train hard enough to reach that.

Does anyone have a good mileage build up plan for the marathon? I'm planning on doing 6 months of base and then 6 months of training.

How long can you run for now?

Easiest approach would be to run a comfortable pace for 30 min 5-6 days a week. If you feel good with that then push one of the days to 45 min, once comfortable increase another day of the week to 45 min, and then build up to all days 45 min. Then same progression till all days are 60 min. If you can run 1 hour per day, and then push it on 2 other days of the week till one is an hour and half, and the other longer than that, then you will have built a decent amount of endurance.

I can make you a sub 3 runner by July easy. My training and racing program is $25 a month. I will also take the pounds off you fast.

Take it easy sport wrote:

How long can you run for now?

Easiest approach would be to run a comfortable pace for 30 min 5-6 days a week. If you feel good with that then push one of the days to 45 min, once comfortable increase another day of the week to 45 min, and then build up to all days 45 min. Then same progression till all days are 60 min. If you can run 1 hour per day, and then push it on 2 other days of the week till one is an hour and half, and the other longer than that, then you will have built a decent amount of endurance.

Thanks!I like your approach. I feel I could go 60 minutes as long as I went slow. I'm not completely out of shape. Should I get to a certain pace where it feels easy before I move up? Today I ran 40 minutes and felt good. It was around 9:30 pace though. Little scared to push the pace due to my weight.

Coach Gill wrote:

I can make you a sub 3 runner by July easy. My training and racing program is $25 a month. I will also take the pounds off you fast.

I'm broke Coach. Thanks though.

You don't know what the standards are yet. Let's talk about it when we know.

That is true, but I'm just going to do my best to get as far under 3:10 as I can and let everything else work itself out.

myboyblue wrote:

For my sake I hope it doesn't change. If it moves 5 minutes faster or even 10, then hopefully I can train hard enough to reach that.

That's the right attitude. Nothing's out yet but I'd be surprised if they didn't change it. My guess is by 6min, so you'd have to run 3:04:59h, but who knows?

Even if they change it, go for it. Many people try again and again and they fail. Again and again. And then at some point, when they almost gave up, they have their breakthrough. Go for it.

Yeah I would love to qualify on my first attempt,but I realize that I may not.It has been a goal of mine since I started running in high school. This morning I signed up for the Miami Marathon, which is not for another year so I have plenty of time to build up slowly and get ready for it.

I'd focus on getting the pounds off first. I was up to 182 in early '09 and lost 20 with fairly low mileage but a lot of painful circuit training (pushups, situps, pullups, burpees, large number of repetitions of hang cleans etc...)

Once I got the weight down, the running was a lot easier, but I probably pushed myself a little too hard on the speed work without the appropriate base and spent a lot of my first year getting back in shape injured.

It wasn't really until my second full year (2010) that I was able to handle the mileage and intensity of training I needed and got sub-3:10.