Are 40' 10k, 1:30 half and 3:10 marathon really equivalent performances?

Not for me. I can run a 38:30 10K, 1:23 half, but my marathon PR is only 3:21. I have heard of people who can parlay a 1:30 half to a 3:10 marathon, though. I'm just not one of them.

It's possible, but the schedule is aggressive. It assumes that everything will go like clockwork, and that you'll be able to ramp up your mileage to 60-70/week (for the equivalence to hold) without being slowed by injury.

As one who has tried and failed to make a similar marathon goal, I'd say - go for it, but (at your age) don't run yourself into injury by pushing beyond what your body wants to do.

I would say 38:00 is equiv with the other 2 but McMillan calculator thinks you are right on.

It is if you are training for a marathon. The 10k and half are easy to match up. The marathon is a completely different race. Unless you are running a lot of miles I would add another 5 minutes to the marathon time.

At age 30 I was a 19:30 5k guy doing 35 mpw. I tried for 3 years and couldnt break 4 hours for the marathon. There's your reality check. At 40 (and 70 mpw) I managed 3:19. Of course my 5k time came down too (18:30). Ability to translate on short distance ability to the thin seems to vary a lot among individuals. The best goal for your first marathon is almost always just to finish.

This is something I can mostly speak to...in the span of 6 weeks this year I ran 19:10, 39:20, and 1:27:00 in my late 30s, and I averaged about 38 mpw for 8 weeks to hit those numbers.

I'll say this as well, the half in 1:27 was the race where I felt most comfortable and furthest from my limit. I wouldn't say I could have run 3:10 that day, however it was only for the fact that I have never done a training run longer than 20km.

It will be my 2nd marathon and 3rd time training for one.

I got injured during marathon training for the second time too and did not run for 2 months prior. Ran Barney Stinson style very conservatively with 4 hour goal in mind and ended up in 3:50.

Happy considering the no training aspect.

Wanted to simply run 3:30 easy for the next one but I know I will want more. I'm close to 40' 10k now and only train 20-25mpw for 8 weeks.

With 10 months to go I'm trying to gauge where I can be. I will however not run more than 50mpw. My lifetime most mileage was 30 in 2009 and 40 once in 2010. I am new to this and get injured during marathon training

Highly unlikely. You do not have the speed or the strength.

Work on dropping your half - then go at it again. Good Luck.

Ran 3:11, 38:59 back in the old day. Went a little nuts early in the marathon and paid the price late. I think you can do it.

Thanks for all the constructive posts so far. Looks like a better suite of goals would be 40:00, 1:30 and 3:15-3:16 for my age and experience.

7:30 pace feels great actually, my HR stays below 85% (170). do you advise not making long runs epic by adding midweek medium long runs?

ex 40mpw with 10 Wed / 12 Sun (I run 5x wk)

45mpw with 11 Wed / 14 Sun

50mpw with 12 Wed / 16 Sun?

The three times seem to be reasonable, but an awful lot depends on your personal trend as the distance increases. I have a friend who can't stay with me under 5 miles, we're almost equal at 10k, and he's a mile ahead at half marathon. I slow down more as the distance increases, but he can't hit the top end speed that I can. So they might be equivalent performances across the spectrum of runners, but not equivalent for you.

Same? wrote:

Thanks for all the constructive posts so far. Looks like a better suite of goals would be 40:00, 1:30 and 3:15-3:16 for my age and experience.

7:30 pace feels great actually, my HR stays below 85% (170). do you advise not making long runs epic by adding midweek medium long runs?

ex 40mpw with 10 Wed / 12 Sun (I run 5x wk)

45mpw with 11 Wed / 14 Sun

50mpw with 12 Wed / 16 Sun?

It might be wiser to just hold off on an exact marathon goal until you've gotten into the (somewhat) higher mileage and have a good feel for what 16 with 13 at MP feels like.

And shooting for 3:15 (or even 3:20 or 3:30) will still leave you with a big PR and run less risk of a complete blow up then shooting for 3:10. Remember you can always pick it up the last 10k if you find you have lots left in the tank. But if you've made too big a withdrawal too early you can't get it back.

And I'd certainly vote for a week with 12 and 16 in it rather than 8 and 20. Especially if you're mixing some MP stuff into all your longer runs.

What's the recommendation for people shooting for marathons longer than 3 hours in terms of their long runs?

Clearly, getting to a 16-20 miler or two or three will be more than 20% or so of people's mileage who aren't at extremely high mileage. Should you typically keep it to 2 hours (13-14 miles) and every so often do a longer run while keeping everything else fairly easy?

Thanks ordersofmagnitude, this sounds very wise and I agree with the difficulty of "predicting" an exact time given that I don't have much experience, and (I think) some room for progress.

Last year I lowered my 1/2 PR from 1:45 to 1:33, so this year once I have the speed to crack 1:30 I will focus on building strength as you suggest: long MP runs, probably at 7:30 pace.

I read the "don't make your long runs epic" thought on this board and it makes sense. During my first 2 marathon training I ran > 15 miles long run with no other runs longer than 8 miles, and always was terrified of my Sunday's long run the night before!

I will probably not do 400s or even 800s next time around, and focus on 1k or mile reps at LT pace, progressive long runs with last 6-8 btw 1/2MP and MP.

My first experience with the marathon, even though I took it easy, taught me one thing: running a half-marathon or even 15 miles at MP should feel a walk in the park, otherwise you're just not there.

i would't call these performances at all, at the very most they are happenings, in that if anyone put one foot in front of the other these times would most certainly happen.

Amazing that the haters haven't weighed in telling you to shoot yourself for such weak goals.

Anyway, 2 thoughts. First, it is possible to ramp up the distance carefully, assuming you can do all the collateral things (sleep, good eating habits, at least some core strength/stretching). I never ran a marathon (PR 2:54, I wasn't great) without 2-3 3-hour runs, but those were part of 70-80 mile training weeks. I also liked running 20 miles at MP, usually then dropping out of a marathon, but that may have been too much.

Second, the Hansons' training programs are structured around shorter long runs and a somewhat more aggressive approach to speed early in the cycle and strength late. Their idea is to keep the intensity high enough during the week that you make the long run hard just b/c your legs are tired. I think Running Times published one of their programs a few years ago and you can find it on the web.

The best way to put it is probably that someone able to run a 40:00 10k should be capable of roughly a 90:00 half and a 3:10 marathon, given equivalent training for all events. The thing you have to realize though is that training to run a marathon well at any ability level is generally more work than training to run a 5k well at the same ability level. If you do high quality work and good miles, you should be capable of a 3:10 for sure. If you're aiming for a 3:10 just for Boston, keep in mind that it's certainly possible that they'll up the standards for 2012. The number of qualified runners and the speed at which it fills up are both getting kind of ridiculous, so something is going to have to change.

One other thing... Obviously get as many miles in as you can while maintaining good health and staying injury free prior to your marathon, but equally importantly, make sure you have a very very high quality tempo workout about once a week or you're going to struggle to hit the 3:10 in your first shot at it. Take a very easy day the day before your tempo workout and make sure you're consistent about it. A very good base and consistent quality tempo work is generally what you need to hit a roughly equivalent marathon.

Also, as for long runs, don't think 2 20 milers is enough to get you through your first marathon without a catastrophic crash, it usually isn't. For my PR, in 4 months prior to the race, I had 10-15 long runs over 25 miles. I frequently ran 25-30 miles about 30 seconds per mile slower than goal pace (basically every weekend that I wasn't doing something longer), raced a marathon 30 seconds per mile off goal pace, paced a marathon 60 seconds per mile off goal pace, ran 3 trainers on my own between 36 and 42 miles, and had 2 more runs of 50 and 100 miles each. The 100 wasn't beneficial to the training and was more of a separate goal, but everything up to the 50 mile seemed to help for the marathon. Even with all of that, the last 10K still seemed extremely hard in my PR race.

Hey wat thanks for all your input this is very good stuff. With respect to tempo runs, what pace do you think would apply for a 3:10 goal?

I'm running a weekly 20' tempo at 6:40 pace (i.e 3 mi in 20' + 15' warmup & 5' cooldown) and I was thinking of running at that pace for longer (up to 6 miles or 40') during the buildup. Is 6:40 too fast? Feels hard, but 'good' hard.

I also do progressive tempo runs, my favorite workout, e.g. 90' starting at 9:00 pace and drop 30 seconds per mile every 15', ending last 15' at 7:30 or even 7:00. I could built these maybe up to 16 miles in due time.

I'm not sure I can handle 18-20 milers much. They feel good but something always flares up the day after.