What are my chances: Former competitive runner trying to qualify for marathon OT

baby boy wrote:

Fan of Hingle wrote:

No. Only a few people have the mental aptitude for distance running at the senior level. The fact that you quit once you didn't have a team around you anymore, and didn't train for 10 years after that shows you do not have that aptitude or self-motivation. The fact that you're considering "a final go" just shows you're a procrastinator and not really that committed. 27 is not even that old.

I predict you don't last more than 4 months.

Why are you a fan of hingle?

I'm a fan of Hingle because he randomly insults people. I'm jealous of the OP's situation and am channeling that jealousy into anger towards the OP to justify my own shortfalls.

I am male and ran 4:55 in high school on 20-30s per week with very few periods of health beyond one or two weeks only to run 1:14 and sub 2:40 in my late 30s and early 40s after a fifteen year break from injury. So, it is possible but it is going to be quite hard. I also ran 1:22 HM as a senior in high school. It will take several years to get the aerobic development and the high mileage likely necessary for this. I'd gradually step up all facets of the training and see where it takes you. You certainly have a great deal of room for improvement with your light training and that should be fun to see how fast you can get.

Why not give it a go?

I think there are several women every time around who have less of a running pedigree and qualify.

As a coach in the industry for a while I'll be honest with you- it's a long shot. I say that not to discourage you, but to give you truthful feedback so you can use it to make a sound decision. From the sounds of it, you will have to make some sacrifices and you should have realistic expectations to weigh it with.

I say long shot for a couple of reasons- adaptation to specificity of training is lacking. You missed 10yrs of your body developing on an aerobic level as well as a muscular level. Because of this, you have a higher risk of injury as you try to get your body aerobicly sound.

I have been in your shoes and know what it's like to wonder what might have been. However, if you aren't in a good place without this accomplishment, you likely won't find peace with it either. I mean let's say you made the standard, you will likely beat yourself up even more for not running in college. Saying things like: "had I only run in college, I could have gone to the Olympics...." And other delusional things.

Bottom line- do what you feel, do it for you, but remember; if you're not good enough without it, you'll never be good enough with it.

Cheers

Whoa, leave the boards for a day and come back to a full thread! Thanks for the comments and advice. I appreciate all of it. I'm thinking I'll start training and racing competitively again and see where I can get with it, just for my own satisfaction. The toughest thing to work around will be my job and maybe at the end of the day I just won't be able to get the training in that I would need to fulfill my current potential (which, I'm aware, may not even be OT qualifying), and at that point I'd have to choose my job.

I'm under no delusion that I'm an elite or Olympic-caliber runner; I think my "terminal ability" would be (or would have been) borderline OT. The only "peace" I'm looking for is just running hard and being competitive again, not chasing pipe dreams from 10 years ago. I kind of miss the feeling of racing, which I realized after the half!

(Somebody wanted to know if I got recruited in HS. Yes, I did.)

Go for it.

Work your way up in mpw, get stronger, get plenty of tempos and speedwork in, and you will be fine. Why not try to run some road races against some top female road racers this summer?

We definitely need pix. If you are chunky or have cankles then its a different answer.

Here's some math for the OT Hopeful to consider...

672 days (1 year, 10 months) until the Trials in L.A. 02/13/2016, but you've got to get your sub 1:15 qualifier at least 30 days before.

Come to L.A. next March (03/15/2015) and check out the course (schmooze with the R.D. and meet some of the American Elite) because you will run it either on Saturday 02/13/2016 or as a back-up plan you can sign up for the L.A. Marathon Sunday 02/14/2016. Two marathons in two day. You get to watch one and run the other. You decide which one you are willing to work for. It will be fun, like 2008 when we had the Trials on Sunday and the regular marathon on Monday.

Speaking of work, it doesn't sound like you are quitting or cutting back anytime soon so that decided it for you.

Go for the 1:14:59 half, not the 2:42:59 full.

You don't have time for a full because it requires such concepts as a 21-day traditional taper before and 42 days of recovery post-marathon before you race again. Find a coach old enough and wise enough to explain those to you. It will be easier and there will be more time later (in 2018 and 2019) to run a full marathon qualifier to get into the 2020 OT.

You're wasting your time racing 5 km's and 10 km's.

Train for long distance by running long distance. LSD.

If you were to race 6:13 minute miles over 26.22 you would only be able to do one this year, 2, max 3 in 2015.

Train for the half and you can do 2 this year and 6 in 2015.

You can do a Half as late as January 10th 2016 and have

plenty of time to rest and recharge for 02/13/2016.

5:43 minute miles over 13.11 is more in reach and bouncing back from a bad half is way easier and quicker.

Set your sights on a goal half for 2014, yes, you can do either a test 10 km or 10 miler in the 5 to 6 weeks before that goal race. Same with 2015.

Marathon success requires way more spartan training and also depends on course, conditions and competition on race day

(all factors out of your control).

Say you do a half in Aug/Sep 2014 in 1:28, another in Dec in 1:25, Feb in 1:23, May in 1:21...

see what I am getting at?

6:00 minute miles =1:18:39 How soon you get there depends on you. Then the next stop is 5:55 pace, 5:50 pace and finally 5:43 per mile.

The half will beat up your body less and give you more race experience. The way the others were talking on here they seemed to be saying, "sure, just race 5 km's and 10 km's in place of actual training miles and do lots of speed workouts on the track." Not the way to train for a serious half or full marathon.

As for me, I haven't kept a formal count over the years, but since I have been coaching women since the 1970's and have had an athlete in every U.S. Oly Marathon Trials since 1984 I would estimate that the number I have helped would be 30+ American Women Marathoners who have qualified for the OT. Already I have some new post-collegiates who were too young to run Houston in January 2012, so I guess I can add them to the list which will probably put me over 40. Yes, I am only counting the women once, even though some have run 3 or more OT's.

4:55 In HS suggests respectable to great marathon potential ~2:45 at least, perhaps even sub 2:30 if you did relatively little speed development or quality miles in HS and don't need to do miles on pavement.

The 1:15 is more doable and probably the wiser way to qualify given the comeback aspect here. I'd take you to sub 4:30 /16:40 5000m as the first step to that longer range goal. No point in bothering with ludicrously higher mileage if you can't get 1:15 off of 60 miles per week. 1:15 also requires ~60 flat for 400m speed too but with good coaching you might get to 4:20 1500m capability and that makes 1:15 fairly comfortable.

For what it's worth. I've seen determined women turn a 5000m pace into half marathon pace within a relatively short time, with times in the 1:13-1:16 range certainly within 18 months. Figure the first 10' drop takes about 6 months if it is going to happen.

Two of them did not really need to lose any weight and they added muscle and power. Another took a couple of years but was also recovering from the multiple injuries she sustained in NCAA running and so I capped her mileage for six months while focusing on dropping just the 800m /1500m.

Interestingly her college coach said she'd never run a sub 4:40 1500m and she ended up in the Olympic trials marathon and qualifying for US nationals on the track at several distances.

dsrunner

dsrunner wrote:

No point in bothering with ludicrously higher mileage if you can't get 1:15 off of 60 miles per week. 1:15 also requires ~60 flat for 400m speed too but with good coaching you might get to 4:20 1500m capability and that makes 1:15 fairly comfortable.

dsrunner

See ot hopeful?

There's all sorts of trolls on here giving you the opposite of good advice.

Marathoners or those building towards a fast half don't waste days trying to run hard and fast on the track which leads to injury and loss of training time.

LSD.

Jim Ryun as a high schooler ran 70 mpw.

Being a marathoner and someone successful at long distance trains long distance. 60 mpw doesn't happen this month or maybe not even early this summer, but you should be prepared by Labor Day to be averaging 10 miles a day and doing lots of 2 hours runs easy. Eventually you will be close to 100 mpw and in 2018 and 2019 going for the 2020 Trials you will be over 100 mpw.