Letsrun. Help me break 2.12 for a marathon.

I am with you. Many of us did the same back in the day. people seem to still have this "boogie-man" attitude about the marathon and you should only attempt them at a certain time or a certain way and only do x many etc.

Marathoner Dude wrote:

Your training also needs more modulation and is too basic and clean cut. If you can run 2:12 off that, you'll run 2:10 with a coach.

A 63 half guy with your 5k PR doesn't show a lot of strength towards the marathon, especially if you've already run several. Shoot for that 2:15 "A" standard instead. Why the love affair with 2:12?

Wrong, they are about equal. He's 69 seconds off the WR in the 5k and about 320 seconds off the half record. The 5k and half records are 4.6ish times apart. 69*4.6 is 319 seconds.

To give an update. I did not hit my goal to get to the Olympics this autumn but I run a big personal best but slightly missed out on qualification:(. I will have one more opportunity in the spring to do this and I believe I can.

Again, thank you to all of the people who give me help here.

Good luck! (If you are the german 2:12high guy, you should 100% be in the Olympics.) listen to Beardsley and hodgie-San.... They been here before

Hire a coach.

A 2:12 guy needs real coaching not just a list of workouts.

A good coach has the ability to put every single workout in the context of the overall plan. They will work with you on your weaknesses and tell you when to hold back.

Getting advice from letsrun is good but you need someone to really understand you and not pidgin hole you into workout categories

Can you share details of your results, because your future training can be based partly on how your marathons have gone, esp the last 5-10k, and even last 2.2k, as well as consistency of 5k splits and half splits.

Without knowing the above, i still have to agree with many comments here:

- more MP/tempo runs. Some real life e.g. - Khalid Khannouchi feared his tempo runs days in advance they were so tough, said it made his races feel easy. Rosa Mota (2:23) never ran longer than 90 min, but ran a *lot* of MP runs.

- long runs with fast sub MP finish (see McMillans website about this)

- run in group with similar PBs, preferably with strengths different than yours

- how did your taper go? Were you fresh?

- strange non-scientific advice - one of my better races occurred after a couple of months in which *every* training day, including easy days, i ran at least 1k @ MP often further depending on how i felt. Tempo runs topped out at 24k. 1k is not much, but doing this 6 days/week (i always took 1 day off, only maxed out at 70 miles) seemed to really burn MP pace into my brain/muscle-memory and i think led to my race half splits being almost bang on even on a rolling course.

J.R. wrote:

Gojall out wrote:

In every 3 week build up phase, I have 2 weeks where I have a MP workout which will be built up to 13m before the Marathon. On the other week, I will be finishing my long run at MP using the 3/1 system, e.g 24m long run with last 6 @ MP.

I feel you should run a 20 - 22 mile run at marathon pace every 3 weeks leading up to the marathon, peaking at 3 weeks prior to the race.

.

22 @ 5:02. Hahaha

a dog wrote:

Good luck! (If you are the german 2:12high guy, you should 100% be in the Olympics.) listen to Beardsley and hodgie-San.... They been here before

The 2:12:50 German guy has faster PRs

I would incorporate longer intervals, but you already have a tempo workout per week.

A 10-12 miles intervals workout could change dramatic the results.

I liked what Renato Canova planned for Mosop. Intervals of 2-3 miles, more than 15 miles overall.

In order to break 2:12 for the marathon your need to train in such a way as to have the Aerobic Power, Aerobic Resistance and Specific Endurance necessary to accomplish this goal.

Sub 2:12:00 would be 5:02 per mile or faster

Aerobic Power

2 benchmark workouts that would indicate your Aerobic Power is in good enough shape are:

- 6 x 1 mile @ 8% faster than goal marathon pace (GMP) with .25 mile jog recovery

- 6 mile Tempo Run at 4% faster than GMP

Aerobic Resistance

2 benchmark workouts that would indicate your Aerobic Resistance is in good enough shape are:

- 20 miles steady state at 5-6% slower than GMP

- 24 miles moderate at 10-12% slower than GMP

Specific Endurance

2 benchmark workouts that would indicate your Specific Endurance is in good enough shape are:

- 20 mile run with first 5 miles easy, the middle 10 miles at GMP or faster and the last 5 miles easy

- 10 mile Wave Tempo alternating miles between 3% slower than and 3% faster than GMP

Math:

5:02 per mile is 2:11:50 for the marathon

8% faster than 5:02 is 4:38 per mile

4% faster than 5:02 is 4:50 per mile

3% faster than 5:02 is 4:53 per mile

3% slower than 5:02 is 5:11 per mile

5% slower than 5:02 is 5:17 per mile

6% slower than 5:02 is 5:20 per mile

10% slower than 5:02 is 5:32 per mile

12% slower than 5:02 is 5:38 per mile

These benchmark workouts need to be able to be done in the normal course of training, meaning that they should be able to be done and recovered from with 2-3 normal easy days afterwards. You should not have to taper and race the workout in order to accomplish these.

Seek to be able to accomplish the Aerobic Power benchmark workouts first in your training cycle before focusing more significantly on Aerobic Resistance and Specific Endurance as race day approaches.

What other workouts you do in your training (yes you need to do other workouts) will depend on which of these areas you are weakest at and so what you need to work on most to get up to these requirements in these specific areas. My experience is that most runners from a shorter distance background can more easily reach the Aerobic Power requirements but struggle more reaching the Aerobic Resistance requirements and the longer of the longer (5E/10T/5E) Specific Endurance requirements.

This is where your coach comes in to know your weaknesses and strengths and design your training so as to be able to help you improve your fitness in such a way as to meet these requirements by goal race time.

The mileage needed to be able to meet these requirements will vary depending on the individual. Some can can meet these requirements on lower mileage and some need a higher volume to get there (specifically for the Aerobic Resistance). I have seen elite runners who required half the mileage volume of other elites to meet the requirements, so it is largely an individual question. The key though is to do what you need to do to be able to meet these requirements.

fred wrote:

a dog wrote:

Good luck! (If you are the german 2:12high guy, you should 100% be in the Olympics.) listen to Beardsley and hodgie-San.... They been here before

The 2:12:50 German guy has faster PRs

and a coach ;-)

MPR wrote:

In order to break 2:12 for the marathon your need to train in such a way as to have the Aerobic Power, Aerobic Resistance and Specific Endurance necessary to accomplish this goal.

...snip...

That was a really nice, concise explanation. Does it scale to recreational runners? Say an aim of 3:10 instead of 2:12?

you are generous.

MPR wrote:

The mileage needed to be able to meet these requirements will vary depending on the individual. Some can can meet these requirements on lower mileage and some need a higher volume to get there (specifically for the Aerobic Resistance). I have seen elite runners who required half the mileage volume of other elites to meet the requirements, so it is largely an individual question. The key though is to do what you need to do to be able to meet these requirements.

That's a pretty interesting statement. I have a time goal pretty close to the OP and I ask myself: Is it better for overall fitness to run the hard sessions and do a bit lighter, but faster mileage or a bit more mileage and slower.

For example: in a hard peak peaking week I'd run a short fartlek session that isn't crazy hard, a 10 - 13 mile tempo close to race pace and a 23 mile run at 85 - 90 % or race pace where I'd progress in the last miles to race pace or close. Is it now better (at least on paper) to get fit to just "just" 100 or 110 miles in that week with most miles in the 6:00 - 6:30 range or be more like 125 or 130 miles and jog it at more like 7 minute or even slower pace? If any old school athletes or other marathoners want to chime in I'd be very thankful as it seems to be still a subject where coaches have different opinions.

I feel like more time on feet might be quite helpful. So if you run 125 miles at 7' clip you have 2 hours + per day. BUT...

...On the other hand with 110 mpw at 6' pace you have 1:35 hours per day, what's still serous training and a higher power output and stronger stride, higher heart rate, etc. most of the time. So you train closer to what you will do in the race.

Sometimes I feel like if you aren't able to cruise after most hard sessions the tempo sessions are just too intense, so it could be better to run them a bit easier and hit it steadier on the normal distance runs. Ok... That was a long post ;)

it really depends... people like kenny moore and benji durden and steve hoag could never have succeeded (and did not when they tried) while running 100+ miles per week. Many, many others could not have been good without that much running. So...try different approaches, see what works for you as an individual, and then continue to do that?

I would love to hear explanations for why some runners need "excessive" recovery (i.e., 3-8 mile days) while many others recovery very well with 12-18 mile days... is this a fast twitch/slow twitch distinction or something else?

Update from OP? Did you end up running 2:12? What have you done differently in training since then?

Ahaa...

I see since 12 years of the MPR thread "5keys marathon workouts" difference in %, before was:

16km tempo at MP -100%-102%MP

6x1 mile - 110%MP

6mile tempo-105%-106%MP

Now:

16km tempo at MP-97%-103%MP

6x1 mile - 108%MP

6 mile tempo-104%MP

Very interesting tendency.

Any comments, why this happens?

Brilliant post!