Marathon Training

Sorry for all the data (and thus, no responses)! I ran a 3:15:10 marathon in August, 10 seconds away from my BQ goal.

Main question is this: did I sabotage myself in June where I did no long runs, or is it speed/track that I need? I figured that since most of my runs were close to actual marathon goal pace, I didn't need to hit the track at all. 7:26 seems really slow to me, but by the 23rd mile, it caught up to me suddenly, and my legs were burning! I thought it was strange because I ran my last 20 miler at 7:44 pace.

I'm not a marathon guru, but based on your training it looks like you just don't have enough miles in. My impression is that 60 mpw average is really the minimum number of miles you need to sustain MP (expected based on calculators). Of course if you were running 80 mpw for years prior to this cycle then my analysis will be way off.

Hard to tell if you performed good or bad without other race results to compare with. If you're an 18 min 5k guy, you sucked it up. If you're a 22 min 5k guy you burned it up.

I'm going to be in the mid 40 mpw average over 18 weeks, and I don't think I can run 3:15 in 6 weeks. I'm a sub 20 min 5k guy. I'm hoping it does result in a strong half marathon (for me) in 2 weeks though (1:33-1:35).

Thanks for the advice, fellow old guy! Unfortunately, I've never run a 5k competitively. My 10k PR is 38:30 or thereabouts, and 13.1 is 1:26 something, but those were both about 3 years ago. I'm probably "close" to that right now. But the crazy thing is that a calculator would say that I could run a Marathon in 3:05 based on those times. Before I actually ran a Marathon, I might have actually believed that. Now that I've looked the beast dead in the eye, I can see that there are some peculiar forces at play, starting at 20 miles or so. I think I will beef up my weekly mileage and not worry about the track. I'm coming from 30-40 mpw, so that one 60 mile week seemed astronomical to me. I'm going to try to recover and maybe pick up another marathon this Fall!

From what I see, you could benefit more added long runs than speed work. Don't altogether drop either though. I'd shoot for around a 3:10 in your next marathon. Try doing some marathon pace running at the end of some runs to get a feel for what 3:10-3:15 pace feels like.

If you're in close to 38:30 shape or 1:26 shape, definitely an endurance issue that more miles will help with.

I'm hoping to turn 42:xx 10k shape into ~3:25:00 or so in November.

This might give you some insight on the calculators:

http://www.hillrunner.com/jim2/id64.html

Thanks, old guy and 1:10 or bust! I think you've both pointed me in the right direction. The standard McMillans pace calculator doesn't take mpw into account, and I can see that's a big flaw when predicting marathon performance. 195 (marathon time)/5.0 (40 mpw factor) = 39 minute 10k time. That's probably about right. If I can boost my average to 50 mpw, then I might be able to get that factor to 4.9 for a 39*4.9=191 (3:11 or 3:12 marathon). If you're asking yourself "is this guy trying to do the absolute minimum possible to qualify for Boston?", then the answer is YES. With two toddlers, a job, and all of life's other obligations, I need to get the max for the minimum!!

Thanks guys! :)