How close can I get to three hours for a FM?

I’ve been in a similar place. I’d strongly recommend what a couple other posters have said - go out on track for something like 3:05 or even 3:10 and see how you feel with a massive new PR.

My first marathon was 3:27 off low mileage, uve since run 3:04s twice off 50mpw with a couple of injury breaks. Getting from 3:30ish down to below 3:10 is one thing (your decent genetics and more months of running regularly will get you there), incremental improvements beyond that are exponentially harder without big mileage. And you’ll injure yourself if you try to go 80mpw now.

This is classic overreach - I have felt similar - you’ve moved from asking how close you could get to 3, to seemingly deciding sub-3 is a totally reasonable target. I know he feeling, and I know how appealing sub-3 is - it’s a big big goal for me in my marathon training for next year now too. But calm down, don’t injure or stress yourself out or suffer a death march in this marathon - run 3:05-3:10, see if you have anything at all left in the tank, enjoy the day and big PR and then put more consistent miles in for the next one.

Sub 3 Expert wrote:

It sounds like you have some 20 milers planned in the upcoming weeks. My favorite test for marathon pace determination is to run a 20 miler, 10 miles at easy pace, and then 10 miles at goal marathon pace. For me, this should be done at the end of 50-60 mile week so that my legs are tired going into it. The average pace I end up at for those final 10 miles is very close to my marathon potential at that time.

I'm back and forth on this. Some days I think that the effort would shred me enough that I wouldn't fully recover for the FM. But then again, if I can't do what it takes in practice, neither can I in the race. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

The long runs in the upcoming weeks will give you a bit more information about where your fitness level is at, and 10 easy+10 @ MP shouldn't negatively impact your marathon if you do it 3 or 4 weeks out. If you're truly an outlier who defies common wisdom/calculators, then we have no way of assessing your odds of hitting a sub 3. Once you have run enough marathons and collected enough data, you will not need an online calculator or our opinions. You will know what it takes for YOU to accomplish x.

Here is my thought. If you won't be happy with less than a sub 3, or if you will be kicking yourself for shooting for something less than that, then I really think you should go for it. Some may say "well, he'll blow up!" I say, "who cares?" You'll either finish the marathon with humility and some valuable data for future attempts, or you will have achieved your goal. Either way, what do you have to lose?

Allen1959 wrote:

It seems to assign quite a bit of "weight" to the mpw input. For someone like you, with enough natural talent to get by on low mileage, it's overly pessimistic. For me, it was pretty accurate, predicting 3:10 - 3:12 (depending on how many weeks' mileage I included), when I actually ran 3:07 this year.

I should have qualified my statement better: worthless with regards to my personal experience. Thanks.

uhmaybe? wrote:

I think you should get more than one race/training block in before you know what the "error factor" is. Something tells me 538 used a much larger sampling than your one half marathon to marathon personal example.

Get back to us in 6 weeks either way. I'm very curious to see how things go for you.

I can't argue with that. The only other full marathon that I attempted (the year prior), I tried on 15mpw with no run longer than 13. It was a disaster with a 1:41/1:57 split. It didn't occur to me to plug those numbers in anyway since I botched everything so bad, but it's not far off from the previous "error factor." 1.088. And yes, their sample is obviously larger.

dfsfasdf wrote:

The biggest problem with these threads is the OP rarely comes back to update how it went. Don't be that guy, OP. Report back.

I will report back, as I did last time.

Everyone telling me that a 3:20 wasn't happening (and in some cases, wasn't possible) on 25mpw with a 1:34:35 HM helped push me to a 3:18:45. No one bothered to show back up and admit that they were wrong, which is what I had expected!

I highly value your advice and think your suggestion is by far the most sensible. I would be content with a 3:05, but I don't think I'd be content without knowing how long I could a 3:00 pace. 3:00 is driving me this cycle. I suspect I will find out what you are suggesting soon enough: that there is a huge curve of diminishing returns when you get around the 3:05-3:10 mark; also, that HM to FM conversion ratios rise with pace when not accompanied by a sufficient rise in mpw. I might have overstated in it being reasonable to expect a sub-three, but I don't necessarily think it to be unreasonable to pace myself for it. I'm merely wondering how much I could blow up for trying to hold that pace. I honestly think it is nearly certain that I will hold it for 18-20 miles, weather permitting. There was a guy on another forum who went 2:59 on 29 mpw, so I'm thinking it can be done.

I'm nearly certain I would kick myself for not going for sub-three and find your assessment to be reasonable. So here's what I'm thinking about doing. I have six 15k tempo runs @ MP planned over the six week period prior to taper. MP runs would account for 21% of my overall mileage over that time period. I was thinking 15% might be more sensible, as this is what I've read from a few different sources. If I drop two of these MP runs back down to easy pace (MP+60) and convert the 20 mile easy (three weeks prior) over to 10 mile easy / 10 mile MP, I would be at 18%.

538 got mine right within 9 seconds

impressive wrote:

538 got mine right within 9 seconds

It seems quite accurate at high mileage. If I changed my mpw from 25 to 60, the prediction is close to the actual result. Are you high mpw?

if you consider 60 high mileage, then yes

impressive wrote:

if you consider 60 high mileage, then yes

538 would be no different than any of the other race predictors then, which vary about 1% from among each other. The whole point of 538's model was to incorporate mpw as a factor. It fails horribly in my personal case.

Fair play, and nice to see some civil discourse on here for a change. I feel where you’re coming from. I’ve run two 3:04s as I said - first one was even splits and felt great most of the way through but wiped at the end, second one I was on 2:59 pace right through 32km then hit a wall and couldn’t do much better than 8min/mile pace. Even though I shaved 20 secs off my PR on a tougher course, that second race hurt like hell - basically a faster version of my marathon debut, heavy fade and all.

But I went out on goal pace and got as far as I could and didn’t crash too horribly, and learned a fair bit for the next cycle (choose a less hilly course and keep up more mileage basically). So can’t criticize too much if you’re trying the same thing - good luck!

three hour attempt wrote:

dfsfasdf wrote:

The biggest problem with these threads is the OP rarely comes back to update how it went. Don't be that guy, OP. Report back.

I will report back, as I did last time.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=7123585

Everyone telling me that a 3:20 wasn't happening (and in some cases, wasn't possible) on 25mpw with a 1:34:35 HM helped push me to a 3:18:45. No one bothered to show back up and admit that they were wrong, which is what I had expected!

Awesome! I had not seen that previous post, but super cool you came back. I think we all learn more when we get the final story. And I'm excited to see how this goes for you.

I know you've talked about your mileage and how much/how fast you're running, but I'm curious, is that the full story of your training? Or are you supplementing with anything else? Cycling? Yoga? Weights? Walking the dog or whatever?

three hour attempt wrote:

For anyone coming across this later, trust the math. No one knows yourself better than YOU.

So are you just coming here for motivational bulletin board material then? In the absence of other info, You're probably going to be in 3:04 shape, but if you go out at 2:58 you'll finish in 3:08. You're welcome.

Fall 2016,

1:35:45 half on ~30mpw, good weather race.

Spring 2017

11 weeks averaging 43.5mpw (30-52), no taper (~50 miles week of half) = 1:28:11, on a cold day, but finished last mile in like 6:12 pace and negative split by several minutes, so felt like I could have run faster if I knew how good of shape i had gotten in and paced properly and tapered like it was a goal race. Followed by...

11 weeks averaging 56mpw (52-62) before marathon, 1:30:30 at half way, finished in 3:09:45, temps around 70 and humidity in the high 80%s, so think I lost a few minutes, but also doubt I was in sub 3 shape.

538 would have had me pegged around 3:15 for my mileage and the half time. Jack Daniels VDOT would have said 3:04. I guess I split the difference. YMMV.

uhmaybe? wrote:

Awesome! I had not seen that previous post, but super cool you came back. I think we all learn more when we get the final story. And I'm excited to see how this goes for you.

I know you've talked about your mileage and how much/how fast you're running, but I'm curious, is that the full story of your training? Or are you supplementing with anything else? Cycling? Yoga? Weights? Walking the dog or whatever?

I do some weights 1-2 times weekly. I did cycling last summer and actually managed a 4:58 solo century nonstop with no aero equipment, but no cycling this summer. I also walk the dog 1/2 mile each day unless it's raining. No yoga though.

David S. Pumpkins wrote:

So are you just coming here for motivational bulletin board material then? In the absence of other info, You're probably going to be in 3:04 shape, but if you go out at 2:58 you'll finish in 3:08. You're welcome.

Primarily, I'm looking for honest opinions and feedback. Secondarily, I take all the nonsense like "3:10" and use it to motivate me. 3:04 shape seems like a reasonable guess. If I did a 1:29 front half, I don't think 3:08 is all that unreasonable either as a worst case scenario. Worst case for 1:30 would be 3:05-3:06; and an extra minute in the front costs me two in the back.

Pretty close, Use it how you will because you're very opinionate wrote:

Fall 2016,

1:35:45 half on ~30mpw, good weather race.

Spring 2017

11 weeks averaging 43.5mpw (30-52), no taper (~50 miles week of half) = 1:28:11, on a cold day, but finished last mile in like 6:12 pace and negative split by several minutes, so felt like I could have run faster if I knew how good of shape i had gotten in and paced properly and tapered like it was a goal race. Followed by...

11 weeks averaging 56mpw (52-62) before marathon, 1:30:30 at half way, finished in 3:09:45, temps around 70 and humidity in the high 80%s, so think I lost a few minutes, but also doubt I was in sub 3 shape.

538 would have had me pegged around 3:15 for my mileage and the half time. Jack Daniels VDOT would have said 3:04. I guess I split the difference. YMMV.

Wow, we are super remarkably similar with those marks. My Spring 2016 was 11 seconds faster than your Fall 2016 on 5 less mpw with same weather. My Spring 2017 was 14 seconds faster than your Spring 2017 on 10 less mpw but I tapered (and also 2 min negative split, like you). My marathon will be 20 less mpw than yours, which scares me. Your 3:09:45 would have been about 3:07 if we go on the assumption that one minute in the front costs you two minutes in the back from improper splitting (3:03:30/3:03:30). A 3:07 under those conditions would be adjusted to 3:02-3:03 on a cool day. A lot of guesswork, but sounds about right. Thanks for the input.

You keep repeating this one on the front equals 2 on the back formula like it's gospel. I think that's more a figure of speech than an accurate formula...