Get from 3:09 to sub-3 by spring?

Training Advice/Discussion

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5 years ago 10/19/2018 10:13am EDT

re: keepgoing

keepgoing wrote:
Good luck. I've enjoyed seeing all your progress from your other posts. Keep up the hard work.

Indy -- Just wanted to echo this. I have been especially interested because I am chasing a similar goal - going from 3:07 last October to sub-3 next October (no marathon this year).

Last year I was following Pfitzinger's 55 mpw plan until injuries derailed things. Still, I was happy with the 3:07 after running 3:25 the previous year.

I am in the process of formulating a 48-week outline that includes a spring half-marathon and the autumn sub-3 attempt.

I've received lots of great advice and on the weekly training and road racing thread. There are a few guys there chasing sub-3, with one success already at Chicago.

Best wishes!

5 years ago 10/19/2018 11:14am EDT

re: IndyJ

Losing weight would help more than you think, but you need to be honest with yourself about when it starts to be detrimental. If you lose 5 pounds, that's about 4 minutes for a marathon. 10 pounds might end up being too ambitious for you, so be realistic about it.

IndyJ wrote:
Thanks for all the tremendous advice. I'm always apprehensive, especially being a bit of a slow compared to most of the people who post here. But I started off my marathon journey with a 5:05 followed by a 4:59, so breaking 3 hours would be something that was once beyond my wildest imagination, just as an official BQ time was until a few days ago.
I'm thinking that I'll probably hold off and do an early September marathon, and maybe skip the spring this time around. I've gone fall 2017-spring 2018-fall 2018 right now, and it would be nice to use the winter to just sustain a huge base and get my body into better condition overall, i.e. lower my body fat. (I probably have been carrying 5-10 extra pounds at 5-foot-9, 155 pounds.) It would be nice to be able to do that first, train specifically for a marathon second.

5 years ago 10/19/2018 12:32pm EDT

re: Allen1959

Allen1959 wrote:
I've received lots of great advice and on the weekly training and road racing thread. There are a few guys there chasing sub-3, with one success already at Chicago.

Must have felt my ears burning. (But also 3:09 to sub 3 is exactly what I did in my last 2 marathons so of course I would click on this one).

OP, I ran 3:09 last June and then 2:57 in Chicago 2 weeks ago. The time in between included ~3 months off for the birth of my first kid so there was also a rebuild period and that improvement could half been made in less than 16 months. That's said, I still feel like it would have taken me two seasons to get to sub 3 either way. Much like what Allen is planning, I focused on a half in the spring (ran 1:24) and then extended whatever "speed" I had there through the summer with a lot of strength/endurance support. If a mid 1:20s half feels daunting with your current fitness, I think making those faster and longer gains together in one cycle might be tough, so I like your current plan to taget next fall instead of spring. Maybe something like Erie Marathon?

FWIW I used Hanson's and recommend it, but I'm sure many other plans work well. I feel like Hanson's optimizes your marathon fitness well while others might improve all around fitness a little better.

Don't have a lot of other advice to give but to cosign all the other good advice here. Do the strides. Don't time trial the recoveries. Add more easy mileage not more workouts, etc.

5 years ago 10/19/2018 1:33pm EDT

re: Gordon Tremeshko

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