How many miles a week would it take to break 2:50 in the marathon?

I ran 2:36 off of 30 mile weeks. On a hilly course as well...

It depends how good you are.

For you if you are already doing 90 mpw I'd suggest you would get more off better training and getting your 5-10km pr down rather than upping mileage

marshal wrote:

I've seen many runners doing lots and lots of junk miles and running slow times like yours. Running each day the same slow easy runs for months and months won't improve your performance. You need to lower your mileage and add functional workouts

When it comes to the marathon, there is no such thing as junk mileage. In fact, the idea of junk mileage is a myth. It is just a word lazy runners use. For marathons, just make sure you do one medium to long run at marathon pace and one other workout per week at about 10k pace. And the rest very easy mileage.

idea of junk mileage is a myth wrote:

marshal wrote:

I've seen many runners doing lots and lots of junk miles and running slow times like yours. Running each day the same slow easy runs for months and months won't improve your performance. You need to lower your mileage and add functional workouts

When it comes to the marathon, there is no such thing as junk mileage. In fact, the idea of junk mileage is a myth. It is just a word lazy runners use. For marathons, just make sure you do one medium to long run at marathon pace and one other workout per week at about 10k pace. And the rest very easy mileage.

BS, I've experimented with a lot of different training approaches and have tried training into triple digit weeks as well. If you are not a pro that can dedicate all his time solely to training, then more than 60-70 mpw is a waste of time and health as this only fatigues your muscles more then you can recover. Also high mileage without supplemental functioanal training makes you physically weaker as uou lose muscles and more prone of injuries. On top of that you also sacrifice red blood cells that die due to the constant pounding.

As I said, I've tried running lots of miles and it never paid off. Doing 100 mpw actually made me to stall instead of progressing. I've reached the greatest overall progress for the time invested (best value for the buck so to say) when running up to 60 mpw with weekly two workouts (reps/hills and threshold session) and fast progressive long run, with easy runs of 30-50 min max

2:47:30 on 45-50 mpw, 80% on hilly trails

You just didn't eat enough and/or did your easy mileage too fast.

qw wrote:

Though I haven't done marathon yet, I ran 1:14 half recently which should be enough to run sub-2:40 marathon. I averaged about 50 mpw during buildup.

When I was in about 2:50 marathon shape I was consistently doing about 40 mpw I think.

I also think that quality is more important than mileage. I focus on running economy and lactate threshold by implementing customized Daniels/Tinman plan

That's impressive! I did my first marathon on 37 mpw, no structure, and ran 3:24, so it's good to know that people can run well on low mileage.

I've been averaging 55-60 mpw over the past 3 mos. and while that's still VERY little compared to others here, I'm already feeling stronger in my workouts in the middle of the week. Crushed 21 miles yesterday in the heat and had a ton left over b/c I didn't push it, to hit 64 miles this past week.

Just waiting for the weather to cool down to see the gains. Columbus is brutally hot and above the average temps for August right now.

Hoping for 3:10 or better but if not, I'll just enjoy the journey and see how Oct. 17 (Columbus Marathon) goes. I did a 1:39 half TT a few months ago ad medium effort and I hadn't even hit 50 mpw!

Boston is still probably several years (or a few cycles) away. Part of the fun of running is chasing that elusive goal.

A few other things I learned this year that I didn't do last year:

1) More water--trying to avoid a kidney stone operation like I had a month before the 2019 Columbus Marathon.

2) Foam rolling--I did nothing other than static stretching before and after my 2019 training block (3/9/19 to the Marathon).

3) Warmup and Cooldown runs--those are quick ways to add mileage and clear your legs of lactic acid.

4) More tempos/pickups during the runs, and less actual track work (we do some but not like before).

5) Running in an actual running group vs. solo.

I ran 2:49 into first one on 35 MPW. I had never run over 18 miles until the marathon.

I always had a hard time breaking 3 hours, only did it once before 2019. After about a year of doing roughly 100km (60mi) a week, peaking at 130km (75mi), I managed to run 2:48. I followed Pfitzinger's Advanced Marathoning.