Hello! I would certainly appreciate a bit of advice/input here:
Is it realistic to set a sub 3 marathon goal for myself for January? I’m a 24 y/o female, ran a 3:10:55 marathon yesterday, split almost completely quite literally evenly the entire way. I didn’t really have any structured “training” - longish runs most weeks ranging from 13-17 miles and some thrown together treadmill speed workouts (usually 3 x mile reps around 6:15) between January and March, but not much speed other than that. I ran a 13.1 PR of 1:28:40 in late March. I did my first full back in December, but it was without proper training an no goal other than getting through it. Neither my half PR in March nor my full PR yesterday felt like particularly cumbersome efforts, and both were totally even tempos, so I think I have plenty of room for improvement so long as I really commit to training (I am very much aware of the fact that getting to sub 3 will require a different level of commitment than what I’ve given this year). Some additional background on me FWIW, ran XC and track 5k/10k in college (upper 17s 5ker), graduated spring 2017 and really haven’t “trained” like that since. Sub 3 training with adult working life will not be easy, but I really want to see what I can do! Any advice on trying to get there is much appreciated!