Should I skip this year's marathon since I know I am not ready for sub 3?

Run it. This is why we do what we do. Invaluable racing experience and chance to give yourself a confidence boost knowing you can (hopefully) nail a 3:15 or so.

Why does it have to be this specific marathon? You could skip it, get a few more months training in and run some other marathon in March/April going for sub 3. If money is tight this also gives you time to save up a few hundred.

Do you want to run only one marathon in your life? If not, run the marathon this November. You'll get a lot of experience.

Thanks for the advice thus far, both of you.

To answer the question: I have been targeting the local November marathon because it is flat, fast, and I run really, really well in cold weather. It is 10 minutes from my house and I get a good nights sleep in my own bed with almost no travel. This is the same course I ran the half marathon on recently. I wouldn't rule out other marathons but just to answer your question, that is my logic behind the decision. I do think I have it in my to improve enough to pull this off in November 2020, I just know I am not ready yet.

thanks!

thanks for the advice. i am now leaning towards running it because you guys are pointing out that the experience is worth it. i'm glad I asked because I was almost for sure going to skip.

to add more detail to answer your question, here is my marathon distance history

2016
4:21:09 - 200' elevation, road

2017
3:53:18 - 1,800' elevation, road

2018
4:24:23 - 3,600' elevation, road with some trail

2019
5:49:21 - 7,100' elevation, all trail
3:26:32 - 1,700' elevation, road

a few of them were solo nonrace efforts, and the 5 hour one was a 50k

If you were in the middle of heavy training the 130 may indicate better fitness than you think. Probably not sub 3 but maybe under 310.

I would say that you should run it because learning from the experience of the entire process (taper, race day prep., and the actual race) provides extremely valuable information. The marathon + training process is pretty long and you will only have so many chances to go through the whole process in your lifetime.

On the other hand, if you are seeing nice progress toward getting faster through your training such that you think you could get fast enough to hit your goal in the next 2-3 months, then perhaps you could postpone your "A" goal race. Since that's probably unlikely, you should probably run this one and learn as much as you can about how you can perform best in a race. Then you will have 3-4+ months to recover and work through another training cycle.

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should i wrote:

To answer the question: I have been targeting the local November marathon because it is flat, fast, and I run really, really well in cold weather. It is 10 minutes from my house and I get a good nights sleep in my own bed with almost no travel.

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A local marathon where you can sleep in your own bed is worth a lot. I'd definitely run it for experience, maybe go out conservative and view it as more of a stepping stone to sub-3, you might surprise yourself. FWIW I used to have to be at 1:20-24 for the HM to break 3.

Thank you everyone for your honest advice and details. It makes sense to me. I will go ahead and run it and go through the proper lead up and taper. Experience will be worth it. I am good to go. THANKS!

Run it. Trust me, when you are older you won’t care as much about times, but it will be cool to say you ran the same race ‘x’ number of years in a row. Good luck.

I still don't understand why people that are not professional athletes train year in and year out for the same event. Go and crush a fast 5k/10k and then build up to the marathon. It gives a different stimulus and you're working on your weaknesses, it freshens up your mind as well. Unless you're old forget about the marathon this year, you won't be proud of running a 3:15 or worse. I know guys that ran 1:24 and failed to break 3:10 the same year. Running is a long term endeavor, this race will be run a year later and that time will pass you by like nothing. Just keep training/building up and get as fast and fit as you can. There is no rush. Contrary to what others say here you will gain little experience from running one marathon, you've already run several. If you want to run sub 3 you know what's needed, run faster at shorter distances and ditch the 50ks.

Give it a try, you've got nothing to loose except the registration fee (unless you want to bandit it with a fake number)

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ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

I still don't understand why people that are not professional athletes train year in and year out for the same event. Go and crush a fast 5k/10k and then build up to the marathon. It gives a different stimulus and you're working on your weaknesses, it freshens up your mind as well. Unless you're old forget about the marathon this year, you won't be proud of running a 3:15 or worse. I know guys that ran 1:24 and failed to break 3:10 the same year. Running is a long term endeavor, this race will be run a year later and that time will pass you by like nothing. Just keep training/building up and get as fast and fit as you can. There is no rush. Contrary to what others say here you will gain little experience from running one marathon, you've already run several. If you want to run sub 3 you know what's needed, run faster at shorter distances and ditch the 50ks.

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don't run it. you said "continue cranking out 60 mile weeks" which means you already run 60 mile weeks, right? push this number up to 70 and run some local 5k and 10k. after that, go back into base training and push it up to 80 miles per week and do a few more 5k and 10k's leading up to the 2020 november marathon and then run it.

I would still go for some experience, for example do a very negative split [1h40 + 1h30]

I also agree though that it sounds as if you need to work on some speed. Focus on 3k/5k/10k in the spring!

I would run it, particularly since it involves no traveling. Even if you don't run your goal you could run a PR and that is always good motivation.