Sub 3 Marathon Debut

17:51 and 37:50 are good enough for a sub3 marathon. 1:29.30 is not, unless you're 50 years old and just run one pace all the time.

No more of the "less than ideal buildups". You can probably pull off the eating and drinking on occasion, but not every week.

People here will say you need way more mileage, but 40~50 is enough, assuming you do it every week. Like, every week between now and your taper. Other than that it's not rocket science.. build your long run up to 20 miles 8 weeks out, then start incorporating a lot of sub3 paced miles into your long runs. ex. 10mi easy, 10mi at marathon pace. Or 18 miles alternating between moderate and marathon pace, or 20mi with 3x5km at marathon pace.

Then, for the last eight weeks have one track day per week, and do strides and/or hill repeats on another. Then just pile on the mileage every other day to get your total number for the week.

Great advice. Can't really add much to this other than: listen carefully to your body during the buildup. Can't train properly if you're injured.

UA's advice is excellent. The 5K/10K times are good enough, but I'm worried by the curve that happens when you plot those times in the direction of the marathon. You get a curve, not a line, suggesting a lack of sufficient endurance--a lack of DEVELOPED endurance sufficient to carry you the whole way without undue slowing.

There are several ways to address that. UA has correctly identified one, which is not just long runs--you should do at least two 20 milers and preferable three--but long runs with a significant helping of something close to marathon pace in the second half.

Two other things will help.

First, while you MAY be able to achieve your goal with a series of 50 mile weeks, you WON'T achieve your goal if you allow 40-50 mpw to linger as an adequate weekly mileage. Make it 50+. I'd personally make it 50-60 mpw. That is enough. I think UA has set the bar a little too low.

Secondly, I remember some advice Tinman gave years ago. He said the that one important limiting factor in marathon performance was muscular strength, and that many people didn't have what was required to maintain muscle strength after 16 miles--that 16 miles was a sort of transition point. He said that the best way of ensuring this sort of strength was to include hills in your training. I think his term was "a falloff in elastic strength" or some such. It's the same thing that hobbles people who blast the downhills early at Boston.

So do some hills. Many people recommend finding a long run where the last few miles are hilly. I don't think it really matters. You can do 4 to 8 x 60 second steep hill, medium hard, jogging down afterward. Or find a hilly 10-12 mile course for your midweek run and then find a flat long run course and hold MP in the second half.

And of course, rereading, I see that UA has recommended hill repeats in the last 8 weeks. Yes! I probably wouldn't wait until the last 8 weeks, but that remains good advice. Just don't assume that hill repeats are interchangeable with intervals. They're not. Hill repeats are training in elastic strength that converts to effective late-race endurance, which means ability to hold marathon pace rather than slowing. Intervals are doing something very different.

I should have said "Just don't assume that hill repeats are interchangeable with strides."

UA Runner wrote:

People here will say you need way more mileage, but 40~50 is enough, assuming you do it every week. Like, every week between now and your taper. Other than that it's not rocket science.. build your long run up to 20 miles 8 weeks ...

I agree with this. With the OP's talent, no need for 60-mile weeks, although he certainly could benefit from that, and probably should have a peak week or two near 60.

I would also suggest at least one run longer than 20. I've always trained low mileage -- 42 mpw at age 23 netted 2:40, 42 mpw at age 58 netted 3:07 -- and strongly believe that long runs are the key to marathon success on low mileage.

Throw our the rule limiting long runs to 25% of weekly mileage. At 45 mpw, make the long runs as much as 45% or more of your total mileage. No need to hammer them, just run easy, maybe finish strong on some.

I also like a secondary long run (Pfitzinger's "medium long run"). I define long run as 18+, medium long run as 13-17 miles.

While I keep most long runs easy, I approach the medium long runs as progressions -- start easy, finish at marathon pace or faster.

Thanks a lot for all the replies so far! All good advice that i'll take on board. The 'long run' is the main thing missing from my training. Do you think now is a good time to start building that up. I usually get a mid week 10 mile run done and then a 10-12 mile run done on a sunday but that's about as far as I've been going. Obviously that's key coming into the marathon training is to make sure I start to run long.

A snapshot from the last few weeks leading up to the half marathon looked like this:

Monday: 11km with some strides

Tuesday: 17km tempo alternating between 1km at 3:55 per km & 4:55 per km (10 miles in 71 minutes)

Wednesday: 11km

Thursday: 11km

Friday: Rest Day

Saturday: 16km with 5km Park Run Tempo in 19:35

Sunday: 16km

Total for the week 82km/50ish miles

Going forward i'll be swapping the Tuesday session to a 5km specific session as I've got a race at the end of December but I was also thinking of adding some distance to the sunday long run as well to get used to that extra time on my feet. As a result i'll also swap out the Saturday tempo for a shorter day. Still cover 3-4 miles at relaxed tempo but maybe shorten the run to just 5-6 miles in total rather than 10. Once the 5km race is out of the way in the new year I guess i'll start tackling the longer run with some marathon pace miles included. I don't want to do more than 2 hard sessions per week as i'm worried about injuries and I think for the time being 50 miles a week is a good starting point. The only extra miles will come from extending the long run bit by bit. Do you guys think that sounds reasonable or are there any obvious changes to the above? Thanks again - really appreciate it!

As well as obviously extending the long run you could also make one of the wednesday/thursday runs longer so it is a midweek medium long. You could couple this with reducing one or two of the other 11k runs by 2k or 3k so they are just are easy recovery days.

If you do this you would end up with something pretty close to a Pfitzinger plan. I just got a 2:55 in my second marathon off the back of his 12 week 55 mile plan (it peaks at 55 miles but most weeks are 40-50). He generally keeps things to just two hard days a week with the long run being one of the hard days - he does like long runs run a bit faster than a lot of others suggest.

The most important thing is don't get injured. My first attempt at a marathon I tried to push through some niggles, ended up properly injured, missed quite a few weeks entirely and was in no kind of shape on raceday.

This time round, if something felt wrong I would immediatly back off and skip a run or two. It meant I had a couple of weeks where I was 10-20 miles short of my target but it the grand scheme of things this was not a lot to miss compared to a full blown injury.

But, other than potential or actual injury, there shold be no other reason to ever skip a run. Hangovers, head colds, life events all shouldn't get in the way of your targeted mileage. If you know there will be a day where you will have not time make that your rest day and rearrange the week's schedule so you do the runs on other days.

So, I thought I'd post an update and use the thread to keep me accountable. A couple of running buddies are now on board we've decided Newport Marathon in the UK in April. We're all similar ability with one of has a lot of marathon experience and a 3:15 pb. As this is my first attempt i'm grateful to have an experienced runner to run along side. We've agreed to try and meet up twice a week to do our longer runs together. I've decided to pay less attention to the 5km race at the end of the year. I'm still going to give it a good go but my priority for what's left of 2019 is to build a solid base by the January 1st 2020. I'm going to keep one session which will be a variety of reps, fartlek, tempos but the rest of the focus will be on mileage. Probably do some strides after most general runs. I'm going to extend the long run from now and incorporate a mid week mid-long run. The rest of the running will be as many miles as I can handle with the aim of getting to 60 miles as week by the year end. That should be a solid foundation ready to add some quality work from Jan - April. The marathon itself is the same weekend as London and is fairly low key. I think where the lack of crowds will be a negative, the fact that it's local and logistically very convenient will make up for that. I'm hoping the increase in mileage and general extra training volume will assist with getting my half marathon down to around 1:25. This will give me a bit more confidence with the sub 3 attempt. I've got a few half marathons planned in the build up. I know there's many sub 3 forums but would be cool if people jumped onto this one if they're going for a sub 3 attempt in 2020.

Best of luck - there is a huge sub-3 hour thread I started that you should check out (

) a lot of great info in there.

Long story short - from what I can gather - basic marathon training is such - I like to keep things simple, otherwise, feels like too much of a second job vs. a hobby I enjoy:

1) lots of miles at an easy pace (for you this will be 815-830 per mile)

2) 1 day of intervals (800s, 1600s, fartlek, don't do the same thing over and over)

3) Miles at MP (or faster) - these can come through a tempo run, or at the END of a long run.

4) try to find hilly runs (I find hill repeats to be difficult mentally), but if I'm doing an "easy pace run" and it has rolling hills, I'm building leg strength "passively" - riverbank runs are a treat - don't abuse them (or do them too often :) )

My basic formula during my recent 12 week block was (1) 10-15% of miles at MP or faster pace (2) otherwise push volume through a lot of easier-paced runs (3) head for the hills (I am lucky and commute to work with about 100 ft elevation per mile, so helps build leg strength).

Marathon debut is this Sunday, will let you know how it goes (so all of my advice might be complete crap, HAH).

Good luck with yours and definitely let me know! Thanks for the link to the other thread too. Hopefully you'll achieve your sub 3 goal

I thought i'd update the thread to see if i'm moving in the right direction. Since my last post, i've ran a 1:24:10 half marathon during a normal training week. i didn't taper down for it and just swapped my long run for this race. I ran the race quite relaxed and felt good but it did take a few days to recover. I still ran 54 miles the week of the half marathon and 50 miles the week after (this was a recovery week so i didn't do any sessions and capped my long run at 17 miles).

Also since my last post i've been consistently doing long runs. The longest so far was 20 miles in 2:44. Felt great but tired for a few days after so kept the running easy. I've kept my mileage between 50-55 miles since Jan 1st (averaging 53 per week which consists of 1 session, 1 medium long run and 1 long run.

My thoughts for the last 4 weeks now before taper are to do some speed work . Nothing to drastic. Basically some 1k repeats at around 10km pace, 400m-800m reps at 5km pace and add the marathon pace tempo to a segment of my long run (long runs are usually ran at 8:00 min mile pace). I desperately don't want to get injured but i think these last 4 weeks need to be the best yet. The week would look something like this:

M: easy 45 mins

T: 60 mins with speed reps

W: easy 60 mins recovery

T: easy 80-90mins (med-long run)

F: easy 60 mins

S: Off or easy 35 mins recovery jog

S: long run with marathon pace tempo

I want to get a 3 hour long run done in the next 4 weeks and the other 3 long runs will have reasonable portion at MP.

What do we think? Is my sub 3 debut doable. To be honest, even if it's not i've probably had the most consistent 10 weeks training i've ever had so i'll thank the marathon for getting my head in the game and just try and enjoy it as best i can on the day.

I thought i'd update the thread to see if i'm moving in the right direction. Since my last post, i've ran

a 1:24:10 half marathon during a normal training week. i didn't taper down for it and just swapped my long run for this race. I ran the race quite relaxed and felt good but it did take a few days to recover. I still ran 54 miles the week of the half marathon and 50 miles the week after (this was a recovery week so i didn't do any sessions and capped my long run at 17 miles).

Also since my last post i've been consistently doing long runs. The longest so far was 20 miles in 2:44. Felt great but tired for a few days after so kept the running easy. I've kept my mileage between 50-55 miles since Jan 1st (averaging 53 per week which consists of 1 session, 1 medium long run and 1 long run.

My thoughts for the last 4 weeks now before taper are to do some speed work . Nothing to drastic. Basically some 1k repeats at around 10km pace, 400m-800m reps at 5km pace and add the marathon pace tempo to a segment of my long run (long runs are usually ran at 8:00 min mile pace). I desperately don't want to get injured but i think these last 4 weeks need to be the best yet. The week would look something like this:

M: easy 45 mins

T: 60 mins with speed reps

W: easy 60 mins recovery

T: easy 80-90mins (med-long run)

F: easy 60 mins

S: Off or easy 35 mins recovery jog

S: long run with marathon pace tempo

I want to get a 3 hour long run done in the next 4 weeks and the other 3 long runs will have reasonable portion at MP.

What do we think? Is my sub 3 debut doable. To be honest, even if it's not i've probably had the most consistent 10 weeks training i've ever had so i'll thank the marathon for getting my head in the game and just try and enjoy it as best i can on the day.

Posting here as I’m in a similar place as the op.

My marathon training is going really well, 5 and a half weeks out and knuckling down now before taper.

I’ve got my next 4 long runs planned in using various races for getting MP work done and I’m looking for suggestions for mid-week sessions for this final phase (I’m running 55 miles a week average with one midweek session and a long run).

I’ve got 4 quality mid week sessions left to nail, I’ve decided on 2, looking for 2 more.

• 6 x 1 mile repeats with long warm up and down

• 10 x 800 again with warm up and down

• ???

• ???

Maybe a structured fartlek and one other speed orientated session? I’m after specifics.

I’ve already bagged lots of MP work totalling ten miles each time and just ran a 1:23 half last week so feeling good.

Thanks