Ran 3:24 for first marathon but left calf/ankle buckled a few times at mile 25. Is this normal?

jecht wrote:

I'm going to go even slower on my LRs.

I was going too fast from '17-18 when doing my half training and never hit more than 38 mpw and still ran 1:39. But I knew I had to slow down to get my volume up.

Early on I was at 40 mpw but got it to 50-55 and two weeks at 60-61, then a taper.

1230 miles over 32 weeks, so my average was only 38 miles over that time. But from June to October I was at 45 or greater.

I had a kidney stone removed 9/20 so I lost 4 days of running there and an 18-miler I would have done otherwise.

Simple comment to all these things.

It was your first time. You know, or suspect a lot more now than you did before.

Good luck, have fun.

Its never the time that matters, as there only a handful of athletes in the world where it does. Those within reach of the world record.

The rest of you are managing a process to gain the greatest performance out of yourself. You do not have a schedule with an end point that says - missed the Olympic trials and have 4 years til the next one. None of that matters to you.

Plan to get 'better' over the next 20 years and then reassess. I'd move to the bicycle. Great performance is available for anyone up til 70

That is oddly enough the same for me. I did two days of Jogging at a pretty slow 9:00-10:00 min mile pace for an hour at a time on the treadmill and then have been able to since the Marathon run on the roads and trail at my usual MAF HR and pace. Surprisingly my pace picked up since the marathon although being at the same HR.

I think for us since it was our first marathon we just either had too low or too high of expectations. That group of female runners that had passed you and talked in the last 10km or so that you mentioned, I ran with a pack of 2 for the last 10km before finishing and they had started at the 3:30 group but caught up to the 3:20 and then felt great from there forward. I believe the two were even qualifying for Boston based off of the paces they were at?

I was able to talk the whole time also, I think this was a good indicator that I should have went harder, but I think like the others had said, we learn and move on. Move on in our training, to the next marathon, etc. but pace ourselves (in our races and training). There isn't a reason to rush the process right?

I'd rather stay injury free and be running for the long haul at high but slow mileage and see what happens, I'd love to sub 3:00 and BQ qualify too like you. But I'm average, and like my name suggest, I'm in it for fun.

Yeah, to all the posters upthread, I was sore Sunday and part of Monday. 3 800-mg ibuprofen and I was fine on Tuesday. Light walking since.

No running though for a few more days to be safe.

Average, you did know which ones I'm talking about!

Although the hardest BQ standard for women is 3:30 so those ladies easily made it (probably 3:18-3:20?).

I probably should have started off slower at 3:30 but I wanted get out fast for the first 400m to get away from the pack, then slow down deliberately to the 3:20 group. But they passed me at mile 4-5? I was able to stay ahead of 3:30 pack though.

Good point about the talking. That makes sense--then those girls should have run 3:10 or 3:15 if they were pushing it. They were part of CRC (?) so it appeared to be a running group of some sort. I passed them early on but they caught me and beat me at Mile 24 :/

I came in 359th out of 3594 (9.98%). 304 men and 54 women ahead of me. I need to get better...

jecht wrote:

Yeah, to all the posters upthread, I was sore Sunday and part of Monday. 3 800-mg ibuprofen and I was fine on Tuesday. Light walking since.

No running though for a few more days to be safe.

Oh...ha I thought you meant you were like feeling great running fine 2 days later. I've actually run the last two days, even though my legs were pretty beat up. Super-easy. Today they feel much better and I might run a little longer and the pace may return to more normal levels soon.

LOL I get it!

I'm going to take a break from the 'thon though and drop to 5k and work on improving speed. I know I can handle the 26.2 and I know I can handle 55-60 mpw without a problem.

Now, time to increase speed.

Ran 18:33 but that was ages ago. Right now I'll be lucky to break 21. Am tempted to go to a track in a few days and do a time trial. It'll be cool for the first time in forever so am curious to see what I can do as a baseline.

Thanks Crumpet and sorry I didn't respond earlier. I found this thread after looking at my training logs and seeing what I need to do better. A bunch of women passed me at the end and were able to chat--I am hoping to get to the point where I can have a lot left like they did and still be sub-3.

Easier runs easier and more of them.

5k below 19.

Half under 1:25. I came in at 1:40 for the split but if I was just doing a half I would have been at 1:35-1:36.

Mileage up to 80 mpw or higher; 60-61 was my peak.

3 time Boston Marathon Champ, Uta Pippig, suffered severe menstrual cramps in the 1996 edition. She stopped a few times, but still managed to seal a victory.

Everyone gets cramps. Even champions.

A crucial thing for me was that high mileage at a low heart rate, this may have translated to slower times at first and taking up alot of freetime but eventually those average mile paces got faster at the same heart rate so now instead of doing my runs at 8:30-8:15 pace I can keep my heart rate at 157 or less while running 7:40-7:15 per mile. I keep my mileage the same but can do it in less time now. Very convenient and I found when i focused solely on building that base i naturally got faster. I didn't sprinkle in any workouts until the last 8 weeks of the marathon plan. I just did my long runs and went fasters or slower depending on the music i was listening to.

What do you mean by buckled?

They felt like they were going to give away at times, like they would twitch but I would stay upright and maintain my balance. Almost as if something was thrown at them and I was about to fall over.