Sub 2h30 Spring Marathon - The Quest For Amateur Glory Rides Again!

I definitely agree. With those PRs you should be able to do this without much issue. That will certainly be a good mark for a first timer

for reference I have a very endurance-oriented ex-teammate who ran 2:24high at CIM last year off of PBs of low 15 for 5k and 31mid 10k. He ran a 68min half in his buildup.

he just broke 15 for 5k for the first time this morning in a TT. probably in marathon PB shape again.

marathon training is pretty simple. put together as many decently good weeks as you can within 3 or 4 months. down weeks are fine now and then. don;t need to run 100 mpw at all really, but if it helps your confidence then it might be worth it. 75mpw does pretty well if you are consistent and do good quality workouts.

specific workouts don't matter very much for sub-elites in my opinion. do the occasional marathon pace (ish) efforts, get in some higher volume workouts, practice hydrating/fueling...and you're good to go.

Training log time.

see my strava here

https://www.strava.com/athletes/1300595/training/log?v2=true

I was doing 90 mpw for a few weeks but took these last 2 weeks as down weeks, with 62 and 65 miles.

Last 2 weeks:

July 20-26:

4x7min tempo intervals. on dirt path, about 5:40 pace.

6k xc TT, 5:12 pace. fast course but dirt.

62 miles total

July 27-Aug 2:

interval workout wednesday,

tempo + sprint TTs saturday

total 65 miles

this week's workouts were weird...I was supposed to pace a local girl for a sub-16 track 5000m on wednesday but we couldn't get on the track, so I just ran a workout with her other pacers. I did about 6min at 5:00 pace on the road, rested 3min, then ran 1.5mi at 5:00 pace again. then I followed it up with 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, and 10 seconds very fast on the road with about 90-sec rest. ran 4:20-4:30 pace for those which is really hard on the roads. the purpose was to sort of shock the system as my team is doing 800m TTs in the next week or two and I've never run an 800 before so I want to feel a little more prepared.

Saturday was the new 5k TT date for the girl but I didn't go. she ended up running 15:45 though. I instead paced some local masters runners for a 5k road TT. I ran 17:20 with a 64 year old guy. If he had done this in a real race, 2 weeks from now when he turns 65, this would've been an American Record for 65-69. felt really smooth running low 5:30s, very relaxed. had some other teammates talk me into doing a 400m time trial on a marked road course, plus 2x200 all out. I ran 59.9 (in clunky marathon racing shoes), 28mid then 28high. not terrible...would be fun to do it in spikes on a track, and maybe I'd run 57 and 27.

what do you guys think I'll run for the 800? 400 PB is 59.9, but let's call it 57.x. 1500 PB is 4:16 or so but that was a bad performance. Could've run 4:08-4:10 a few years ago in college and probably 2:04 back then too. Haven't raced a mile or 1500 since 2015. I'd bet I could run 4:35 or a little quicker but not 4:29.

reed wrote:

specific workouts don't matter very much for sub-elites in my opinion. do the occasional marathon pace (ish) efforts, get in some higher volume workouts, practice hydrating/fueling...and you're good to go.

Disagree a bit here. Though what you describe is marathon specific. As you get faster optimizing for the marathon becomes more important not less IMO. I was able to go sub 2:30 without being marathon specific, but after that I definitely needed to.

Like Jewish_Lightning my glory days are well behind me too, but I'd definitely echo some of his sentiments regarding marathon-specific training. I never quite cracked 2:30 either but did manage to go from a 3:54 debut at Cal International in '95 down to 2:31 at Berlin in '09 (at age 40). The vast majority of this improvement was down to increasing volume (80-95 mpw for the last couple of marathons) and doing workouts specifically geared at improved aerobic capacity (e.g., long runs with last 5M at target marathon pace, 3-4 x 2M at 1/2M race pace). Looking back, my feeling is that running sub-2:30 requires a bit of luck (i.e., no injuries and a good block of training) and it doesn't hurt if you have a bit of talent too (one of my old training partners who is 6 years younger than me ran 2:31 with me in Berlin but went on to run 2:23 to win the V40 category at London in 2017 - he swears by good chunks of training at goal marathon pace).

Best of luck to you all, I'll be watching this thread with interest. Dreaming of the old days of chasing sub-2:30 brings back a lot of great memories :)

Thanks for the tips! Yeah, I think there will be a bit of a learning curve with the fueling and stuff like that. Just things you don't really have to think about during a 10k.

Guess I'll post my training as well.

Training for first Marathon.

Last week ~ 95 miles

I've been taking my morning doubles really really easy and I'm running like 8:20/mile. It helps wake me up before work. I'm also helping out with a local high school cross country team so the runs I do with them are normally around 9:00 pace.

Monday

AM: 4 slow miles

PM: 9.1 @ 7:46/mile

Tuesday

AM: 4 slow miles

PM: 10 @ 7:28/mile followed by 4.9 with the high schoolers

Wednesday

AM: 4 slow miles

PM: 5 mile warm up

4xMile @ 5:40

1 mile cool down

Thursday

AM: 4 slow miles

PM: 10 miles @ 7:41/mile followed by 3.1 with the high school

Friday

AM: 4 slow miles

PM: 10.2 miles with 6x1min fartlek starting at 7 miles

Saturday

AM: 10.3 @ 7:31/mile

Sunday

AM: 18.1 @ 6:42/mile

Solid week of training. Did my first hard workout in about a month on Wednesday. 4xMile @ 5:40 felt pretty hard but I think the heat was a big factor. The fartlek on Friday went surprisingly well, I was able to run the last three reps at about 4:20 pace which is surprising since I typically struggle with faster stuff. The long run on Sunday went really well. It was hot and humid but that didn't seem to affect me very much. We ran the first 7 miles fairly easy hovering just over 7:00min pace and then we started progressing and had a few miles between 6:00 and 6:10. Took the last 4 miles as a sort of cool down.

Not a whole lot of structure at this point. I'll make a training plan in a few weeks but for now, I'm just enjoying getting in some mileage and running with people.

reed

Looks like your training is going well. A wide variety of solid workouts.

Based on the 400m TT I'm going to guess that you could run 2:07 or 2:06 for the 800.

Solid work everyone. I've never run a race shorter than 5k so no idea how to predict an 800m. Sounds like a lot of fun to run one though!

I've had a relatively easy week, running 142km (88mi). Nothing special, highlights were my Wednesday long run (24k @ 4:12/km, felt easy) and Saturday long run (28k @ 4:20/km, was much hotter than the rest of the week so slowed it down a bit).

Tomorrow I've got a lactate threshold run with 8k @ HM-15k pace... should be fun, although I've never really felt like I nailed any of the LT runs. Let's see how tomorrow goes.

I'm still on the hunt for a new pair of Next%s for the fall (or Alphaflys for that matter) but neither has been available for months now (in Germany).

RunningInEurope wrote:

I'm still on the hunt for a new pair of Next%s for the fall (or Alphaflys for that matter) but neither has been available for months now (in Germany).

I figured out a way to get alphaflys:

be a US size 10 (ish)

sign up for nike product testing

test random shoes for 4 years

boom! alphaflys show up at your door

that's what happened to me anyway

My lactate threshold run didn't go all that well, I did feel like I was running well and in the zone, but the watch told me something different. While it was a slightly undulating course, splits were all over the place even though it felt like a steady pace. One km was 3:30 and another 4:14 (although I'm very sure I was running way faster than that). I guess that sometimes it's better to not look at the watch.

If all goes well, this'll be my first 100 mile week. If I feel good, I'll try to do my long run on Sunday a little faster, hoping to run around or below 4:00/km.

I just registered for a third fall marathon. This race has a 50 person limit, so I'm hoping that if my other two races are cancelled, this might still be on... I'm in the shape of my life and even if I run a bad race I'm pretty sure it'll still be a huge PR. With no proper race since last September I really need to get it out.

Here's my Strava for those following along:

https://www.strava.com/athletes/286328

update - did my "debut" 800m this morning. ran completely solo on the track but had two friends getting splits and some video for LOLs.

the plan was to get out in 62 and see what happens. I was hoping for 2:08 or better and would've been pretty bummed with anything over 2:10. I got off the line saving some gas obviously but I don't have a clue what 62 second pace feels like. Split 30.7, 61.9, then a 33 from 400 to 600 (1:35?) and closed in 34 for 2:09.97 on my watch.

man that was hard. started hurting earlier than I expected, as at about 300m I was already getting scared about how I would feel at 600. I don't feel like my pacing was that bad (61.9/67.0) but I didn't feel "in control" after 400. maybe another week or two and I could just a little more relaxed up til 600m.

but for my training, I guess it's back to normal. just finishing up 3 down weeks at 60-65mi so I guess I need to start waking up early again to get in the miles.

wait...I was 62.9 at 400, not 61.9. and 31.7 at 200, not 30.7.

Here's my week:

Monday: two recovery runs (10k and 9k)

Tuesday: am: recovery, pm 16k w/ 8k @ threshold (didn't really hit the pace, but at least it felt like threshold pace)

Wednesday: am: 9k recovery, 1h strength training. pm: 11k recovery

Thursday: am 22k @ 4:30/km medium-long run, directly followed by a dip in the lake and yoga. pm: 8k recovery

Friday: 19k easy

Saturday: 13k even easier

Sunday: 30k @ 4:16/km (6:15/mi)

Was very hot this week, so had to slow it down a bit. Still a very solid week, my first 100 mile week in a while! It looks like some races here are happening again in September, really hoping to run a few tune-up races before my marathon in late October.

Training for first Marathon.

Last week 109 miles

Monday

AM: 4 miles

PM: 9 @ 7:40/mile

Tuesday

AM: 4 miles

PM: 12 @ 7:34/mile

Wednesday

AM: 4 miles

PM: 5x1000m @ 3:17, 3x400m (67, 67, 65)... 12.5 miles total

Thursday

AM: 4 miles

PM: 12 miles @ 7:28/mile followed by 4 with the high school... 16 total

Friday

AM: 4 miles

PM: 12 x (1min hard, 1min kinda hard)... felt pretty good.

Saturday

AM: 12 @ 7:16/mile

Sunday

AM: 18 mile long run with "tempo". Started in the 6:50's and progressed a little bit. The last 5 miles were around 5:50.

A solid week of training for me. Still monitoring some aches and pains but they don't seem to be getting any worse. Wednesday and Friday workouts went ok, felt good for them but not outstanding. Sunday was tough, but I'm pleased with the effort. I'm not sure if I'm not used to the longer workouts, if it was too hot, or if I'm just not in shape yet but I thought that I would be able to run faster. If I am going to be able to run 26.2 miles @ 5:40/mile I would have expected yesterday to feel a little bit easier at the end. Oh well, I'll keep grinding away and hopefully the fitness will come around.

is 110 mpw normal for you? if not, that would explain why workouts are feeling tough. I guess that's obvious.

I wouldn't be concerned about the 5:50s not feeling that easy at the end of a LR. When's the marathon you want to do? or TT?

my week last week ended up weird...did a 23mi/4.5hr mountain run a couple days after my 800m. so if variety of training stimulus is good, then I'll be in good shape soon.

ended up with 73ish miles, kind of a down week for me still but transitioning back to 80+ for the next block of training.

Next week I hope to hit the track or roads for some longer intervals around 5k/10k pace, and hope to get in a quicker long run over the weekend, like 18mi under 6:30 pace hopefully

reed wrote:

is 110 mpw normal for you? if not, that would explain why workouts are feeling tough. I guess that's obvious.

I wouldn't be concerned about the 5:50s not feeling that easy at the end of a LR. When's the marathon you want to do? or TT?

110 mpw is definitely higher than normal but not by much. In the spring I had 6 weeks above 100 miles for reference.

I actually looked back at my training log from last year during the summer and I saw that I did a 5 mile tempo at about the same pace that I finished my long run at so that gave me some confidence. I think that there are just a bunch of little reasons... higher mileage than normal, hot weather, two workouts that week, and i'm at the beginning of the training block.

The marathon that I want to do is about 13 weeks away and last week was the end of my third week of training.

reed wrote:

my week last week ended up weird...did a 23mi/4.5hr mountain run a couple days after my 800m. so if variety of training stimulus is good, then I'll be in good shape soon.

ended up with 73ish miles, kind of a down week for me still but transitioning back to 80+ for the next block of training.

Next week I hope to hit the track or roads for some longer intervals around 5k/10k pace, and hope to get in a quicker long run over the weekend, like 18mi under 6:30 pace hopefully

23 miles in the mountains seems tough. Do you do a lot of trail running?

I hope training this week goes well!