2h45 Marathon on low Milleage? pls Help

We were a club that was really focused on the marathon and most of our training was road runs, often fairly aggressive ones. Every now and then someone would decide that intervals were the missing piece and we'd decide to do one a week. It was usually mile reps. But the resolve seemed to fade and the sessions would peter out very quickly. I think the faster paces in training were important given the lack of reps.

The "Oh God" tells me you really did the complete version of The Diet. We must be of fairly similar vintage. Do you remember Ron Hill acknowledging that he used it but didn't want others to find out how it worked so he said, "I can't divulge everything but it involves high protein?"

So many questions... wrote:

HRE wrote:

I can't recall much about races. Again, he did not race as often as a lot of us did but a big part of that might have been not having a car. Also, he had a girlfriend who put limits on time away at weekends. I do recall a five mile race that he won by outkicking a guy who'd run in the previous Olympic Trials 1500. I think that was in the lead up to the 2:17 but won't swear to it. Sorry I can't give you more there.

Thanks again, I was thinking he was maybe "racing himself fit" as Lydiard said since your friend didn't appear to do any anaerobic/interval sessions.

I got to thinking about this question a bit further last night. I wrote that his typical training week was a 20, a couple 10s, and maybe a fourth run of 5 or 10 miles. I didn't make much of that last "5 or 10" run and kind of casually mentioned that the 5 was done at a good clip. Last night I remembered some 5 mile runs he and I did later and they were BRUTAL. We once did one in Boulder with a guy who'd run 4:07 for the mile. After the run he was so wrecked he had to go to bed and was too wrecked to get out of bed all the next day. That run may have been my best ever race except for it not being a race. So when he did those five mile hard runs he was probably in effect "racing himself fit" even though it wasn't happening in an official race.

Nice, it appears devil was once again in the details.

So those hard 5 mile runs probably took care of the (light) anaerobic side of things, the 10 milers were highly marathon-specific sessions that worked the aerobic system to the max, and the long run did the basic endurance "time on feet" work.

All in all quite a balanced program for the marathon on relatively low mileage.

Sounds about right.

Prefontaine91 wrote:

We are waiting for a marathoner with PR faster than 2:40.

Most of us aren't marathoners, so sometimes that's hard to give you best advice.

Personally, I think try to hold 3 week same mileage.

4 week till marathon: Maybe run 10 k or sometimes like 10 miler or maybe fast 20 km and

try to decrease your mileage step by step.

Perhaps 55-50-45-40.

Also your long run should be shorter, maybe 30 km - 25 km - 20 km

Last 2-3 weeks shouldn't be hard, but be in touch with some speed, some marathon pace reps, but

not long one's, just to keep right pace in your legs.

When did you do last time, before 2:53 ?

Here a bit of what I did last year. I peaked out at 85 miles before getting hurt and my coach and I had to roll with lower mileage before my marathon to get me there healthy. Basically lost more than one month of training after the injury and was just doing easy running. I pulled this from another page but this was my 6 weeks coming into my Marathon this past year. Ran 2:30:25 there with a negative split.

A lot of what I'm learning right now is the importance of keeping those easy runs easy and not pressing my runs when I'm not running pace work. I didn't do too many sustained efforts at exactly marathon pace throughout this. You're averaging 10 miles a day if you're running 50 off 5 days so it's not like you're doing absolutely nothing. A little bit on the lower side but I've seen some guys do well with it. Do you do anything on the other days? I skimmed this thread but didn't see too much information on the types of workouts you are doing. If you're feeling gassed you may be pushing the intensity/volume too quickly. Maybe it's just me but I don't think you should be feeling completely exhausted after working with your marathon pace; it should be pretty comfortable as you're going to be running 26.2 at that pace. Time on feet during those efforts can be the reason but you should be back to normal within a day or two.

Not sure if this will help but here ya go.

September 9th (38.7 miles)

M: Off

T: 4.63 miles, 6:42 pace

W: 3.08 miles, 6:30 pace

TH: 4.66 miles, 6:49 pace

F: 4.02 miles, 7:07 pace

S: 14 mile with a progression in the second half : 6:24 pace, (From mile 10: 6:06, 5:56, 5:56, 5:58)

Sun: 8.32 miles: 7:13 pace

September 16th (39.8)

M: Off

T: 8.69 mile, 6:54 pace

W: 8.86 m,iles, 6:46 pace

TH: Off

F: 7.24 miles, 7:38 pace

S: Off

Sun: 15.01 miles, 6:54 pace

September 23rd (44.2 miles)

M: Off

T: 8 miles easy, 6 x 30 seconds on, 1 min easy: 6:47 pace

W: 5 miles easy, 7:00 pace

TH: 3 miles easy, 6 x 1' @ 10K pace, 90" moderate, 2 mile cooldown (Paces: 5:06, 6:15, 5:13, 5:58, 5:02, 6:12, 5:19, 6:00, 5:04, 6:02, 4:56, 5:55)

F: 6.66 mile, 7:33 pace

S: Off (I don't really know what happened here)

Sun: Long run with 3 @ MP: 15 miles, 6:38 average, (Last 6: 6:07, 5:58, 5:42, 5:37, 5:34)

September 30th (61.5)

M: Off

T: 8 miles easy, 6x30" on, 1 min off. 9.41 miles, 7:06 pace

W: Easy 8 miles, 7:13 pace

TH: Workout, 3 miles easy, 5x 2' on 1' off, 6x 30" on 1' off), (Paces for first part: 5:10, 6:45, 5:08, 6:46, 5:05, 6:44, 5:04, 6:54, 5:07) (Paces for second part: 4:35, 6:41, 4:29, 7:11, 4:37, 7:16, 4:33, 7:13, 4:32, 7:21, 4:26, 7:33) Had to dodge people on a really tight park loop

F: Easy 6.13: 7:41 pace

S: 10 miles plus 30" on 1' off. 11.56 miles, 6:56 pace

Sun: Long Run/Workout: 10K easy, 8 x 1 mile on, 1 mile cruise (+1 minute), 2.32 miles easy home. 16.32 miles, 6:35 pace (Paces: 5:31, 6:31, 5:29, 6:28, 5:29, 6:26, 5:26, 6:18)

October 7: (Had a buddies wedding in Montana so it was a tough week to get stuff in) (37.9 miles)

M: Off

T: 10 miles easy

W: Workout: 3 miles easy, 3x 1 mile @ MP with 3 min jog, 4x 200, 2 mile cooldown (Paces: 5:37, 6:28, 5:28, 6:33, 5:25, 6:57) 10.45 miles, 6:16 pace

TH: 7.33 miles: 7:21 pace. Montana day 1

F: 4 mile hike/off

S: 6.09 miles. 7:44 pace

Sun: off/flight home

October 14: (59.3 including marathon)

M: Off

T: Easy 8 miles, 6:59 pace

W: Easy 8 miles, 7:05 pace

TH: Easy workout simulating first couple miles, 3 miles easy, 3 miles leading into MP, 2 mile CD: 8 miles, 6:32 average (Paces: 5:51, 5:47, 5:44)

F: 6 miles easy, 7:21 pace

S: 3 mile shakeout, 8:30 pace

Sun: Marathon: 2:30:25, Negative split