Improving marathon performance over time

What has the progression of your other race times been like?

If you're going to improve to 2:55, I'd guess you'll either do it in 1-2 more years or not at all. I don't know if more mileage is what you need. You might need more specific workouts, or just another year or two of serious training. Or, as you say, spending some time working on shorter distances from 1 mile to HM to round out your training.

drahtz wrote:

I'm curious to know how many years it may take to improve my fitness to run a marathon in 2:55. I didn't start running until after college. I've been running for about 10 years, but consistently only the past two years. This resulted in a 3:08 marathon last spring, and a 3:03 marathon last month. 3:08 was done on about 55 mpw. 3:03 I got up to 65-70mpw. If I consistently run 70-80mpw, how long would it take to get to 2:55 or even 2:45? 1-2 years? Or is it even possible? Is more mileage needed to get there? If so, how do I get there and how long will it take? Would it make more sense to train for a fast 10k or half and see how that translates into a faster full? Sorry lots of questions, thanks in advance.

You can definitely run 2:55 and very likely 2:45. Your last 2 marathons show that you're already running at a good-level and making decent progress with each successive marathon. I think the mileage you suggest (70-80 mpw) will get you there. There's no doubt that improving your times at shorter distances will help. Getting your threshold as high as you can through 10k and half marathon training and racing is really important. I'm also a big believer in doing a good amount of marathon pace work as the physiological and psychological adaptations required to run at a quick pace over extended periods is important.

Like you I started running after college (i.e., in grad school) and my first marathon was way slower than you (Cal International '95 - 3:54) but I kept chipping away over the following years and ended up running my lifetime PB at age 40 (Berlin '09 - 2:31). Just keep tweaking your training program to work out what yields the best results for you. Believe in yourself and you'll run faster than you ever thought possible.

Since the 303 marathon, I've been ramping back up to 50-60mpw. I've been running with runners who are 245 marathoners occasionally since their easy runs are my hard runs. Just wondering if/how long it would take me to get closer to their level. Months, years? And how?

How many mpw were you running throughout your training? I'm running 50 mpw now but wondering if consistent higher mileage will get me there. If so what is it? 60, 70, 80, 100?

drahtz wrote:

How many mpw were you running throughout your training? I'm running 50 mpw now but wondering if consistent higher mileage will get me there. If so what is it? 60, 70, 80, 100?

When I ran the first few marathons I was doing low mileage 30-50 mpw. By the time I got down to the 2-3x - 2:4x range I was running 75-90 mpw consistently. Perhaps you could post a typical week or 2 of your training so we can see what you're doing currently?

Agreed!

If you've been doing 70 plus mpw with varied degrees of intensity and mixed with some racing and some speed work for ten or more years, you may just pop off a 2:48 or better. But I wouldn't imagine there's any magic workout or conditioning formula that's gonna make you into an elite or second tier marathoner.

Never give up on it, though! Dream and enjoy!

I've been doing 6-7 days per week with an interval workout and a long run usually with some type of tempo built in. Easy 8 mile runs on other days. Thanks for the advice and encouragement. Definitely happy with my improvement over the past year. Hopefully I can keep it going into this year and beyond.

drahtz wrote:

I'm curious to know how many years it may take to improve my fitness to run a marathon in 2:55. I didn't start running until after college. I've been running for about 10 years, but consistently only the past two years. This resulted in a 3:08 marathon last spring, and a 3:03 marathon last month. 3:08 was done on about 55 mpw. 3:03 I got up to 65-70mpw. If I consistently run 70-80mpw, how long would it take to get to 2:55 or even 2:45? 1-2 years? Or is it even possible? Is more mileage needed to get there? If so, how do I get there and how long will it take? Would it make more sense to train for a fast 10k or half and see how that translates into a faster full? Sorry lots of questions, thanks in advance.

there is no set equation for mileage vs performance.

you definitely have the ability to run well under 3 hours if you ran 3:03 on 65-70 mpw. Just repeating the training you did before, or extending it for more weeks, will make you run faster.

The biggest thing to think about is monthly or annual mileage. You need to be training consistently year-round to make big improvements. So you've run a couple 70 mile weeks. Well, imagine how fit you'd get if you averaged 65 mpw for 10 weeks. that's what gets you the fitness...not the biggest single week.

As for the actual workouts...it's much less important than people assume. Just find some people who are a little faster than you and do the workouts they do, for company. Tempo? sure. Intervals? sure. just be flexible and try to do about 2 workouts per week.

65-70 is good enough mileage for 2:55. Up to 80 would be nice, too. You might want to think about trying to train for the 5k/10k for some time to increase your true leg speed. It will make goal 2:55 pace seem easier if your VO2max is higher.

During training for the 305 performance, I had three months of training averaging 62 mpw. The 303 marathon was only 10 weeks later, so after recovering I had 5 more solid weeks of 60+ mpw before tapering. If I start averaging 75 mpw, how many weeks would it take to start noticing performance improvement?