I ran my first open marathon at the weekend on an undulating, off-road course and I'm wondering if there's any kind of rule-of-thumb to help me estimate my time on a flatter, on-road course.
As a bit of background, I'm currently training for Ironman UK in 8 weeks time, but after that as an end-of-season goal I'm hoping to achieve the British-equivalent of a BQ and qualify for the London Marathon through their wonderfully-titled Good for Age process. As an 18-40 Male I need a time of 3:05 but thankfully, unlike the Boston application process, a 3:04:59.9 would be a guaranteed spot regardless of whatever times everyone else posts.
Background: Male, 31 years old, 5'7" (170 cm), 140lbs (64 kg), didn't compete at all at school/college but have been cycling and running consistently for the last ~10 years.
Running PBs: 5k - 19:32; 10k - 39:50; HM - 1:33:08, Marathon - 3:19:35 (all 2017 except for the HM, which was 2016).
Current training: 12-18 hours per week of SBR training; running 30-35 miles in 4 sessions per week; mostly Z2 running, but the odd speed/hill session when my legs aren't too knackered.
So the marathon PB was just this weekend on a course that was 80% off-road packed-gravel trail. It had a total elevation gain of approximately 400 m (1300 ft), so not mountainous by any stretch, but most of this was packed into a couple of short, sharp 500m climbs that ramped up to a ~25% gradient (at a guess), which were covered 6 times in total. It's easy to say in hindsight, but I feel as though I paced myself well but slightly on the conservative side and finished with a strong couple of miles to creep in under 3:20:
https://www.strava.com/activities/998558143
I'm targeting my home-town marathon on 22nd October, so I have 3 full months to recover from the IM and focus on some run-specific training; the course is dead flat and entirely on-road. I guess my questions are:
(1) How much time is the hilly, off-road course likely to have cost me in terms of raw minutes and seconds?
(2) Can I shave a full 15 mins off my marathon time in 5 months?!
(3) What kind of key sessions and/or race times for shorter distances should I be looking at to creep under 3:05 for an open marathon?
(4) Is my current 4:00 hour IM marathon run time a realistic plan/expectation?
If you've made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read it and any advice is much appreciated!
As a bit of background, I'm currently training for Ironman UK in 8 weeks time, but after that as an end-of-season goal I'm hoping to achieve the British-equivalent of a BQ and qualify for the London Marathon through their wonderfully-titled Good for Age process. As an 18-40 Male I need a time of 3:05 but thankfully, unlike the Boston application process, a 3:04:59.9 would be a guaranteed spot regardless of whatever times everyone else posts.
Background: Male, 31 years old, 5'7" (170 cm), 140lbs (64 kg), didn't compete at all at school/college but have been cycling and running consistently for the last ~10 years.
Running PBs: 5k - 19:32; 10k - 39:50; HM - 1:33:08, Marathon - 3:19:35 (all 2017 except for the HM, which was 2016).
Current training: 12-18 hours per week of SBR training; running 30-35 miles in 4 sessions per week; mostly Z2 running, but the odd speed/hill session when my legs aren't too knackered.
So the marathon PB was just this weekend on a course that was 80% off-road packed-gravel trail. It had a total elevation gain of approximately 400 m (1300 ft), so not mountainous by any stretch, but most of this was packed into a couple of short, sharp 500m climbs that ramped up to a ~25% gradient (at a guess), which were covered 6 times in total. It's easy to say in hindsight, but I feel as though I paced myself well but slightly on the conservative side and finished with a strong couple of miles to creep in under 3:20:
https://www.strava.com/activities/998558143
I'm targeting my home-town marathon on 22nd October, so I have 3 full months to recover from the IM and focus on some run-specific training; the course is dead flat and entirely on-road. I guess my questions are:
(1) How much time is the hilly, off-road course likely to have cost me in terms of raw minutes and seconds?
(2) Can I shave a full 15 mins off my marathon time in 5 months?!
(3) What kind of key sessions and/or race times for shorter distances should I be looking at to creep under 3:05 for an open marathon?
(4) Is my current 4:00 hour IM marathon run time a realistic plan/expectation?
If you've made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read it and any advice is much appreciated!