The course looks pretty damn flat (except that dip and climb at the end, why...just why?).

Your recent run was right at 3:09 pace. If that was not a race effort, I'm not sure you need to do much different than what you are doing. 28 days doesn't really leave any time to do a lot except f-things up, anyway. :-) Its kinda late to do much to extend whatever your longest runs have been, and still leave time for any sort of taper in the last 10-14 days.

I think I'd probably focus on race-pace efforts. Maybe 1-2 more longer runs like the 18 miler above, stretched to 20?

I’d also throw in a couple ~13 mile tempo runs. 2 mi wu 10 mi tempo 1mi cd.

---

Let food be thy medicine...

also looking to BQ at Bay State - don't have any training suggestions but wanted to give you a heads up that they just received 33k qualified applicants for around 24k slots in 2024. So the time cutoff this year will be significant. I wouldn't be surprised if they tighten qualifying times for 25. Good luck.

https://www.baa.org/...nership-bank-america

I'm assuming you mean "tempo" in the cyclist's sense of the word and as a notch easier than "threshold" -- i.e., so that "tempo" runs are close to marathon goal pace? I will see if I have time to get one or two of those in addition to 1-2 longer runs with a bit of MP work.

Yeah, I think I will be aiming to start out at 3-flat pace to give some leeway there. I also plan on using super shoes for the first time this marathon (ordered; need to take a few runs to test them out obviously once they arrive...). Thanks for the heads-up about 2024, that will be a shock to many after the past two years of 0:00 cutoff adjustment!

That's why avoided that term (runners use Tempo different than cyclists do), and went with race-pace. Its not like you're going to build a bunch of fitness between now and then. But, some neuro-muscular memory for goal-pace, when the last 10 km comes around isn't a bad thing. Cyclists tempo = SweetSpot = 2.5 hr pace...damn near your MP, and close enough to be physiologically similar.

I'm also in a short-ramp to Long Beach in October. I have no time goals, but I'm turning 60 soon and wanted to put a marker down that I still (sort-of) got it :-)

Base fitness is plenty good - I do a monthly century and still run regularly, but my last marathon was ~ 3 years ago. I've added weekly long runs and some new shoes and will count on experience and positive attitude to get across the line. I always pack a couple Tylenol for the 20 mile marker which helps my form and pace for the last 10K :-)

Good luck!

---

" I take my gear out of my car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of of their lives shocks me. "
(opening lines from Tim Krabbe's The Rider , 1978

No, I meant ~15 sec faster than MP. After a couple of those MP will seem a good bit easier.

---

Let food be thy medicine...

status update:

Ramped mileage a lot this week (62 since Monday, will likely get to ~70 this week) and got in a 10-mile tempo run slightly faster than planned MP (Jackstraw's suggestion), and an almost 20 miler with 2x3 miles @ MP. Feeling good. Also got some super shoes (endorphin pro 3), tested with one run and plan to run a bit more in them next week. Probably one more week at higher volume with 1-2 workouts and a long run, then a 2 week taper.

I'm wondering about Tom Hampton's statement "Its not like you're going to build a bunch of fitness between now and then" -- which I would guess many here would share. Based on training impulse models of fitness (e.g., those in TrainingPeaks, Strava, etc.), and the standard values of 7 days for the fatigue time scale and 42 days for the fitness time scale, the optimum time to affect form (fitness minus fatigue) for an event is about 30 days out. The impact on form is high through about 3 weeks out and then starts to drop precipitously, becoming counterproductive (from a form standpoint) about 15 days away from a planned event. So the workouts next week (14-21 days away from the planned race) won't (in theory) help me too much but I think the ones this week ought to quite a bit, no?

Eta: I didn't say "none".... I said "a bunch". 😁


First, I don't like to think that way. It encourages wrong headed decision making mid workout for me. Ie, if I think about a single workout having a measurable effect, I'm more likely to push the limit in a way that might compromise future sessions. As noted in other recent threads I'm frequency / volume first. Never compromise tomorrow for today. Thinking like the above, encourages me to risk tomorrow for today.

However, of course, every workout has a contribution to your fitness. Given enough motivation it is computable at any moment what the total contribution of a workout is to your current fitness. You can apply the Bannister model to each workout separately based on t(n) and sum them all together instead of the inverse. Not that the Bannister model says anything practical in this sense (ie, how much faster will YOU be on raceday because of this one workout).

I can say from past experience, workouts like you describe impact my pace by 1-2s/mile week over week. That's caveated by, those changes are measured against a backdrop of a total weekly volume, often also increasing at that time. That also assumes a minimum of 3-4 weeks of conducting the same plan week over week...before I see the first uptick.

How that translates into 1-3 weeks of application, followed by some form of taper is difficult to say with any certainty. Does it have an impact? I'm sure it does in some way. I'm not sure it's predictable or measurable.

OK -- thanks for the response. I agree with most of what you say, but similar thinking leads me to different psychology about the value of a single workout -- IMO, thinking about cumulative training effects actually helps to avoid strictly maximizing any one single workout, because it might leave you completely dead for days and unable to wring as much out of the cycle as you can. I'm also a volume and frequency person (at least, am under ideal circumstances!) and have trained to decent fitness this year mostly on the back of easy double commutes (most by run, 2x5 miles a few times a week gives a pretty solid base to start from!).

For me, the biggest issues with the Bannister model are that the weighting of TSS rather than miles seems wrong (I see more value to me of 100 TSS from a longer slow run than a shorter fast run), and that I'm skeptical of the whole concept of a single fitness time scale. With a 6-week weighting of fitness, you're lulled into thinking that time put in over the past few years doesn't matter so much, which (at least to me) seems like nonsense. Fatigue maybe has a single timescale, but I think not so for fitness...

Result: ran 2:55 dead on -- very happy with the outcome (15 minute BQ buffer should be plenty!)

Ramped weekly mileage hard for two weeks after the original post: 72, 78, 30 (taper), 28 (taper) + 26.2. Ran mostly easy, key workouts were 3 long runs (18.5, 19.7, 19.0), all with some marathon pace component, and one other workout of 10 miles at ~6:35 avg pace, which told me that aiming for low-2:50s was too much of a stretch.

Successes:

Got super shoes for the first time. Guessing these were worth 5-10 minutes.

Lost about 4 pounds. Probably worth 5-10"/mile.

Fueled very well (for me) -- about 600 cal total over the marathon with no GI issues.

Raced and paced well (some fun wind/pack dynamics of sheltering in the 3-hour group for the headwind stretches then dropping the hammer once the headwinds were mostly done). 1:29 first half / 1:26 second half, with gains in time all after mile 16.

Downsides/failures:

Got sick a week out from marathon. Was over it by race day, but it likely compromised fitness a little and certainly affected how well rested I was.

Probably ramped mileage a little too much at expense of fitting another quality workout or two in -- could feel incipient tendon injury and backed off a lot during the first taper week. Would have liked to do a short tempo/MP sharpening workout that week but binned it (same for some planned tempo work during the end of the second big week that also got binned).

Nice work!

Sounds about perfect.

I wouldn't call those downsides failures. I'd call them successfully mitigating the well known risks of a short ramp like this. You can't help but depress the immune system with that training---how many people get sick right at the start of their taper after a hard sharpening block?

And, it's hard to increase volume AND intensity without risking injury. So, what matters is how you react to the nearly inevitable oncoming niggle. Again, sounds like you handled it perfect.