I ran a marathon on Sunday and even though I was on pace at the halfway point for Boston(3:15) I faded back to a 3:29 finish.
I have been running just over 2 years with 7 marathons and a PR of 3:25:52.
What I am looking for is somebody who ran a marathon within 10-15 minutes of a goal time and changed “something” which resulted in meeting that goal.
Was it speedwork, weekly miles, long run pace, in-race pacing, etc.?
I am not looking for someone who just showed up at their first marathon a qualified. I already heard that at the pasta dinner where **Patty Catalano Dillon **ran her 1st marathon in 2:54 while smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day.
O run gurus please reveal your qualifying secrets.
I wanted the answer based on personal experiences, but here it is:
I average around 25 miles/week year-round with a peak of 40 miles/week the month before a marathon. Usually that increase has to do with a pair of 20-milers(slow) and a marathon-pace half-mary before each marathon.
I mostly run at mid-high aerobic with little speedwork and no track time. I do run 5Ks, 10Ks, and tris throughout the year, which I guess could be considered a speedwork substitute.
For this marathon I did not run as much, because this is prime bike season. I did however manage run a personal high 42 miles/week in August.
With a limited amount of training time it is biking vs. running. My running varies by season for example my April marathon had almost no biking, while my June marathon had some biking, and the September one had a lot of biking.
Your best bet if the Boston qualifier is an important goal, would be to relegate the biking to a recovery/x-training role and increase your running volume.
Speaking from personal experience, I ran my best marathon (2:57 as a runner exclusively) when I averaged about 72 miles/week with a high of 88 in the three months leading up to mytaper.
I’m not suggesting that you go from averaging 40 miles to 70, but a reasonable bump in volume would help.
Typically I liked to do a mid-week run that was 60 - 70% the distance of my long run as well as an LT/Tempo run every week. I’d only hit the track for the last month or so before my taper to add a little speed (in place of the LT runs). I’d fill the rest my miles in with easy running.
I’m a big believer in volume since I’m not blessed with a lot of legspeed. Besides, during a marathon you’ll be running at a sub-LT aerobic effort for all bu the last tiny bit of the race.
Like I said, don’t over do it, but adding more miles at this point is probably the best way to get you there.
the best way to get fast is to run more. you need volume, not necessarily speedwork. and weekends where you run 20, and then 10 or 12 the next day. (yes, some of that mileage can be broken up)
if you want to really have a breakthrough, focus solely on the run for some time and intently train for a stand alone marathon.
it is one thing to “run” a marathon, a whole other to race it. the distance is demanding. it requires high volume, time, and miles and miles of running.
if you want to do “speedwork”, it needs to be laced into long runs. like a 12 mile tempo run, or 8-10 miles of repeats.
if you want to do a 5K, that is a perfect opportunity to run the course as a warm-up, race, run the course as a warm-down. the next day (or the day before) run 20.
serious gains come with volume, and a well engineered recovery plan.
For what it’s worth, I set out last year to qualify…I averaged around 40 miles a week and worked the hills hard on 2 or 3 runs a week…I went from 3:40 (my 2nd marathon ran) to 3:10 (my 3rd marathon run)…I peaked around 60 miles a week and ran lot’s of 2 hour to 2 hour and 1/2 hour runs…4 weeks out I ran a 1/2 marathon hard (1:28) and then continued to run for another 70 minutes (at a slower pace)…so in my opinion, the two things that made the most difference for me where:
and a marathon-pace half-mary before each marathon
It’s not clear if you purposely constrained yourself to marathon pace for these half marathons, but as a point of reference knocking out a half marathon at about 45-50 seconds per mile faster than marathon pace, without a lot of difficulty, is a good measure, for me, of whether I’m in the kind of shape I need to be in for a marathon. Still have to do the long runs, and still have to dial in your form at marathon pace, but a half is a great training opportunity and a good test when done at “full speed”.
I reduced my running for my 5th marathon and improved my time from 3:24 to 3:16. I replaced most of my easy runs (4-5mi) with commuting to work on the bike (12miles each way). I used a 15 week training program that I got from the Runners World Website, written by Benji Durden. It doesn’t look like it is on their website anymore but I have the original HTML saved and can send it if you’d like.
The program consists of 3 key runs a week, hills or track (800s), intervals and a long run. In the article he gives paces to run based on a recent 10k. It looks like I averaged around 35 miles per week running, and 2-3 bike commutes a week.
Lots of good advice so far, but it basically boils down to VOLUME. Run more. 40/week is not going to get most people to Boston. The only speed work I’d recommend is racing some 5Ks, 10ks, tris and mile repeats (I love those).
I’m not a run guru, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Just kidding.
Everybody else mentioned that you need to run more, and I echo that sentiment. You’re looking to improve your PR by 10 minutes, and I don’t think you can do that on 25 miles/week. There is a big cross training benefit to riding, but you didn’t qualify how much you are riding, so I won’t comment on that. But running is defnitely more time-efficient than cycling is.
There is something to “just running along.” There is a fatigue in the legs that happens with running miles that just doesn’t occur with riding. So putting in the miles will definitely help you in the latter stages of a marathon.
There are lots of books out there on distance running and especially the marathon. The book by Jack Daniels is a great one to figure out how much to run and how fast to run. Several of my friends have used Hal Higdon’s 16 week schedule with good results; it is fairly low mileage and time efficient.
For most of us, a marathon is an A race (mostly because of the time and effort involved), so planning a marathon from 16 weeks out is a good way to train; any longer than 16 weeks makes it hard to keep focused. If you do this, you should focus on your running. The other stuff (swimming, cycling) helps your aerobic engine, but shouldn’t replace the run training.
And finally, maybe first trying to do an even paced marathon in 3:20 is a good intermediate goal (taking 10 minutes off of your PR is over 20 seconds/mile).
More mileage is an oft-stated “easy answer” to marathon success. My marathon times in the past 2 years (all Boston Qualifying) have come with 25M or less running per week. I am a masters athlete (50), and can not tollerate high mileage. I do cross train with swim, bike, yoga.
Many people say long, tempo and intervals. But if you were doing say 6-8 800s on a 30s rest at your goal marathon pace, would that be considered tempo or interval? What really is the difference?
I was in your situation after my 2nd marathon. I ran a 3:23 and needed to get to 3:10. Truthfully I didn’t change all that much. I ended up having some ITB issues that kept me on the shelf for a few months after, so I lowered my mileage and took up triathlon
I used the Pfitzinger 70mpw program modified down to a peak of ~65mpw for both my 3:23 and my next attempt to BQ. I think the difference was just another year of consistent training. I ran 3:08 the next time out and have since lowered my PR to 2:59 on much less mileage (35mpw).
If you are looking for a silver bullet, I’d go with long, extended hills on your long runs, followed by a 10-15 miler mid-week, and a speed (tempo or long intervals) session each week, anything else is gravy.
If you want to focus on nothing but BQ, buy the Pfitzinger book do as much mileage as you can WITHOUT hurting yourself and throw hills into your long runs. My .02
The 800’s on 3’15" seems like a good pace for a 3h 15’ marathon. I know the FIRST program has been on this forum many times. I pretty much follow that. My focus is Ironman, so I really cannot even think of training for a marathon the same way a “pure” runner would.
