115 days to a sub 4 Dublin Marathon...

paddylast

I decided at the start of the year that i wanted to try and run a sub 4 marathon before the end of October. Ive set up a log to help with motivation and any advice/comments anyone looking in may have.

I ran the 2007 Dublin Marathon in 5hrs 10mins!:eek:

My preparation for that marathon was not good. my weekly mileage was about 12miles per week.


My times (Race Series 2007)

5m: 45mins
10m: 1h 37m
1/2 : 2h 26m

I recently ran the kildare half marathon. after 3months of good training i was aiming for close to sub 2. I didnt feel well on the day and pulled up lots of times. finished in 2h 17m

Ive entered the race series and have set out targets:

5m : 40-41mins
10m: 1:30:00
1/2: sub 2hr

Its going to be an interesting journey over the next 115 days and all going well staying injury free i hope to get the Sub 4.

RayCun

Good luck with the training. There are a couple of support threads on here you might be interested in
Novices thread (says sub 4.30 but a few of us are going for sub 4)
Improvers thread (most people going for sub 3.30 I think)

Which training plan are you following?

rainbow kirby

Similar targets to myself - welcome to the logs

Krusty_Clown

Best of luck with the new goal Paddylast. I hope you're planning on running more than 12 mpw this time around?!

paddylast

RayCun wrote: »

Good luck with the training. There are a couple of support threads on here you might be interested in
Novices thread (says sub 4.30 but a few of us are going for sub 4)
Improvers thread (most people going for sub 3.30 I think)

Which training plan are you following?

Thanks ive been looking through the support thread. after reading through the sub 430 thread it made me realise i need to go out at a steady pace. I decided not to follow the pacer for the kildare half which i think was a mistake as i went out to fast and blew up after 8miles.

Im going to follow the Hal Higdon Novice 2 plan.
http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/Mar00novice.htm

For the cross training day i will hit the pool for some light impact fitness work.
I also intend to focus more on core work and flexibility.

rainbow kirby wrote: »

Similar targets to myself - welcome to the logs

Thanks rainbow kirby, best of luck to both of us!

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Best of luck with the new goal Paddylast. I hope you're planning on running more than 12 mpw this time around?!

Thanks Krusty. im running around 20mpw now. hopefully packing in the quality miles into my legs over the next few months will help.

paddylast

Picked up my number for the 5mile adidas run in the park. I glanced over at all the boxes of numbers going up to 7000 and 8000.
its good that they will have staggered starts.hopefully there will be a chance of a PB with a field that big.

Ran the 5mile course about 47 mins just to get a feel for it. i'll be doing extra training for the upper glen road, it gets me every race!

paddylast

5 mile trail run today. Wasnt feeling it at all. stopped for lots of walking break after 2miles. found it hard to get into a decent stride as has my eyes fixed on the terrain jumping over rocks and branches.

Summary 00:57:13mins 5.27miles Avg pace 10:51
1 00:09:19
2 00:10:41
3 00:12:02
4 00:10:58
5 00:11:28
6 00:02:41

shazkea

Hey PL, welcome to the logs and best of luck on the training. I'm following Novice 1 myself but will be keeping an eye out to see how you're going.

paddylast

A good session tonight. Decided to run over and back a local bridge to act as a hill training session. found it grand running up, was good for the legs. all preparation for the upper glen road! was really happy with my pace that I was getting faster each mile.


Summary 00:26:30 3.05Miles Avg Pace 08:40
1 08:53
2 08:49
3 08:20
4 0.06

paddylast

A bad week last week only managed to run 7.5 miles in total due to work commitments. am hoping to turn it around this week.

Just been out for a run of the adidas 5mile course. ran it in 44:37.
I had more in the tank for a sprint finish so im hoping i can hit my target of sub 41 mins.

RubyK

Best of luck with the log paddylast

Can I ask you about the Upper Glen Road, you mentioned in your previous post? I'm not familiar with Dublin, and as a first-timer, I'm a bit worried now. It sounds tough! At what mile is it, and how long does the pain last?

paddylast

Thanks RubyK

The upper glen road is a long hill. if you are doing the adidas series in the phoenix park it will be approx 2 miles from the finish line in each race.

However in the Dublin marathon instead of going up we run down it:D

paddylast

3 Mile Run, 27:49, Avg Pace 9:15
8:29,9:32, 9:44

Mileage for the week: 8miles

RubyK

paddylast wrote: »

However in the Dublin marathon instead of going up we run down it:D

Thanks paddylast, that makes me happy