Have I done enough training for a 3:20 Marathon?

petes2008

I'm running my first Dublin Marathon at the end of the month and would really love to break 3:30. My time for the half marathon was 1:30 and in total I would say Ive completed 3 x 20 mile long runs (these all included a climb of Howth Hill).

Can I realistically expect to break 3:30 without doing any long runs over 20 miles? Ive been advised to taper down at this point but would i be better served getting a 22 miler under my belt first? At time of writing there are 18 days until the big day. Any thoughts from runners of experience are much appreciated.

ultrapercy

petes2008 wrote: »

I'm running my first Dublin Marathon at the end of the month and would really love to break 3:30. My time for the half marathon was 1:30 and in total I would say Ive completed 3 x 20 mile long runs (these all included a climb of Howth Hill).

Can I realistically expect to break 3:30 without doing any long runs over 20 miles? Ive been advised to taper down at this point but would i be better served getting a 22 miler under my belt first? At time of writing there are 18 days until the big day. Any thoughts from runners of experience are much appreciated.

If you have enough endurance 3.15 is on. What was your weekly mileage like? I wouldnt do 22 this weekend Id say 18 to 20 max.

petes2008

ultrapercy wrote: »

If you have enough endurance 3.15 is on. What was your weekly mileage like? I wouldnt do 22 this weekend Id say 18 to 20 max.

I haven't adhered to a strict regime tbh but on average I would have done about 30 miles a week. My 20 miler last week was 2:45 but that was the only run I did all week since I was pretty knackered from a heavy week before (half marathon and a failure to complete big run too soon after half marathon)

DukeOfDromada

If it's your first ever marathon forget about time and just focus on getting around in one piece and enjoy it. Target a time for the second one once you've experience on how you cope with the distance.

Probably not what you want to hear.

sideswipe

And the award for the first Tapermadness thread of the year goes to.................petes2008

panda100

DukeOfDromada wrote: »

If it's your first ever marathon forget about time and just focus on getting around in one piece and enjoy it. Target a time for the second one once you've experience on how you cope with the distance.

Probably not what you want to hear.

+1 for this. Anyone I know that has targeted a fast time on their 1st marathon or HM has usually blown up with an injury within the first 15 miles. Don't let ego get in the way and enjoy getting through your first marathon at a steady pace and staying injury free.

OOnegative

panda100 wrote: »

+1 for this. Anyone I know that has targeted a fast time on their 1st marathon or HM has usually blown up with an injury within the first 15 miles. Don't let ego get in the way and enjoy getting through your first marathon at a steady pace and staying injury free.

Not true, I targeted 3.20 for my first marathon but ran 3.24 granted on a lot more mileage than the OP.

panda100

OOnegative wrote: »

Not true, I targeted 3.20 for my first marathon but ran 3.24 granted on a lot more mileage than the OP.

Perhaps not. That is just me experience from people I know in my club.

Kissy Lips

I would do that 22 miler this weekend. Then a reduced long run next weekend.

SeeMoreBut

Inexperienced marathon runners who go chasing times usually panic if they drop a few seconds fall 20 yards behind pacer due to water station and tension creeps in and start trying to speed up to make it back over next km/mile. Then the wheels fall off.

Itziger

Your overall mileage is the big elephant in the room. It's a big elephant and a fairly small room.

The bright side is the Half time. 1.30 would 'normally' indicate 3.15, give or take.

I wouldn't do the 22 miler. You have little to gain and a lot to lose; picking up an injury being the most obvious. I'd do 18 now and then taper off. Shame you were only getting out twice or three times a week (I'm guessing).

justfortherecor

I was in a similar enough position to the OP for my first marathon 2 years ago. Ran a 1.29 half marathon a couple of months before the full and was feeling great. Cue shin splints (result of ramping up mileage too quickly, very obvious now in retrospect but I was largely ignorant of such things back then!) and a relative collapse in training over the final 6 weeks before the marathon.

Tipped away at cycling sessions and then managed to get back into a few runs in the last 2 weeks, maybe 3 a week with further cycling sessions in between.

Longest distance I'd managed though as a result was a 27k 6 weeks before the marathon.

Duly suffered in second half of the full marathon when it came to the day itself, with last 10k being particularly rough, but managed to salvage a 3:19 time.

Not that I'd hold myself out as an expert in such matters but I would think a 30k+ run at this stage of preparations may be overreaching it a bit for the OP. Just try and get some reasonable runs in on a stable basis over last couple of weeks and see how it goes on the main day. Stick with the 3:20 pacer and see how the HR goes over the first half.

Best of luck and enjoy!

WithCheesePlease

All depends on the quality of the other training you've been doing, regardless of whether or not is was part of a structured plan. There's no hard rule that says you need to do 22 miles and 3 X 20 mile runs is decent, but what pace were they at? And was any at marathon pace? And did you aim to negative split them or run with any structure or finish fast, etc.? And were there any med-distance tempo runs in the mix?

I won't tell you what to do, or attempt to answer whether you'll be able to finish in 3:20 but I would say there's a big jump from a 1:30 HM (as good and all as that is) with relatively low weekly mileage to comfortably covering 26.2 at a hard effort.

healy1835

FWIW I ran a 3:19:07 Marathon in Dublin in my 2nd marathon a couple of years ago after a 1:29:52 HM.

A brief summary of my training block was;

10k: 40:53
10m: 73:25 (with a 67:48 first 10m split in the HM)
HM: 1:29:52
Total mileage 1400+km (averaged about 80k a week)
Long Runs: 6 30k+ runs

Went with the 3:20 pace group and the Marathon itself was fairly uneventful. Pacers were spot on and the group was large enough to feel like I was coasting for a little the race.

Killerz

Many of the points already covered by previous posters, but would say on the face of it 3:20 could happen for you. 20 mile long runs with Howth Hill (depending on what paces you've been doing these) and a 1:30 half might well lead you to 3:20 or close to on the day. I'm not clear if its your first Dublin, or first marathon in general, but as mentioned, if the first, this is the clear unknown.

But we may get a good day weather wise, you might feel good, and mentally strong, and deliver on that target.

Myself and the other 3:20 pacers will certainly do everything we can to keep you going (introduce yourself at the start!) but you know, make the call early if the pace seems a bit hot, and take a down a notch, enjoy the race, and finish strongly rather than start strong and finish suffering.

Good luck!

petes2008

Hi All,

Firstly thanks for the fantastic response.
It's the morning after the marathon so this is just a breakdown on how it went for me.

Ran with the 3:20 Pacers and was cruising up until the 18 mile mark when things started to slowly unravel. By mile 20 I was in bad shape and hit the wall hard. The last 6 miles were very very hard. I finished with a time of 3:37 so well off my target of 3:30 .

With the benefit of hindsight and based on the response on this thread I hadn't put in enough training. I realise now that a lot more miles are needed under the belt to hit the 3:30 target. My strategy of running with the 3:20 pacers may also have been a mistake. My thinking was that I'll dog it out at that pace as far as possible and then have 10 minutes spare to get the 3:30 over the line. This simply left me running on fumes too early.


Still happy since this was my first marathon and came out of it injury free. The last 6 months was an amazing journey culminating in an awesome day yesterday. I'll be back next year. Congrats everyone who got it over the line yesterday!

Yesterdays stats:
10k - 00:47:37
Half - 01:40:29
30k - 02:25:32
Finish: 3:37:59
Avg.Pace: 08:19

deisedude

SeeMoreBut wrote: »

Inexperienced marathon runners who go chasing times usually panic if they drop a few seconds fall 20 yards behind pacer due to water station and tension creeps in and start trying to speed up to make it back over next km/mile. Then the wheels fall off.

Pretty much describes my first marathon!