The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: Penn42 on January 13, 2018, 11:07:42 AM
-
Well I was gonna bump an old thread, but then I got the red box recommending to just start a new thread. So here it is. Other forums I'm on the standard is to bump an old thread to consolidate similar topics, but if the forum tells me so I'll make my own. :)
Back in fall 2014 I was training for my first marathon with a running partner. Ended up hurting my back really bad in a non running related incident and had to drop out. He ran the marathon we were training for though, go him! My workout ethic has only been mediocre since I fully recovered from the injury after 8 months.
The past few months I've been doing better and my running schedule has started to look like something again. Since mid December I've been running 20 miles a week and it's starting to feel really good again. My 4 mile weeknight run is getting pretty easy and relaxing at an 8 minute pace. So the past two weeks I've added a longer weekend run. Running 7 1/2 tomorrow. If I add a mile a week to my long run I'll get to 21.5 miles the weekend before the race.
This is a bit shorter time span than I thought I had. Only looked up the actual date yesterday. Thought I'd have a couple more weeks at least. When I was training a couple years ago we had got up to 16 miles, but that was months before the race. When running those 16 I didn't have anything to drink/eat during. Don't really know how all that factors in.
Is this a bit of a squeeze? Not actually sure what a training regiment is supposed to look like. I'm planning on upping the distance of my weekly run tot 5.5 miles sometime soon just to get more miles under my belt. Getting to a half is gonna be no problem, not sure how it'll go after that. If I make it to 20 the week before I'm pretty much banking on the last six being a mental game, which having never been a great athlete physically, is probably my strongest asset for this sort of thing.
What say you experienced marathoners?
-
Well I was gonna bump an old thread, but then I got the red box recommending to just start a new thread. So here it is. Other forums I'm on the standard is to bump an old thread to consolidate similar topics, but if the forum tells me so I'll make my own. :)
Back in fall 2014 I was training for my first marathon with a running partner. Ended up hurting my back really bad in a non running related incident and had to drop out. He ran the marathon we were training for though, go him! My workout ethic has only been mediocre since I fully recovered from the injury after 8 months.
The past few months I've been doing better and my running schedule has started to look like something again. Since mid December I've been running 20 miles a week and it's starting to feel really good again. My 4 mile weeknight run is getting pretty easy and relaxing at an 8 minute pace. So the past two weeks I've added a longer weekend run. Running 7 1/2 tomorrow. If I add a mile a week to my long run I'll get to 21.5 miles the weekend before the race.
This is a bit shorter time span than I thought I had. Only looked up the actual date yesterday. Thought I'd have a couple more weeks at least. When I was training a couple years ago we had got up to 16 miles, but that was months before the race. When running those 16 I didn't have anything to drink/eat during. Don't really know how all that factors in.
Is this a bit of a squeeze? Not actually sure what a training regiment is supposed to look like. I'm planning on upping the distance of my weekly run tot 5.5 miles sometime soon just to get more miles under my belt. Getting to a half is gonna be no problem, not sure how it'll go after that. If I make it to 20 the week before I'm pretty much banking on the last six being a mental game, which having never been a great athlete physically, is probably my strongest asset for this sort of thing.
What say you experienced marathoners?
-
Well geez, didn't mean to spam. Could a mod delete the other three? Browser just sat there thinking. So I reloaded the forum and when the topic didn't show I pasted the post back in and tried again. Apparently they were just waiting to show up haha
-
So you have about 13 weeks until your marathon, is that correct?
Do you have a goal pace in mind?
Training bullet points:
--Continue to gradually increase your weekly mileage and you have nothing to worry about. General rule is no more than 10% increase in weekly mileage per week.
--How many days a week do you run? Day to day consistency can be just as important as total mileage but both are important and usually go hand in hand.
--As you get up in mileage make sure to take care of your body. Stretch more, roll more, make sure you are keeping track of the mileage you've put on your shoes. Get new shoes BEFORE your old shoes start to die and slowly start to incorporate them to your weekly runs.
--Don't worry about where you end up in training. If you only end up getting to a 14 mile long run before you marathon, no big deal. Just slow your pace so you have more room for error.
--Practice taking in a few different kinds of nutrition on training runs. Try GU's since those are usually supplied by races. See if any upset your stomach. This doesn't have to be during a long run but probably would be helpful.
Some bullet points for the race:
--Your biggest issue is going to be pacing. Definitely the hardest thing for runners to gauge when running a marathon. Especially runners that do not have a lot of mileage on their legs. You want to run the race so that you can easily chat with the person next to you without much hesitation.
--The race doesn't start until mile 20. Do not increase your pace until you've hit mile 20.
--Take in nutrition before you need it. I usually do nutrition at mile 6, 12, 18, and whenever needed after 20. Drink water with the nutrition in take in. If I'm taking nutrition in at an aid station I take it with water. If no nutrition at the water stop I go with the sports drink that is being served.
--Make sure you are drinking something at every aid station (usually just one, maybe 2 cups)
--Race your own race. There will be people passing you and you will be passing people at every step of the race. Everyone has different goals so don't worry what others are doing.
--The sleep you get the night before your race isn't as important as the nights leading up to the race. No one sleeps well the night before a race.
--Try to get a few runs in at your expected race time (practice breakfast nutrition, etc. to make sure you what works best for you)
--Set a plan up for parking, bathrooms, etc before the race. Minimize race morning stress by having everything planned.
--Expect the above plan not to go as planned :) And don't worry about it!
--Enjoy the race!! Thank the volunteers at aid stations, the police officers guarding the road crossings, the people cheering you on!
-
Wow - you need to look up some marathon training plans for ideas.
You need to wind down your mileage at least 2, if not 3 weeks before the marathon week. So your last big run is 3 weeks before - up to ~20 miles is ideal.
And also most training plans have wind back weeks approx every 4 weeks, where mileage isn't increased but scaled back for a week.
-
--Your biggest issue is going to be pacing. Definitely the hardest thing for runners to gauge when running a marathon. Especially runners that do not have a lot of mileage on their legs. You want to run the race so that you can easily chat with the person next to you without much hesitation.
--The race doesn't start until mile 20. Do not increase your pace until you've hit mile 20.
--Take in nutrition before you need it. I usually do nutrition at mile 6, 12, 18, and whenever needed after 20. Drink water with the nutrition in take in.
These three above are huge. I just watched a friend drop from a 4 hour pace at mile 8 to a 5.5 hour finish. Painful.
Personally I think you need to get your mileage per week up quite a bit.... do a 20-21 mile run on your own about 3 weeks before the race. I wouldn't worry so much about time, focus on getting the miles in.
-
You're getting a lot of really good advice here. I would say to decrease your focus on your longest run, and increase focus on total mileage. Decrease focus on pacing... if you're doing all your runs at an 8 minute pace, you're really flying from a first time marathoner perspective, IMO. It could certainly be that you're a gifted runner, lots of people are, but don't get ambitious about the pace during training... if you have to slow down to go further, take the miles over the speed. During training you're beating your body up even more than you think you are, and total miles will be far more important to marathon performance than running fast during training.
10% per week increase as a maximum, as given above, is a good rule of thumb. Don't race your training runs... if you have to take your watch off or put tape over it or whatever, do it. You can really mess up a marathon cycle by "I was feeling good so I just went fast" on a long run. Also as above, think of 20 miles as the halfway point. The last few can be way more brutal than you think it's going to be at mile 20. I remember thinking to myself, with a mile to go, of where I'd be relative to my house on one of my training runs... it seems so close! Those can be some long, long miles.
Here is a link to a whole bunch of training schedules: http://www.halhigdon.com/training/51135/Marathon-Training-Guide (http://www.halhigdon.com/training/51135/Marathon-Training-Guide) Obviously there isn't one right way to train, but you'll note that the training cycles all have certain things in common.
Good luck to you and have fun =]
-
Forgive me if this is something I don't understand, I'm an endurance mountain biker (6-12 hour events) so I know SOMETHING about endurance training. Running your final long run a week out??? I'd be tapering 2-3 weeks out from the race. If you're crunched for time maybe accelerate the long runs to make it to race distance before your taper but take it EASY and work your pace on the shorter runs so you're not at risk for injury.
Again, runners feel free to tell me to stay in my lane and I will. :D
-
I've got 25 full marathons under my belt so I can chime in.
Running the 21.5 the week before your race isn't a great idea. Like the cyclist said, you really want at least a 2 week taper. 21.5 is 5 miles longer than the longest run you had 3 years ago, so you don't know how your body is going to be.
You don't say how old you are, that is a big part of it too. There is a big difference between 35 and 50 when it comes to running a marathon.
You are going to end up walking part of the race. It may be the last six miles, or it may catch up to you sooner. Personally, I would plan on walk breaks as part of your strategy. Start using the Galloway method, it is your best chance at avoiding injury this time, and plan on training harder for #2.
Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk
-
Progman2000 is spot on the money. You will have enough fitness to complete the race (probably with some walking in the second half) but will be unprepared to actually "race" the distance, given your limited training background. Your training plan is also missing some key elements. Galloway (or the Maffetone method) is your friend for building your range and aerobic capacity.
-
I think everyone has made the main point; you get better by giving your body recovery time, so your longest run should probably be 3 weeks out (there is some science to suggest that it takes 3-6 weeks to see the benefit of any given endurance training session)... for the last 3 weeks, ease off the volume but not the intensity of training.
Ideally, apply this principle to your earlier training too. 2 or 3 harder weeks (and you can increase your long run by about 10% a week, so you'll still be able to do good distance) then a 50% easeir week to give your body time to adapt.
Long runs should be slow runs!
If you're going to include walking breaks, do them from the start. 8 min run/2 min walk from the beginning is much better than walking the last 8 miles.
Unless you're one of these exceptionally fat-adapted runners who can complete a 100 mile ultra on a meat pie, eat early, eat little and eat often or you'll end up dying on your backside after hitting the wall at 20 miles. Practise this in training!
While race-day excitement helps, it's very easy to go off too fast. Also, don't expect to suddenly do magically better than you did in training...
CH (currently laid up with flu and not training for marathon 30-something)
-
Thanks for the advice everyone. Currently run MTWF and Saturday. I have no plans on running the actual race with a race mindset or at a good clip. Even the 7 1/2 I went on this morning I cut the pace way down and just had a good time. Felt strong for the whole thing.
If I had a finish time in mind I'd say anything close to 4 would be amazing, more realistically maybe 5? I definitely think I have it in me under 5. Hopefully significantly under 5. I'd like to do it without walking, but I'm not sure that's gonna be manageable. I know from my running a couple years ago that if I stop after I've been going for 2 hours I'm gonna have a real hard time getting going again.
Didn't know anything about paring the miles back a couple weeks before. I might break the 10% rule on a couple of these early weeks. Maybe run a 9.5 next weekend and bump my weeknight runs to the 5.5 starting after that?
Also, is there a way to consolidate the two threads people have posted in? I messed this all up from the beginning!
-
Thanks for the replies everyone. I posted in the other thread that has been replied to. Hopefully someone (maybe me, I dunno how?) can consolidate the two.