The sub 3 hour marathon training thread

alexe · Joined: 20 Feb 2007 Posts: 1025 Location: East London

Thought it was about time to start one. Perhaps shared goals and training ideas could bring greater success.

My current PB is 3.12 back in Dec 06 in Luton. Would like to go sub 3 in 2009. Perhaps in London or if not later in year.

Plan up to Xmas is to get back up to running 2 hours for long runs, plenty of 1 hour steady runs to build up base mileage, fartlek and cross country for speed work / hills.

Taget race up to Xmas is the St Neots HM. Hoping for 1.28.

What's everyone else up to?

ChrisW · Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:59 am Post subject:

Hope not too much OT, but I'm trying to crack 3h30 (PB is 3h32 so not quite as lofty a goal as yours!!) and my running week looks like this (with about 12 weeks to race day):
Monday - usually a tempo run, around 1 hour at the moment;
Tuesay - recovery run;
Weds - run day off (try to get to a yoga class);
Thursday - usually intervals (tomorow is 4 x (4 x 400m + 30 sec rest into 1km with 2 mins rest);
Friday - run day off (try to ride);
Sat - long run, looking at 3h this coming w/end;
Sun - rest.

I'm guessing that our pace might be different but what else?
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alexe · Joined: 20 Feb 2007 Posts: 1025 Location: East London

iron snorks · Joined: 18 May 2007 Posts: 1147 Location: South Malaysia

i'm so here sub 3 here i come..... Exclamation

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waytogoyet · Joined: 17 Sep 2008 Posts: 108 Location: East Yorks

Hello!- My first post on here.

I'm not a triathlete just yet (in a few weeks) I still consider myself to be a runner.
I took inspiration and advice from a sub 3 thread on a well known running forum. it certainly helped me to get it earlier this year.
You can't beat the day to day advice and comparisons from it, but for what its worth - this is my take on doing it...

1) lots of miles run steadily. 3hr marathon is 6.52s, I barely ran a single mile beginning with a 6 in training til 6 weeks out
2) Long run - 5+ 20 milers, I think my furthest was 22 miles done in 3 hours, so time on feet for that one equalled actual mara time
3) A midweek semi-long run 13-18
4) Run the long runs progressively faster - this comes from p&d training schedules. For example - 4 miles @ 8m/m, 4 @ 7.45m/m 4 @ 7.30m/m 4 @ 7.15m/m
5) perhaps more for less experienced ones - run a 20 mile race before its good practice for race day itself

Now can someone help me with my cycling and swimming please!
cheers
WTGY

Badger · Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 3:57 pm Post subject:

WTGY - welcome to TT!!

Plenty of helpful folks 'round these parts for those two non-running thingies.

Pop on to the Welcome thread on the General forum and you can make some feelers by stating your aims ...

B Cool

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timmy · Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 4:08 pm Post subject:

..right up my street!
...the reality of a sub 3 hour marathon is:
you will have to be at 1:20 half marathon speed when you are ready to crack 3hours for the marathon.
Your 10k races in the final months of your training need to be sub 37mins.
Best way to train for the race is work from 6months out, gradually building the weekly volume each month by approx 5miles whilst doing 2 out and out quality sessions per week plus a gradually building long run and intermediate run. I started in the Oct at 50miles per week and by March was up to 70+ miles per week. That was yonks ago and you modern day wussies will no doubt start on 30 miles per week and peak at 50-60!
The quality sessions will be:
a) a short, sharp session based on 5k race speed over distances from 400m up to 1k. (16 x 400 or 5 x 1k) Track ideal.
b) longer reps (3 x 2miles or 6 x 1mile) road based and at 5-10k race pace.
The whole key to the plan is gradual build of volume whilst keeping in touch with the speed. Also, know your target and as long as it's realistic, stick to the plan
The long run is not supposed to be a dawdle either. It should be built towards 30secs per mile slower than your proposed marathon pace.
The intermediate long run about 75% of the long run distance and a few secs a mile faster than that.
Add a weekly proposed marathon pace run, start off with 5miles and gradually build so that by the time you are ready for the marathon you can do 10miles at proposed pace each week.
The remaining runs of the week are easy ones(!) at 30secs slower than proposed marathon pace.
Regular races to monitor performance and give added speed and strength.
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SnailsPlace · Joined: 27 Jan 2007 Posts: 172 Location: Twickenham

I'm in too. London will be my first effort. Should get there or close. If I suceed then the rest of 2009 will be fun events, if not then I'll have another go late-autumn.

My training at the moment is all about building a base and not doing my shin again (pulled out of London late on this year with shin splints). It's embarassingly slow. Not really going to inject any speed stuff for a couple of months.

waytogoyet · Joined: 17 Sep 2008 Posts: 108 Location: East Yorks

Disagree completely with your times timmy. I was nowhere near sub 37 shape nor 80, I haven't got them now 5 months + of speedwork on. Mcmillan running do a calculator which is a really good pointer to race times comparatively.
of course its horses for courses. Lots of colleagues on the sub 3 thread cracked the sub 3 mara years ago have improved since then are still waiting to tick off 36.xx and 79.xx, but are now running sub 2.55 marathons.

Anyway - the rest of what you say is pretty close to what I think too, and should aid sub 3 aspirants - just don't want to scare them off having to do super fast half and 10k times

Fuzzy Dunlop · Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 4:28 pm Post subject:

I think the advice from waytogoyet is good. I am running flm next year and plan to ensure I get a quality long run in midweek and the 5 or 6 swift 20 milers (ideally near to 7mm pace). A tempo run a week added to these and the recovery runs will look after themselves. Hopefully this will have me breating the tape in 2:44.59 but we'll see.

As a case study (although only recommended if you're worried about injury like I was - as I think previous advice will make you go faster if your body will handle it)...

I ran 2.57 at flm this year by doing 4 to 5 seven mile runs per week from jan onwards. These are my commute and were/are rarely faster than 8mm. The final two months I started putting in a long sunday run (rather than my usual bike ride) going from 17 miles up to 22. I ran these solo - and rather slow (8mm at the fastest).

I did some races during my training so I did get to run fast at times. However, I found steady running and logging the miles to work very well for me. My mileage was about 40 per week average (as I was not doing long mid-weekers and was a bit worried about injury).

timmy · Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:49 pm Post subject:

rhb · Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 4699 Location: N. West

I'm in. Detail to follow when i can get to a proper pc and copy and paste from RW!

Useful advice already, cheers! Smile

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Rooster · Joined: 11 Apr 2005 Posts: 4673 Location: Manchester

I'm in as well as long as I get accepted for FLM!!! If I get in then thats my next 6 months sorted, I'm going to be a runner again for half a year

If I dont get in then I will probably just get fat Very Happy

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finbar · Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 3015 Location: The Dark Peak

Ooh, hello all. I've got a good for age place at FLM (well, i hope i have - completely forgot about the deadline and then entered at the very last minute) after running 2h54m last year. Going to try and go faster this year, though i'm not yet sure how much. Sub 2h45m?

For the record i ran a 36m25s 10k before the marathon last year, but i didn't run over 18/19 miles in training hence the comparatively slow time.

I have a half marathon at the end of November i'll use to gauge my progress.

Start getting those miles in the bank peeps!

Eric · Joined: 07 Dec 2007 Posts: 9

Thinking about this one, a couple of mates doing Paris next year so might tag along.
Not sure to be honest if I'm up to this ran 2 Marathons last year 3.27 then 3.14 + I'm 50 and only been doing this type of training for just less than 2years. only done 1 marathon this year and that was at Ironman UK 4.02 also need to work on my weakest Tri event Biking. whats your thoughts to soon? to Much?

Eric