How to start? - First Marathon

--amadeus--

Ahh I thought you were ducking the question!

Interesting training plan - whats your 10k time / target off training like that? The long runs in particular are at a high pace compared to the speed that a marathon runner would train at. For example my LSRs would be in the 8:30+ min/mile range which is 60+ secs off my last marathon race pace.

I def think that the misunderstanding earlier relates to different levels of ability, someone running a 30 - 35 min 10k would be expecting a sub 3 marathon and so would be training 6 - 7 days a week. For people like the original poster the focus is on just getting round and so 3 days a week is often enough.

But we'll probably agree to differ on that!

cfitz

Well my best 10k is 33:59 from 2006. That was off a lot less mileage so I think I should be able to go a good bit quicker. I don't consider myself a road runner, and all this training is geared towards the cross-country this winter. So far this year my races have been quite erratic and my two road 10ks were almost a minute outside my pb. I'll probably run another 10k in July and I'll have shorter intervals behind me at that stage so hopefully...

Wally Runs

To add my sixpence worth, I would also recommend that you pay a visit to a sports physio at some point and have them look at your legs etc.

If they are good they will be able to pin point problem areas for you and give you some exercises to ease them. This is even more vital as you increase the mileage.

I wish I had done this myself as I lost time to injury, which was the result of not doing enough stretching and stretching incorrectly. Sure €60 might sound like a lot but I spent multiples of that on treatments for an injury I could have avoided.

islandexile

cfitz wrote: »

Sorry, was away for a few days...

My racing distance at the moment is 10k, so almost all of my training is over-distance and thus below race pace. My plans for the marathon are for a few years time so I haven't got a definite structure that I would use. So perhaps I am misinformed about training so much at race pace (though it seems to make sense). I'm still quite adamant that 5 days a week isn't enough though

Seen as you asked I'll give you a sample of some of my recent training:

I have just finished 16 weeks of base mileage. Every 4th week was a low mileage week. My longest run was 25k in 1:42:30. A normal week would have been something like this (barely over 100k):

Monday - AM: 25min jog (~5k) PM: 60min (~14k)

Tuesday - 4 x 1600m w/5min recovery within 60min very easy. (~5:23 1600m)

Wednesday - 60min (~14k). Gentle core exercises.

Thursday - AM: 25min jog (~5k) PM: 60min (~14k)

Friday - REST

Saturday - 60min (~14k). Circuit training: 3 x 10 (30sec on, 30sec off - not very high intensity).

Sunday - 90min (~22k)

Every day apart from Friday and Saturday I would do 20 press-ups, 150 sit-ups, and 60 back extensions.

That's some training cfitz :eek: Fair play!
I wish I had a work life that allowed me to do that much, a girlfriend that wouldn't mind me doing that much and a pair of legs that would hold up to that much

Stupid_Private

--amadeus-- wrote: »

The long runs in particular are at a high pace compared to the speed that a marathon runner would train at. For example my LSRs would be in the 8:30+ min/mile range which is 60+ secs off my last marathon race pace.

In fairness I'd say if cfitz was doing marathon training that would be the right pace for him to go at. I'd the fear recently that my long runs were too fast as I'd be going a few seconds a mile slower than cfitz for 15 miles but I got told that they were the right times based on the mileage that I'd put in over the past few months. As long as you're not coming back in bits afterwards and you're not feeling it in the legs for your run the next day your pace is fine.

OrlaBar

earlyevening wrote: »

Sorry to go off topic but this "threadmill" thing is beginning to irritate me. TREADMILL.

Jesus!

OrlaBar

cfitz wrote: »

Sorry, was away for a few days...

My racing distance at the moment is 10k, so almost all of my training is over-distance and thus below race pace. My plans for the marathon are for a few years time so I haven't got a definite structure that I would use. So perhaps I am misinformed about training so much at race pace (though it seems to make sense). I'm still quite adamant that 5 days a week isn't enough though

Seen as you asked I'll give you a sample of some of my recent training:

I have just finished 16 weeks of base mileage. Every 4th week was a low mileage week. My longest run was 25k in 1:42:30. A normal week would have been something like this (barely over 100k):

Monday - AM: 25min jog (~5k) PM: 60min (~14k)

Tuesday - 4 x 1600m w/5min recovery within 60min very easy. (~5:23 1600m)

Wednesday - 60min (~14k). Gentle core exercises.

Thursday - AM: 25min jog (~5k) PM: 60min (~14k)

Friday - REST

Saturday - 60min (~14k). Circuit training: 3 x 10 (30sec on, 30sec off - not very high intensity).

Sunday - 90min (~22k)

Every day apart from Friday and Saturday I would do 20 press-ups, 150 sit-ups, and 60 back extensions.

That is seriously fast man!!! well done

--amadeus--

Stupid_Private wrote: »

In fairness I'd say if cfitz was doing marathon training that would be the right pace for him to go at. I'd the fear recently that my long runs were too fast as I'd be going a few seconds a mile slower than cfitz for 15 miles but I got told that they were the right times based on the mileage that I'd put in over the past few months. As long as you're not coming back in bits afterwards and you're not feeling it in the legs for your run the next day your pace is fine.

According to McMillan (very good site) a runner with a 34 min 10k PB should be aiming at a sub 2:40 marathon, which is seriously quick. At that level you apparently should be doing LSRs in the 6:36 - 7:36 min/mile range (4:06 - 4:43 per km) but then he would be aiming at close to 6 min/miles, which makes my eyes water just thinking about!

He's doing 60 miles a week for 10k training and is obviously talented to have a 34 min 10k under his belt. If he was to aim for the marathon I'd expect his plan to involve a huge amount of mileage (75 - 100 mpw) with all of it at a fast pace (relative to "normal" people). But there is a huge difference between someone training at that level and someone out to just complete thier first marathon, it's not a "one size fits all event" and teh sheer volume of work that someone at that end would do would swamp the average beginner.

Racing Flat

cfitz wrote: »

Sorry, was away for a few days...

My racing distance at the moment is 10k, so almost all of my training is over-distance and thus below race pace. My plans for the marathon are for a few years time so I haven't got a definite structure that I would use. So perhaps I am misinformed about training so much at race pace (though it seems to make sense). I'm still quite adamant that 5 days a week isn't enough though

Seen as you asked I'll give you a sample of some of my recent training:

I have just finished 16 weeks of base mileage. Every 4th week was a low mileage week. My longest run was 25k in 1:42:30. A normal week would have been something like this (barely over 100k):

Monday - AM: 25min jog (~5k) PM: 60min (~14k)

Tuesday - 4 x 1600m w/5min recovery within 60min very easy. (~5:23 1600m)

Wednesday - 60min (~14k). Gentle core exercises.

Thursday - AM: 25min jog (~5k) PM: 60min (~14k)

Friday - REST

Saturday - 60min (~14k). Circuit training: 3 x 10 (30sec on, 30sec off - not very high intensity).

Sunday - 90min (~22k)

Every day apart from Friday and Saturday I would do 20 press-ups, 150 sit-ups, and 60 back extensions.

That's a solid base to have built up. Get the speedwork right and I'd say you'll knock a minute at least off the 10k time.

Racing Flat

--amadeus-- wrote: »

According to McMillan (very good site) a runner with a 34 min 10k PB should be aiming at a sub 2:40 marathon, which is seriously quick. At that level you apparently should be doing LSRs in the 6:36 - 7:36 min/mile range (4:06 - 4:43 per km) but then he would be aiming at close to 6 min/miles, which makes my eyes water just thinking about!

He's doing 60 miles a week for 10k training and is obviously talented to have a 34 min 10k under his belt. If he was to aim for the marathon I'd expect his plan to involve a huge amount of mileage (75 - 100 mpw) with all of it at a fast pace (relative to "normal" people). But there is a huge difference between someone training at that level and someone out to just complete thier first marathon, it's not a "one size fits all event" and teh sheer volume of work that someone at that end would do would swamp the average beginner.

Personally I find mcmillan very accurate (uncannily) in the 3k-half marathon range but it is way out for marathon and 1 mile or less for me. Based on my best 5mile/10k times it predicts around 2.48 for a marathon, which I'm nearly 20mins slower than and 5.00 for 1mile when I can go 10seconds faster.

Abhainn

Racing Flat wrote: »

Personally I find mcmillan very accurate (uncannily) in the 3k-half marathon range but it is way out for marathon and 1 mile or less for me. Based on my best 5mile/10k times it predicts around 2.48 for a marathon, which I'm nearly 20mins slower than and 5.00 for 1mile when I can go 10seconds faster.

I second that - McMillan seems the best predicter out there. For me the predict times from 5K- to half marathon are spot on. 3:04 for the marathon , well that would be real nice.:)

cfitz

Thanks for all the flattery/encouragement!

Abhainn wrote: »

I second that - McMillan seems the best predicter out there. For me the predict times from 5K- to half marathon are spot on. 3:04 for the marathon , well that would be real nice.:)

I was thinking that about the McMillan calculator before and my brother made a suggestion that I think might explain it. McMillan is a coach who promotes fairly high mileage training, therefore his calculator might well assume that you are doing bigger mileage for bigger distance. So it's only when you look at your predicted marathon time that there seems to be anomalies. The calculator says that it is based on if you trained for that particular distance - so perhaps if we were running 100 miles per week our marathon times would look favourable compared to our 5k times

Stupid_Private

The McMillan calculator has been predicting me to the second this year on races between 3k and 10k. I agree with the rest of you though that there after it doesn't seem as accurate up to marathon times. I haven't ran anything higher than 10k this year though. Bizarrely it still gives my marathon prediction as slower than last year even though I'm running the shorter distances faster than last year!

I remember reading an interview with Paula Radcliffe and she pointed out that marathon training is "only" 10 - 15 miles a week more mileage than what you do the rest of the year for the 10 or so weeks before the marathon. That really suggests that you just bump up the mileage on the Sunday long run, maybe an extra 4 miles to the mid week run and tack a one or so onto every other run. Again this would be for your seasoned runner and not a starting out runner which I suppose this thread started out as but has drifted somewhat now!

I find the real difference is not the training but the time off you end up taking from a marathon. Last year it took me 6 weeks to get back to running decent mileage again after the marathon. At no stage when you're doing 10k races all year will you end up taking 6 weeks to recover from a race.

--amadeus--

Agreed - the asumption has to be distance specific training. The other thing is that it is a mathematical formula and my understanding is that it gets weaker as it goes to the extremes - 100m or 100kms predicted from a 10k may not make much sense.

I like McMillan because it kicks out training paces which are great benchmarks but if you like calculators and predictors you should perhaps look at this site. I've linked to the race from race predictor page but there are loads of great links down the left side.

Racing Flat

cfitz wrote: »

I was thinking that about the McMillan calculator before and my brother made a suggestion that I think might explain it. McMillan is a coach who promotes fairly high mileage training, therefore his calculator might well assume that you are doing bigger mileage for bigger distance. So it's only when you look at your predicted marathon time that there seems to be anomalies. The calculator says that it is based on if you trained for that particular distance - so perhaps if we were running 100 miles per week our marathon times would look favourable compared to our 5k times

I think it's also got to do with the type of runner you are. I can beat fellows by 30secs over a mile and they can beat me by 10mins in a marathon. I think I'm more suited to shorter distances, them to longer. Hence I beat the prediction over shorter distances, but mcmillan beats me over the marathon.

Read somewhere once that you can get an idea of the type of runner you are (more suited to long or short) by looking at one of those tables that are in all the books, with a number of race distances along the top (from shorter to longer from left to right on the page) and then predicted times below (from faster to slower from top to bottom). If you draw a line through your PBs if the line slopes down from left to right you are better suited to shorter distances, if it slopes up from left to right you are better suited to longer. I suppose you'd probably know this anyway from your race times, but maybe helpful for a beginner...

Racing Flat

Stupid_Private wrote: »

I remember reading an interview with Paula Radcliffe and she pointed out that marathon training is "only" 10 - 15 miles a week more mileage than what you do the rest of the year for the 10 or so weeks before the marathon. That really suggests that you just bump up the mileage on the Sunday long run, maybe an extra 4 miles to the mid week run and tack a one or so onto every other run. Again this would be for your seasoned runner and not a starting out runner which I suppose this thread started out as but has drifted somewhat now!

I find the real difference is not the training but the time off you end up taking from a marathon. Last year it took me 6 weeks to get back to running decent mileage again after the marathon. At no stage when you're doing 10k races all year will you end up taking 6 weeks to recover from a race.

I'd agree with PR. Training should be fairly consistent with a small bit of tweaking needed to peak for a specific race, hence mileage should not vary too much year round.

I'm surprised that it would take 6 weeks to get back to decent mileage. after my 2 marathons I took two weeks the first time and one week the second time fully off, than would have had a week or 2 of just jogging but close enough to pre-marathon mileage, maybe 40miles a week post marathon when I was doing 50 before. Then after this easy jogging I slowly re-introduced the speed work, but not expecting to hit the same times straight off, gradually get back to it. And then about 6 weeks after the marathon on both occasions I ran big 5k PBs, something which Jerry Kiernan says he also experienced, running great shorter races a little after a marathon (So anyone doing Dublin, enter the Jingle Bells 5k in the Phoenix Park first Sunday in December - perfect timing). Perhaps you didn't have a good enough training base for the marathon? Or I've seen fellows do a marathon, then do a 5k race a few days later or go straight back to speedwork and they tend to take a few months to get back to previous race times. So have a good base and ease yourself back afterwards and I can't see any reason for needing 6 weeks to get back to it.

Stupid_Private

Racing Flat wrote: »

I'm surprised that it would take 6 weeks to get back to decent mileage. after my 2 marathons I took two weeks the first time and one week the second time fully off, than would have had a week or 2 of just jogging but close enough to pre-marathon mileage, maybe 40miles a week post marathon when I was doing 50 before. Then after this easy jogging I slowly re-introduced the speed work, but not expecting to hit the same times straight off, gradually get back to it. And then about 6 weeks after the marathon on both occasions I ran big 5k PBs, something which Jerry Kiernan says he also experienced, running great shorter races a little after a marathon (So anyone doing Dublin, enter the Jingle Bells 5k in the Phoenix Park first Sunday in December - perfect timing). Perhaps you didn't have a good enough training base for the marathon? Or I've seen fellows do a marathon, then do a 5k race a few days later or go straight back to speedwork and they tend to take a few months to get back to previous race times. So have a good base and ease yourself back afterwards and I can't see any reason for needing 6 weeks to get back to it.

After the last one I just kept picking up niggles for the few weeks afterwards. I definately had the base in for it - I generally run in or around 60 miles a week. I think I peaked at just under 70 for Dublin. If I do a marathon this autumn I'm hoping that I can back into it quicker as I've kind of got my heart set on doing London in April. If it takes as long again it'd be unlikely I'd do a marathon at the start of April.

cfitz

On_the_move wrote: »

Hi Guys,
I'm a 29 year old guy whom has kept in an OK condition, on and off to the gym mostly doing cardio, I've always loved running and it is a big part of what I do when I go to the gym, when I go! This can be for a few months a time and off again for several months. I would really like to run a marathon and I am giving myself plenty of time, planning to do it in 10 to 12 months time depending on my fitness level.
How should I proceed from here in regards to training and what in the gym should I avoid.?

Are you still reading this?! Things went a bit off topic there so I decided I'll give you my advice. Give yourself the full 12 months to prepare for the marathon. Get yourself into a routine, running seems to require more discipline than other sports. Join a club with a coach. If you get into a good club with a good coach you'll find advice will be plentiful. Don't worry about the level you're at at the beginning, running is a minority sport here, clubs love new members. Build up gradually but steadily at first. Do shorter distance races every so often as soon as you have a bit of fitness, 3ks, 5ks etc. In my opinion, if you're going to spend months preparing for a race and that race is going to take a few hours then you should give it your best shot.