Marathon training

tunney

Lets say we have a moderately fit person who cycles 130km a week and runs 3-4 times a week and have run for maybe two years, aged late 20s. They decide that they are going to do a marathon and follow a variation of the Hal Higdeon (or similar generic plan) such as http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/Mar00novice.htm They are aiming for a 4:00-4:20 marathon which would equate to 9:10 - 9:55 marathon pace.

These style of plans have your longest run as 20 miles and given LSR pace is generally 30 seconds slower than marathon pace this works out at 9:40 to 10:25 a mile. This, at the slower end of LSR pace works out at 3:20 running time.

This to me seems like a ridiculous amount of time for this type of runner to be out on their feet. Given their inexperience in running and the level that they are at I'd be worried about increased likely hood of injury.

My question is are novice runners better taking a time based approach to training plans for marathons than a distance based one?

hunnymonster

you've told us how far this person cycles every week but not how far they run and at what intensity they have run for the last 2 years? How they have managed up to now will dictate how they should train for the longer distance but in a gross generalisation, no, I don;t think 3:20 is too long to be on their feet in training so long as the intensity is appropriate.

Running Bing

tunney wrote: »

Lets say we have a moderately fit person who cycles 130km a week and runs 3-4 times a week and have run for maybe two years, aged late 20s. They decide that they are going to do a marathon and follow a variation of the Hal Higdeon (or similar generic plan) such as http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/Mar00novice.htm They are aiming for a 4:00-4:20 marathon which would equate to 9:10 - 9:55 marathon pace.

These style of plans have your longest run as 20 miles and given LSR pace is generally 30 seconds slower than marathon pace this works out at 9:40 to 10:25 a mile. This, at the slower end of LSR pace works out at 3:20 running time.

This to me seems like a ridiculous amount of time for this type of runner to be out on their feet. Given their inexperience in running and the level that they are at I'd be worried about increased likely hood of injury.

My question is are novice runners better taking a time based approach to training plans for marathons than a distance based one?

I pretty much fit that profile and I would argue if you cant do 3.20 how are you going to stay on your feet for 4.20 in the marathon?


Its a gradual build up as well....I mean it has to be done really and plenty of people have done it fine and successfully completed the marathon. I dont see anything dramatically wrong with it.

cfitz

Well to begin with it's probably a bit ridiculous to take on a marathon with such light training. That's up to the individual though. But I suppose if you are going to run a marathon you'd want to have some idea of what it might feel like to run for a long time. I'd prefer to train properly and not be out on the course for as long...

Peckham

As has been said so many times in this forum - one of the purposes of LSRs is to get used to spending time on your feet - some here say they tried a marathon previously with a single long run of 16-18 miles, and whilst they finished they paid the price of poor preparation.

If you've built up correctly to the 20 mile run (i.e. sufficient runs in the 15 to 18 mile bracket) then there is no reason why 20 miles @ ~10.25 min/mile should cause injury. Indeed, if you haven't done this sort of distance in training, then there's a good chance that 4:00 on the day itself will cause injury.

tunney

Aye, all makes sense, was just surprised and a little concerned and wanted to "ask the gardener" before I got back to the person.

hunnymonster

would you be as shocked if someone went from say cycling 50 km a week to 300 km a week over the same time-frame (or similar relative increase for swimming). People often think "running = injury" because they've had bad experiences themselves. Also, remember that most marathon runners aren't doing a hole lot of other sport so they have plenty of recovery time. of course I would revise this strategy for someone who is injury prone but really wanted to do the marathon. for them I would have more cross training and be very careful with the surfaces they run on.

tunney

Not shocked in the increase in miles, I'm not that thick. You can't really compare a 500% increase in bike miles over 18 weeks to 500% increase in run miles though. The impact aspect of running does increase the risk of
injuries. Also females are more likely to get ITB related issues than men.

The increase in the logistics of a 3:30 run as opposed to a 2:15 20 mile run. More food, more drink, more toilet stops, more planning though is quite a bit.

In hindsight it was a bl00dy stupid question.