October marathon 2015

cmickdaly

Ran the Conn ultra recently. Recovering at the moment with lots of resting and a physio rubdown planned. Time to get back thinking about a crack at another attempt at a marathon PB, ideally sub 3.20, currently stands at 3.27.16 (2012). problem is my marathon training plans have gone a bit stale.I used a lot of the Pfitz/Douglas training plans but i need to do something different this time. I am a member of a running club but only attend the long runs on sunday doing a tempo run every two weeks on my own. Traditionally i ran Monday as a recovery jog. Tuesday peak at 10 miles with 7 miles at 7.00 to 7.10 pace, Wednesday was a hillier run peaking at 12 miles at 8min to 8.20 min pace, Thursday casual 10 mile run, Friday rest day, Saturday 7 miles at a brisk pace (7.50 pace), Sunday long run peaking at 23 miles with 4-5 20 milers and two MP runs of 10, 13 and 15 miles.

Essentially i put a lot of time and energy into my training but fail to achieve the times of other runners who do less miles, more club workouts and are getting better PB's in the last 12 months.

All help would be useful

amcgee

Maybe less mileage would be a good option. i know some plans recommend banking miles, thats worked for you to a degree in the past, your aim of late has been the ultra. you got that out of the way. the miles you built up on that will help you pb in October, i have no doubt about that. Maybe 3 to 4 runs during week and 5 runs at most during week(2 days rest!), try and do the speed work with your club, and sunday run a few times mixed with runs with mp included.
also i think your better concentrating on the marathons and ignore the short races for the time beings..or at least don't be too concerned with pb'ing the short races.
running 1:40 for each half of a marathon is well within your ability. my limerick run last year is defo a method you should do, run slow for the first few miles and then gradually catch up with the pacers , stick with them for the next 10 or so miles and then see how it goes.
The only thing of caution is that the new dublin layout might be slightly more difficult than the last time you ran it. the hill of death, ended my pb, but you would be stronger so it shouldnt be a bother on you
hope you get some good advice of others here,

RayCun

why not try attending the club sessions?

Clearlier

cmickdaly wrote: »

Ran the Conn ultra recently. Recovering at the moment with lots of resting and a physio rubdown planned. Time to get back thinking about a crack at another attempt at a marathon PB, ideally sub 3.20, currently stands at 3.27.16 (2012). problem is my marathon training plans have gone a bit stale.I used a lot of the Pfitz/Douglas training plans but i need to do something different this time. I am a member of a running club but only attend the long runs on sunday doing a tempo run every two weeks on my own. Traditionally i ran Monday as a recovery jog. Tuesday peak at 10 miles with 7 miles at 7.00 to 7.10 pace, Wednesday was a hillier run peaking at 12 miles at 8min to 8.20 min pace, Thursday casual 10 mile run, Friday rest day, Saturday 7 miles at a brisk pace (7.50 pace), Sunday long run peaking at 23 miles with 4-5 20 milers and two MP runs of 10, 13 and 15 miles.

Essentially i put a lot of time and energy into my training but fail to achieve the times of other runners who do less miles, more club workouts and are getting better PB's in the last 12 months.

All help would be useful

You mention P&D but when you detail your training there's no mention of the Vo2 max sessions in the last phase of the plan. Assuming that you haven't done them they could be beneficial.

You could take a look at Daniel's marathon plans. It sounds like you could manage the easier ones.

I wonder if you're running your easy runs too fast? Tuesday's tempo is backed up by what must be close to marathon pace effort on Wednesday if it's on a hilly route and Saturday has another marathon pace run, then you're putting in a few marathon paced efforts in your long run. I also wonder if given that you're running the long runs with your club you might be travelling a bit quick on those too?

Some tweaks to your current schedule that you could consider:

- Make Wednesday a recovery run and Thursday a medium long run - you could still do it over the hilly route but back off on the pace and get the distance up to 15 miles (more if you wanted to) instead of 12.
- For this cycle at least turn Saturday into an easy run possibly with some strides thrown in.
- Expect to improve your tempo pace every few weeks. If that's not getting any faster then you can't realistically expect to get much faster at the marathon distance. N.B. I'm not saying to force the pace, you should let it come to you if you maintain the effort levels week on week. A simple awareness that it's okay for it to get faster is often enough - that really goes for all of your runs although I can't stress it enough that it shouldn't be forced.
- If you haven't been doing any VO2 max work then at some point somewhere in your cycle you should do some. It could be before the marathon specific period, it could be in the last phase or it could be sprinkled throughout the whole cycle.
- The last thing to think about would be potential increases in your mileage. You don't mention what your average is over a marathon cycle but if you looked to increase the average by 10mpw then you should start to see some benefits.

Krusty_Clown

I think part of the problem is that you have just completed a marathon and your thoughts are turning to the next marathon. Where is the development? Where do you hope to find the improvement? You will likely see gains from switching to another style of marathon plan, but, without significant changes to how you are training, big improvements are difficult to come by. If I were you, I'd focus on trying to improve your PBs over shorter distances and then leverage those gains into your marathon training. For example: set some targets for 5k and 10k and make some speed gains. Otherwise, you're just going through the motions, chipping away at the PB, a few minutes here, a few minutes there.

Secondly, your training outline doesn't include a significant amount of quality, beyond the MP runs and the Tuesday runs (LT?). Did you do all of the quality sessions in the P&D plan, or just pick and choose? While I entirely agree that a training plan is just a template and should be customized for the individual, if you leave out some of the essential elements, then you're not following the fundamental structure of the plan.

Finally, you haven't identified what your weaknesses are. Did you hit your target in Connemara? If not, why not? where did things go wrong? First step towards improvement is to figure out where/how you need to develop and then put a plan in place to target that area.

rom

RayCun wrote: »

why not try attending the club sessions?

tbh that is clearly the issue. Running with a club with club paces and not the correct training pace for the OP to improve.

M - recovery jog
T - 10M with 7M at 10k pace
W - 12M at MP
T - 10M at (which OP tells me is at MP pace also)
F - Rest
S - 7M at faster than MP
S - Long run (which OP tells me is at MP again)

The issue here is that he runs 4 days a week at MP and 1 day a week at faster than MP and 1 days a recovery jog.
We have all been here having no polarization (nothing very fast and very slow but everything in the middle) in training resulting in stagnation and no improvement.