Injured just before first marathon. What next?

hermano

So signed up to the cork marathon and a completed a 20 week programme. Was looking to do as close to the 4 hr mark with the dream of sneaking under 4. However on my last long run of 26k I had to end it at the 20k mark due to shooting pain on the outside of my hip. Had a similar problem a couple of weeks previous but after a few days rest it was fine. Thought it was just down fatigue. I had done 50 odd kms over 4 nights. However dispite resting it for over a week with just an easy 5k in between it didn't feel right. I knew I would not finish the marathon so made the call to pull out.

I'm going to go to the physio this week for advise. I'm hoping this can be resolved in the next couple of weeks and start training for another marathon. I'm thinking of the galway bay marathon in October.

The question is where do a start on my marathon plan again. Do I start from the beginning? Here is a brief outline of what I did.

20 week programme.
1st month was 5ks slowly upping the mileage. 5 runs a week
Then it was 4 runs a week as the mileage increased.
The highest mileage was 70k which i done twice. This included a 20 mile run.
The midweek runs ranged from 8-13km. The pace averaged 5-5.30 mins/km depending how I was feeling.
One of the runs was on the treadmill where I worked on pace. Usually 1km at 14km per hour and then the next at 10.5km to recover.
Regarding the long run I only realised you had to go 45 secs to a min slower than your targetted pace until half through the plan.

As I said previously there were some weekends where there were events on so had to cram 4 runs in a row during the week. What do people do when they can only run certain days during the week? I understand how important rest days are. Should my midweek runs be slower?

Any pointers or advice would be appreciated

The man in red and black

I think your general training pace is too fast if you were aiming for a 4hr marathon. I made this mistake too last year. Someone more knowledgable will be along to explain it better but basically you should aim to be training at 60-90seconds per mile SLOWER than your race pace. So about 45-60 seconds per KM I would think? If you are aiming for a 4h marathon then 5-5.30/km for training is too fast I think. Pace is the killer we all underestimate.

I have often ran 4 nights in a row as you do when work makes the plan tricky. My plan last year was 16 weeks 6 days a week running. I nearly broke down after 1 month due to going too fast every day. Slowing down made the world of difference. If you had the full plan done I would probably follow physios advice on rest then return to running gradually and build back up with a shorter plan this time as you have a bulk of training done. Again others on here will have more detailed advice. Best of luck and sorry to hear you were injured.

hermano

The man in red and black wrote: »

I think your general training pace is too fast if you were aiming for a 4hr marathon. I made this mistake too last year. Someone more knowledgable will be along to explain it better but basically you should aim to be training at 60-90seconds per mile SLOWER than your race pace. So about 45-60 seconds per KM I would think? If you are aiming for a 4h marathon then 5-5.30/km for training is too fast I think. Pace is the killer we all underestimate.

I have often ran 4 nights in a row as you do when work makes the plan tricky. My plan last year was 16 weeks 6 days a week running. I nearly broke down after 1 month due to going too fast every day. Slowing down made the world of difference. If you had the full plan done I would probably follow physios advice on rest then return to running gradually and build back up with a shorter plan this time as you have a bulk of training done. Again others on here will have more detailed advice. Best of luck and sorry to hear you were injured.

So all the runs should be slower not just the long runs?

average_runner

hermano wrote: »

So all the runs should be slower not just the long runs?

You should have 2 speed sessions in a week in your plan, every thing else should be easy and recovery runs even slower.