A Marathon improvement question from a newbie

9 watchers

Action Jen (formerly known as DPM) May 2012 6:21pm, 28 May 2012 105 posts	0 Action Jen (formerly known as DPM) ah! thank you fenland runner
RiversideRed May 2012 11:16pm, 28 May 2012 3 posts	0 RiversideRed Thanks for the welcome messages and comments all I think I'll take the advice and stick to the 55mpw plan, last thing I want is to get injured! Probably start the plan at a higher mileage than it does in the book by adding a few miles to the long runs... The reason I had sub-4 in my head was so I could try and have some pacing in each of my sessions to try and avoid doing them too fast or slow - although I still think some of my recovery runs were too fast and long runs maybe too slow so I recon I can improve and do better quality sessions without ramping up the miles (and as you say S.O.A.P.M still having a life!).
Gobi May 2012 8:06am, 29 May 2012 47,673 posts	0 Gobi Pretty bitchy Pootle :¬0 RR A quick look at your training miles and the 12 miler in the last week makes me want to ask how closely you followed the P&D plan as you seem light on the miles. I also don't know any plan that has 12 miles @MP the week before the race. Like Jock has said, 55 mile plan is good enough to get people like him down to 2.40 and I know I was running 2.50 off around 50 miles a week. In my world long runs were slow, easy runs were slow. Speedwork was fast or specific. Rest for a bit before starting the next plan and follow it much more closely use something like Macmillian to set up all your pace zones. Good luck
DeeGee May 2012 8:31am, 29 May 2012 12,043 posts	0 DeeGee 55pw is realistic for sub-4. I'm a sub-3.30 marathonner based on a plan which was based closely on P&D but adapted to take account of the fact that I enjoy running long, so the long runs were slightly longer. It suits me, so I'll stick with it over the summer (albeit with extra 26-milers) to see if I can get my time further down...
plodding hippo May 2012 8:33am, 29 May 2012 42,431 posts	0 plodding hippo Morning Everyone is different when it comes to training, and you do have to take account of life as well the more of this you do, the more you will find which bits suit you Schedules are there to be tweaked IMHO
paul the builder May 2012 8:48am, 29 May 2012 2,887 posts	0 paul the builder Yes, pretty unhelpful from Pootle (especially as she ended up saying "don't bother" to the mileage question herself ;-)). And another well done / sigh of relief here for going from nearly nothing in to marathon training and coming out unscathed. Endurance and running economy take years to build, and so you'll go faster simply by keeping on training. Even on the same volume. If you enjoy running, and are keeping most of the miles at a nice slow pace (see Gobi's recommendation to consult McMillan calculator to check - http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/calculator), and don't have any niggles (and back off when you do) - then I think it's OK to slowly increase the volume. But you don't need to. At least not yet - if you've really only been running for a few months, then you're going to get better rapidly just by keeping on doing what you're doing, and staying injury-free.
Gobi May 2012 9:06am, 29 May 2012 47,675 posts	0 Gobi Hipps - the only problem is you need knowledge to tweak things
plodding hippo May 2012 9:06am, 29 May 2012 42,437 posts	0 plodding hippo and experience
Gobi May 2012 9:16am, 29 May 2012 47,676 posts	0 Gobi LOL, I know people who have run lots of marathons and it doesn't mean they have knowledge and definitely doesn't mean they even know what works for them :¬)
plodding hippo May 2012 9:19am, 29 May 2012 42,439 posts	0 plodding hippo sticks tongue out i do know what doesnt work for me