A marathon in under 3 hours

A marathon in less than 3 hours

Egy maraton 3 ora alatt

martski | 2011-04-25 01:13:55 |

When I started to write this blog in late 2010, I really wondered what I was doing. Well I knew I was crazy :) My winter times were slow, I was frustrated that I could not increase my speed and I was no where near the necessary 4m15 per km. I achieved a superb time in Siofok in late Novemeber 2010, and then I went nowhere, I injured myself slightly in January 2011 with my impatience and over training, as I had a lot of time being unemployed.

Things improved in getting a job I like, but that meant less time for running....

At the begining of the year, I set myself a target of 3h29 for the Vienna marathon and 2h59 for the Budapest marathon. Given the problems I had with speed in January, I doubted I would get too far. But I kept going though, managing to get a good kilometerage going through the months.

Last week I ran the Vienna marathon, and ran it in 3h30m34!!!! What???

It was really totally unexpected - my speed in practice was never great, and I had problems in some of my distance runs the weeks leading up to it. I had hints I could do a good marathon, but to run all the way, battle through and maintain a pace of 4m59 for 42.2 km - wow!

I had decided to take a risk, run 5 minutes/km pace, see what happens. Then when catching my friend Nick at 31km (he later went ahead to do just uneder 3h30) and feeling really good and talking about 3h30 with him I think motivated both of us. Then to be able to run all the way to 42.2km - it was a good day - no, it wasnt't a good day, it was a bloody awesome day! (apologies :) )

But now as the shock wears off, I am thinking again about that sub 3-hour marathon... After all my target was to do it at Budapest this year :) and why not?

To be honest I doubt I can do it, everything points against it - I am injured as a result of the last 7 km of the Vienna marathon - right knee ITB - very very annoying.

Plus, I will be travelling like crazy for work soon, and, and, and - well why do I need excuses to not do it, maybe I should be more positive and start thinking why I can do it:

- a year ago I was running 5m30 times per km, and now I am comfortably running 10km times at 4m40 on terrain

- in competitions I am a lot better

- linked to previous point, I don;t think I am as fit as last October - or for that matter 20 years ago!

- I have read that it takes about 6 months to really build up good fitness for a race, so I should ensure I get over this injury and then I have plenty of time to go up 1 or 2 levels and really excel

The other reason is that my good friend Nick has suddenly indicated an interest in the sub 3 hour marathon. Not sure what inspired him, but he knew I wanted to do it. He beat me by 50 seconds or so in Vienna and so is in similar shape to me.

Now we can share the pain, particularly on those horrible intervals.... and our competitive nature means that on those intervals we will really force each other to improve.

I guess that my belief is slowly coming. I would be happy if I manage 3h15 - well not that happy - less than 3h10 would be better, and I can come back to it again next year. However I am not going to be satisfied with 3h10, it is only a step towards what I want - and I want a sub 3 hour marathon :)

Can I do it? Maybe I can... you can be sure I am going to try!

Apologies for writing in English only, but writing in Hungarian takes me forever :) olyan nehéz :)

I achieved a superb time in Siofok in late Novemeber 2010, and then I went nowhere, I injured myself slightly in January 2011 with my impatience and over training, as I had a lot of time being unemployed.

Things improved in getting a job I like, but that meant less time for running....
At the begining of the year, I set myself a target of 3h29 for the Vienna marathon 2011 and 2h59 for the Budapest marathon 2011. Given the problems I had with speed in January, I doubted I would get anywhere near either. But I kept going though, managing to get a good kilometerage going through the months. Last week I ran the Vienna marathon, and ran it in 3h30m34!!!!

WHAT???

I had decided to take a risk, run 5 minutes/km pace, see what happens. Then when catching my friend Nick at 31km (he later went ahead to do just under 3h30) and feeling really good and talking about 3h30 with him I think motivated both of us. Then to be able to run all the way to 42.2km - it was a good day - no, it wasnt't a good day, it was a bloody awesome day! :) :)

But now as the shock wears off, I am thinking again about that sub 3-hour marathon... After all my target was to do 2h59m59 at Budapest this year :) and why not???

To be honest I doubt I can do it, everything points against it - I am injured as a result of the last 7 km of the Vienna marathon - right knee ITB - very very annoying. And I know how long it takes to get rid of ITB - I had it on left ITB 18 months ago :(

Plus, I will be travelling like crazy for work soon, and, and, and.......

Well why do I need excuses to not do it, maybe I should be more positive and start thinking why I CAN do it!

- a year ago I was running 5m30 times per km, and now I am comfortably running 10km times at 4m40 on terrain

- in competitions I am a lot better

- in late October my heart rate was 43 when resting, now it is about 55 - the reason it is slower is that I haven't done proper intervals for a while, and if I do, I can improve heart rate, and more importantly the speed- linked to previous point, I don;t think I am as fit as last October - or for that matter 20 years ago!- I have read that it takes about 6 months to really build up good fitness for a race, so I should ensure I get over this injury and then I have plenty of time to go up 1 or 2 levels and really excel

The other reason is that my good friend Nick (yes, the guy who I found wondering around the streets of Vienna :) ) has suddenly indicated an interest in the sub 3 hour marathon. Not sure what inspired him, but he knew I already wanted to do it. He beat me by 50 seconds or so in Vienna and so is in similar shape to me.

Now we can share the pain, particularly on those horrible intervals.... and our competitive nature means that on those intervals we will really force each other to improve.
I guess that my belief is slowly coming. I would be happy if I manage 3h15 - well not that happy - less than 3h10 would be better, or less than 3h05 even better, but sod it - I want to beat 3h00!!

I am not going to be satisfied with 3h10, it is only a step towards what I want - and I want a sub 3 hour marathon :)
Can I do it? Maybe I can... you can be sure I am going to try!
Apologies for writing in English only, but writing in Hungarian takes me forever :) olyan nehéz :)

13 hozzászólás

Thanks for the language lesson :-) and congrats on your marathon. First I thought that it would be quite an impressive achievement to jump from 3:30 to 3:00. For example, I think I can run 3:30 any time on minimal training, but probably will never run 3:00 in my life. I don't train specifically for the marathon though.

Then I checked your training log and saw you are on very low mileage, so you might be very far from your potential at the moment. What are your PRs? Do they predict 3:00? Traditionally thinking, what you need is an aerobic base, not speedwork but I know there are lots of competing theories here. Anyway, good luck!

Congratulation! Good luck! But please, take care of your body!

As Miki said, shaving off a whole half an hour of your marathon time might be too big a leap as of now, but who knows...There's a whole lot of time till October :) Good luck!

I'm really curious about your progress. Keep on blogging!

Do you know the smartcoach on www.runnersworld.com? I use this to do my training plan, and I tried it now with your preferences...

So, I used your 3h 30m 30s as current race time for planning and 50-58 km as initial distance per week.

After setting the training intensity to "very difficult" (of course :), it's promising 3:03:08 time for the Spar Marathon.

Sub 3h Marathon? It seems not impossible, but "very hard". :)

ps: Sorry for my English...it's so hard. :)

ps2: I don't have too much experience about the smartcoach, but it seems ok.

congrats! :) awesome time after the vivicitta half marathon.

my opinion: I don't have any doubts that you can do sub-3. the question is only this: when.
if you can run a 1:25 half in the next couple of months, you have a chance in october. but still a hard task because you'd have to have nearly perfect endurance. (either that, or run an even faster HM.) so, don't be disappointed if you have to train a bit longer to get there.

note on ITB: strengthening your gluteals could be useful. (at least in my case it helped.)

miki, you know you have the speed to run sub-3:00...and even most of the endurance. it's just that you're focused on other distances :)

Good luck with the Plan! I agree with monique: 3:00 will come to you, just keep on training and be patient! Gyerünk Marci! :o)

Thanks for comments all - Bozo, Lassukapitany, Monique, Pen - you are probably right, maybe a more realistic aim is 3h10 or 3h15 - still quite hard and leave the remaining 10 minutes for another time.

Monique - I agree on the half marathon time, I was thinking of 1h23 or so having read similar forums on runnersworld, but I am a long way off that still.... That really makes me think again as I would need to break 1h30 soon.

Lassukapitany - where was the smartcoach - I look on the uk site, and it doesn't give me predictions.

Miki, I realized that you run more in a day than I do in a month :) but yes, ideally I should be increasing to 50-70km per week and ensuring the base is strong. It will be difficult with my work travel though, so I probably have to go the speed route.

My PRs are not great - marathon 3h30, half marathon 1h34, 10km - about 43 (I must now be able to do better). My best 800m was about 2m57, and I ran 1.7km in 6m55. However when running 800m intervals last year, they really made a difference, starting at 3m30, and towards the end being comfortable on 3m00 or so.

Monique, are there any specific exercises you do for glutes? - I see a lot on youtube and never know good ones.

It seems the ITB injury from Vienna is slowly wearing off - it has received a lot of ice, Ibuleve / neurofen. Now I have to not rush back into the training and re-injure it, maybe I'll do a jog later this week. I'm thinking of a half marathon this Sunday :)

one of my favourites because it seemed to be the most specific of the various exercises I tried: side lying leg raises. be sure to keep hip neutral or extended to isolate gluteus medius better. other glute med exercises will work too, and this exercise is pretty specific to running: http://www.sportsinjurybulletin.com/archive/1026-knee-injuries.htm

btw, your PRs seem to indicate that you have very good endurance. 3:30 FM off 1:34 HM is really good. this will help you reach your goal :) you just need to get faster (your 800m PR is too slow for 3-hour marathon right now)

btw, when I said 3:30 is really good after 1:34 half, I meant that it is impressive with such low mileage you are doing. (1:34 HM PR would of course allow for a better marathon time on high mileage)

I found it on the US site, in the middle of the www. runersworld.com page ( http://smartcoach.runnersworld.com/smartcoach/ )

You need to register to the page, but it's free.

An older version of smartcoach is on the UK site as well: http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/racing/runners-world-smartcoach/3057.html

On this page you do not have to log in, but the US version is better.

people on runnersworld forums don't really recommend smartcoach for marathon training. (it could be okay for shorter distances)

Hozzászólás írásához be kell jelentkezned!

Archívum

2015-03 hó (1 bejegyzés)
2014-08 hó (2 bejegyzés)
2014-04 hó (1 bejegyzés)
2013-09 hó (2 bejegyzés)
2013-08 hó (1 bejegyzés)
2013-07 hó (1 bejegyzés)
2013-06 hó (1 bejegyzés)
2013-05 hó (1 bejegyzés)
2013-03 hó (2 bejegyzés)
2012-09 hó (1 bejegyzés)
2012-03 hó (2 bejegyzés)
2011-12 hó (1 bejegyzés)
2011-11 hó (1 bejegyzés)
2011-10 hó (1 bejegyzés)
2011-09 hó (1 bejegyzés)
2011-07 hó (1 bejegyzés)
2011-06 hó (4 bejegyzés)
2011-04 hó (1 bejegyzés)
2010-12 hó (2 bejegyzés)

Legújabb blogüzik

Még több blogüzenet