CRUX is brilliant fun, with a longer and shorter distance, if you are concerned about such a long run a month before your marathon. Its really convenient for Zurich, about 20 mins on the train to Kollbrunn and it starts at the station. The finish at Schmerikon is really close to the station and around 20-30 mins back to Zurich HB

I came off my TT bike in 2021 and had a grade 3 AC Joint separation, no ligaments in either shoulder now, but everything seems to work, and I can blame that on my poor swim form

Cons: "This plan is for someone already pretty much trained up to the marathon level."


It seems similar enough but there are 2 cross training days that add a bit of overall volume. & the plan assumes that you're a well trained runner. My guess is that most people doing this kind of a plan do not run to their potential in the marathon. There aren't shortcuts in distance running. If you want to take your 5k & run the marathon it projects out to, this isn't going to work unless you have years of good mileage under your belt.

Was the 2:49 in line with your 5k-half? Were you well trained heading into the 3 run/week build? Were you still swimming/biking?

Good question. Honestly...it wasn't, I ran a 16:52 four weeks before which seemed to indicate potential for a sub 2:45, however, 2:45 pace was feeling way too hard in training. I was also swimming and biking at reduced volumes.

Yeah not trying to put you on blast or anything. 2:49 is still a great time. Supports what I'm trying to get at. Your marathon potential is higher than that. When I first broke 17:00, I ran a 2:42 after that. It wasn't on 3 runs/week. I wouldn't have run 2:42. Now I feel like I can maintain what my current run fitness is, with full triathlon training. I ran a lot of running PBs in 2022, with a lot less running. But that wasn't because I trained less or added in more quality. It's because I had built up a good engine & had a decade of 3k-4k miles/year. I was running 4-5 times/week (instead of 7-10), and I was swimming/biking 8-10 times/week.

I just think it's a tall order for OP to hold the 5k projected marathon pace on 3 quality runs/week & no other activities. I would rather see, like someone else mentioned, 5-6 runs/week, with all of them mostly easy. 1 mid-week threshold session with good volume. 1 ez medium long run. 1 long run, with quality every other or every 3rd week. The overall miles are going to carry you in a marathon -- not attempting to do impossible 5k workouts.

Yeah, I totally agree. On paper, the more mileage we can absorb, the better running we can do.

Unfortunately, for many of us (in my case, a mediocre club swimmer that learned how to bike and run with hack techniques in both disciplines) the high mileage can be problematic regarding injuries.

So a 3 run per week with specific workouts is a reasonable compromise that can balance performance with injury risk.

Hi Slowtwitch,

bumping my own thread with a quick recap on how it went.....long story short: I failed (and felt quite miserable, actually) and hit the wall at only 20 miles in and came in at 3:16 with lots of walking the final miles. My failure was mainly muscular, as I was still running at a very constant heart rate but just could not move the legs any faster.....

With regards to training and as many of you have pointed out: I was not able to complete this 3 run a week plan, as during the later weeks of the plan the workouts were just too hard, which likely was a telltale of my lacking fitness back then. About 7 weeks out I switched my approach and started to run 4-5 times per week hitting 45-55 mile weeks with one tempo run and fast finishing long runs. This worked quite well and I gained a lot of confidence in being able to go sub 3h with a 22 mile long run with the second half at race pace that I could finish well. Two weeks out from the marathon however, I started to feel a deep fatigue in my legs. Quads and calfs were very sore and my easy pace heart rate started to increase by a few bpm but since I have been quite tiered the whole build I wasn't too concerned and kept running. Sticking to my plan at that stage probably was the biggest mistake, as I could not recover until race day even with almost no running for 7 days. On raceday my legst were still trashed. I refused to give up on sub 3 even though I knew I would hit the wall in hope of a miracle recovery....didn't happen ;-)

I won't have time to go for another sub3 in fall but will try to keep some of that run speed and try again next spring....until then happy training to you all.

Best,
U

3:16 with “a load of walking” is pretty impressive - you must have been going a hell of a pace before the wheels fell off!

Yeah keep at it OP. 3:16 with walking shows a ton of room for improvement. How was the weather? That could've also played a role with pacing. Did you run Boston or something else? Boston ended up being warm. Most people I know who ran blew up.

"Miserably?"

Get over yourself, please. Or take it to LetsRun

3:16 is still impressive - to most people, anyway

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

....sorry, this was not to imply that 3:16 is a bad time, what I wanted to express was that I felt really miserable and was hurting a lot reaching the finish line.

That's different, sorry

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Without reading this whole thread. I designed a training plan back in early January for my daughter and based on running 3 days a week since she does yoga everyday and is a doctor with a very demanding schedule. Her 1/2 trail marathon is April 27th, not her first but first in 10 years. She only wants to finish and her 10 mile times are great. I think she will PR when her other half was at the San Francisco Marathon.

I'm sorry you didn't meet your goal. This was an interesting, and fun, read though - thanks for sharing and updating.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

I'm not condoning the original plan, but the move to bump up mileage 7 weeks out was probably a bad choice. It was pretty predictable that workouts such as "3h total run time with 3x30 min at race pace followed by 20 min above race pace" would be difficult, incredibly difficult for someone running <5h week. The plan you initially followed did little to enhance long aerobic base, what some may call fat burning capacity. These workouts were hard because you had little aerobic base. Without the ability to run 3h at an easy pace comfortably you'll never be able to do a 3h long workout with fast stuff in it, let alone 2h of fast stuff.

Increasing the volume was the right move, but 7 weeks before an event isn't long enough to reap the true benefits of volume increases. It's why you rarely see (serious) "6 week marathon" plans. The other factor is doing speed work before building a base. You built up a capacity to generate lactate and a strong anaerobic system (a high VlaMax) without a strong aerobic base. Then you tried to build the aerobic base on top of that, presumably at a fairly high pace. I'm guessing if we did lactate testing most of those easy runs would have still been significantly lactate producing. That's great, sometimes. Just not for 7 weeks before a race. The reason you see most plans build aerobic base then anaerobic speed is exactly this. The anaerobic work is done in service of continuing to build the aerobic system, not the other way around.

Tl;dr - It's better to show up under-trained than under-recovered.

Can I ask what changed in your life to allow the extra runs? If you had the time, why not just do it right from the start?

Good effort, a 3:16 is still pretty good considering you had to walk/jog/shuffle for 6 miles.

We have all messed up a good build cycle by not giving the body enough recovery to absorb the training load. Hindsight is always 20/20, but obviously it would have been better to dial back the workouts and just run easy once you got the fatigue building up too much two weeks out.

Thanks for chiming in. I think you are spot on in your analysis... I simply overestimated my ability and thought I could get away with running less and compensating by pace, when I realized that it didn't work I was able to squeeze in more running by getting up earlier which likely also took a toll on recovery over time...I will try again next spring and will do a 16 week build with 4 weeks of 80k per week of easy running before picking up the speed....
Lets see
U

Thanks for posting. My first thought was what others were saying, 3:16 and you failed! But I get what you are saying after reading on.

I think your post and follow up and plan adjustment will help others make a better informed decision. Keep at it! I think you will definitely pull this off.

Congrats on good training! Sorry for the slight overtraining at the end and good luck next time.

My personal experience with the 3 hard runs per week was weird. I did a half-marathon cycle, but the final race had heavy rain and 40F. Finished slow 1:29, but I’m not sure how much faster I could’ve been with more less ok weather.

Then I did a full marathon cycle on 3 runs. Marathon was postponed due to winter storm to a date when I’m on vacation in Europe.

So, I really cannot say if 3 runs a week works for me or not :) But I can say that I didn’t really like the experience. I enjoyed running 6 days a week 55-70 mph (but mostly slow) much more.

Yep all you can do is learn from it. Personally I don't like viewing it in terms of XX week builds or distinct cycles. The best time to start training was yesterday, the second best time is today. Even if you view it as a 16 week build you won't regret going into that phase as fit as possible.

A marathon is 99.9% aerobic, it's important to keep that in mind during training. Until you start getting to a bit more below 3h the finishing time of runners can be predicted with surprising accuracy by training volume and BMI. At least for the faster AG's the typical BQ runner is >60 mpw.

There's really no shortcuts (other than genetics). I'd wager that a training plan of nothing more than a year of 80mpw at self selected pace would result in better outcomes than even the best 16 week program that comes from after a low mileage base.

Or maybe he should be allowed to quantify his performance. One man's PR at 3:16 is another man's miserable failure. I "ran" a miserable 3:14 at Boston on my only attempt and I can say the walking, trudging, leg cramps were as miserable as I have ever been.
I sensed absolutely zero arrogance in his post that needed to be censured. Fast people have a right to fail and say they failed miserably.

I tried something very similar once and ran out of gas around 16 miles. I just think that when you are trying to run 26, then more is more is more. I've never been faster than when I managed to get in 340 hours one year and I was not even doing speedwork.

My go-to quote comes from Bill Rogers. He said that when he could get his mileage up to 140 miles per week and hold it for the time necessary, he knew he was ready to go.

Now, he was a elite but talked about doing this and getting injured, so my takeaway is ---more is more more, as long as you don't injure yourself.

With running it always depends on training history and what can be handled from an injury prevention standpoint, but if doing any kind of periodization of training over a season the origins of that has always been training from general to specific. The "build an aerobic base" thing has come from examples of training for shorter events where the general part is more volume based and the specific is speed/higher intensity. For long distance it's the opposite.

An aerobic base can also be several things. Even most VO2max work is over 90% aerobic and when you mention anaerobic work/speed I doubt anyone training for long distance do true anaerobic sets(this means really short work and long passive rest segments generally). Someone's anaerobic system can still be too strong for long distance from too much intensity, but for a lot of people that can be pushed back in a few months or less. Anaerobic capacity can also be pushed too high by doing too much intensity close to a long race so it makes less sense doing intensity/speed work too far removed from the specific requirements of the event in the lead up before taper.

Of course there are always exceptions based on individual physiology and one has to be careful when doing speed work on the run.

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BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se

A 3:16 when the goal is sub 3 is a pretty epic ‘kaboom’. Depending on his age, it might even be almost a min per mile too slow to be able to qualify and register for Boston.

Failed miserably, depending on context, is totally a fair self assessment here.

Two weeks out from the marathon however, I started to feel a deep fatigue in my legs. Quads and calfs were very sore and my easy pace heart rate started to increase by a few bpm but since I have been quite tiered the whole build I wasn't too concerned and kept running.//

Here is where you lost you chance at your goal, not in the race, your pace, or anything else you did during race week. It seems very plain and simple to me, just dont get yourself in that state again, and if you do, then do whatever you can to get out of it immediately. There was really nothing wrong with your plan, and I feel you would have succeeded or been very close except for this thing you let go on during the last few weeks. Dont try and blame it on mileage, race tactics, or any other easy thing to grab, it is right there in front of you, screaming at you...


Its ok that you upped your mileage and some paces, but you just have to pay attention to what your body tells you afterwards, and be ready to punt if that is the best way forward...