Marathon Running

It's much later in the year (October) so the heat is unlikely to be a factor then. I'd be more worried about rain!

oh I thought the race was coming up soon.

It takes about three months to train properly for it.

sounds about right! Anything epic takes about that much time at least. Good luck!

New PB for the half of 1.39.10 on a tough course this morning. Encouraging as I'm only starting to ramp up the training again.

Awesome achievement for the Belfast marathon, man, way to go! You are so much faster than me..
I had to skip the Rotterdam marathon this year, as well as any other race, due to injuries in my left leg. I am currently seeing a physical therapist for dry needling, and while it helps, recovery is slow. I was hoping to be able to run a personal best again in November on a 15K, but he said I could only run if I let go that thought. The good thing is I am running 3 times a week again, albeit with my longest run now being 9 K and not being allowed to go faster than 6min/km I will register for Rotterdam again for 2018, see if I can run that comfortably by that time. Good luck with preparations for Dublin!

I'm sure there are plenty of them - but then again maybe they are just less vocal so you'll never . Unhappy people are the ones that tend to gripe more. I have noticed that in general people that belittle exercise are those who don't exercise themselves. Or they get into the "back when I was young I could blah, blah, blah and our team won the blah, blah, blah...." but they haven't done shit for the past 35 years and they are 30 pounds overweight with "noodle arms" and have the gas tank of an infant. Hey, it's their health, not mine.

I ran the Great North Run yesterday in 1 hour 36 minutes.

Unreal experience, nothing like it. Very hard to get into a rhythm though, constantly trying to dodge past people and getting stuck. Started poorly and tried to pull it back. Good to get a pb but I'll be faster next week when I do Belfast Half.

I've also managed a 10k in 43 minutes and a 5k in 20.20 since I've last posted.

Best of luck with the recovery Zenow.

wow a 5K in 20 minutes is cooking fast in my mind. I don't run long distances but occasionally run 5K just to challenge myself - I couldn't imagine keeping my fastest 1 mile pace for two (and change) more miles! Your resting heart rate would be to be well below 50 - am I correct?

It depends on how "resting" I am.

I've seen it at 39 bpm before.

that's a very healthy heart right there!

A week after the Great North, I managed 1:33:54 in this years Belfast Half Marathon. Good progression - I don't have any more halves coming up but I feel I'll run under and hour and a half soon. My target in Dublin for the full is 3 hours 20 minutes and I'm now beginning to entertain the possibility of a sub 3 hour marathon attempt next year.
My training is approaching its peak of 100km per week for this cycle. I'm coping physically but the time demands are becoming tough.
Training for sub 3 would be evil.

My hat's off to anyone that can pull off a Marathon. But, every single runner I know is just...weird. One friend has taken it so far that I think he has an actual problem. He runs 10-15 miles before work every day. Every. Day. This spring he took a "runcation" where he ran four different events in New England including the Boston Marathon in the same week. He arrived in Chicago yesterday for the Chicago Marathon.

Many (not all) people who run excessive amounts of mileage are sick a lot from weakened immune systems and/or "overuse" injuries in tendons, ligaments, etc. This especially applies to older runners. No excuse for oldsters not to exercise though! Personally I alternate my cardio/endurance with resistance training and it works great for me, then again I'm not involved in competitive running where you have to put in a lot of practice. So I get to keep my runs short and fast (two miles, three miles at the most) mixing it up with uphill sprinting every few days.

As for weird runners I knew a Warrant Officer in the army who ran naked out in the desert. Now that he's a senior citizen, suddenly encountering that might be for any hikers.

I ran Dublin Marathon in 3 hours 23 minutes. Very pleased but looking forward to a break.

After a very lazy couple of months I've managed to get back on the wagon. 140km in January isn't huge but it's a start. I've my first half coming up in a couple of weeks, the same race I did last February and the target is just to beat last years time. The longer-term goal is probably Derry marathon in June.
Not sure what my time target will be. Also not sure given that continuing to improve will require even more time investment and effort if I will be able to put in the necessary work for this one, or for any others after it.

On paper the easiest way to see improvements would be to clean up my diet, which sucks. I weigh around 13 stone right now and while that's not really overweight, I don't particularly look like a runner. I think that I could do a three hour marathon if I lost a stone. But - I tend to use my exercise as an excuse to eat what I want, and breaking that habit might take the pleasure out of it somewhat.

yeah - that's about 180 pounds. I've read (take that with a grain of salt) that on average every pound past your ideal weight = five seconds slower per mile. Cumulatively over a very long distance that's pretty significant. Indeed cleaning up your diet is hard! My personal demons is snacking at night. Breakfast & during my workday I'm fine, I guess because that's my exercise/work time and I'm busy. But my evenings enjoying my leisure time I lose focus.

I ran 1.44.12 in the half yesterday. This was in line with my goal for the race but it also underlines how much work I have to do to get into shape for something like a sub 1.30 half - which I'd like this year.

A couple of months hard training behind me, I ran 1.36.43 in an extremely hilly half yesterday with a headcold. My third fastest time, but I'm thinking that it's probably been my best "performance" yet. I was placed fairly high up, 17th out of 254 runners.
Hopefully I'm still on for sub 1.30 before the end of the year.

And now I enter four weeks of hell as marathon training peaks. Marathon is on 3rd June.

that's great - 95th percentile or so! Are you going to tweak your training at all or stick to the training methods you are currently using? Hopefully you won't have a bad cold or anything come race day.

I think I'm sticking with it for now. Lots of miles with the occasional speed interval session or tempo run.

I still have the lingering effects of that cold right now, just when mileage is very high. I took an unplanned rest day on Monday but I've run every other day and it's been horrible. I'm pushing myself hard to maintain a pace I'd normally regard as very easy. The long run (30k) planned for tomorrow will not be pleasant.

I ended up skipping the long run last week as it would have killed me, meaning that I had to compensate this week with 90K in total. Then I still have 10K to do tomorrow to make it 300K for the month. And two more heavy weeks after that before I taper.

Three more days left now until I taper. I'm getting through it but there's been a couple of setbacks. The plan was for a long run of 32k last weekend, but it was a hot day and I started out tired from all the training - I ended up only getting to 30k. Any more and I might have collapsed, as it was I lay on the floor afterwards for some time.
Then this week I intended to run every day and clock up 100k for the week. I ended up taking an unscheduled rest on Wednesday because I was just too exhausted - mentally more than physically. So now I'll only peak at 90k this week, including a 35k tomorrow. I really hope it isn't hot again.

I have doubts that my fitness is quite as good as it was last time out. Some weight has come off, but I don't think it's as much. And while I may just be forgetting how tough it was, this time I do think I'm finding the peak training harder. But we'll see.

I love tapering. Lots of rest and the running you do seems much easier and is much faster, with little effort.

What is “hot” for you?

um....wrong thread? What is the "hot" question about?

About 80 degrees in your language. It could be a lot worse but when you're running it drains you.

Anyway, I got my 35k done and it went better this week.

oh yes that's right - weather getting hotter this time of year. Yes running in 80 degree weather is a bitch even when - especially long distances.

I ran the marathon today and it did not go according to plan. I finished in 3:37:28 which is 14 minutes slower than last time. Of the five I've now run, it was third fastest and the first time I haven't improved on the previous race.

I don't plan to do another one this year because of the heavy toll it takes on my free time. (Observant posters in Media Central will notice that my reading has suffered and that's as important to me. Among other things.) I have taken a few weeks break off from the hard training in between but other than that, this is the fourth one I've trained for back to back in a row and I need a more extended break now, for a year or so I think before I even consider if I'll do another one. I'll still run but will focus on shorter races and improving my speed, which requires more intense but crucially shorter training sessions.

I do feel the need to analyse what went wrong today, and record it (here is as good a place as any) so that I can correct things as far as possible if/when I go again.

So...

Training:

• I did a lot of miles this time - but when I look at Strava, it wasn't quite as many as before last October. I missed a couple of long runs and there were too many drops in mileage than are justified by needing to balance with rest.
  
• Despite this, I still focused too much on high mileage - there were some speedwork sessions but not nearly often enough. I had no zip in my legs.
• The perennial problem of diet was worse. I didn't lose as much weigh as before because I was eating shit, using the running to justify it and probably sabotaging my training gains.
• My taper leading up to the marathon was too heavy. I had intentionally not cut back as much as previous times due to some advice I'd gotten but it didn't work and was a mistake. During a taper you should feel rested and fresh. I didn't.

Raceday preparation:

• In the immediate days before the race I had a lot going on. Long hours at work were perhaps unavoidable but I really shouldn't have spent so much time in the sun the day beforehand mowing the lawn. That was stupid.
• I was staying in a friends house overnight beforehand. They didn't have oatmeal and I didn't bring any so I ended up eating Weetabix in the morning, which isn't as good as a fuel. I probably should have eaten closer to the race and maybe some bread too. I arrived at the startline a tad hungry.
  
• I arrived too late at the startline and didn't have time to go to *ahem* use the toilet facilities before the race. The result was some unpleasant stomach cramps.
• It was another hot day on a hilly course. This can't be controlled other than by better choice of race.

So, lots of little things added up to a mediocre performance. The bottom line is that I got too casual about the whole thing. You can't have a good day every day but that can't happen again.

On the plus side, I also did get a 10k PB of 42.25 a couple of weeks back. Some comfort.

Nice going! I ran my 3rd marathon in April, and for the first time *improved* my time; from 4:40 in Rotterdam, my first one and 5:03 or something in NY, to 4:25:26 this year, again in Rotterdam, and it was humid and hot. Cut 15 min. off my PB, so I am happy, and I know that with better circumstances I can do a lot better. My sub 4 is approaching.Don't know when, though. As you said, marathons really cut into your free time. So for now, no more racing at all, just running for fun.
I think your analysis of what went wrong is fine; and yyeah, maybe too many long runs. I noticed myself that the recovery needed after really long runs, 30+km, sort of messes with the schedule of running regularly, so for my next one, I might even cut them altogether and just run 4 times a week, do strength exercises and limit myself to about 25km runs. I did take the advice of a friend to forget about the end sprint, and even slowed down a lot on the final couple of hundred meters, soaking up the experience. That resulted in an awesome finish photo
A decent taper is very important, I think. My group runs a 'longest run' of about 35 km three weeks before the marathon, and I have concluded that is too close for comfort to me. I was very relieved that we decided to cut it short at 30km because of the cold (minus 4 celcius I think) even though it was great fun to run for over 4 hours in sub zero conditions. Or maybe that was the vodka I added to my water supply to keep it from freeing like two weeks before

After several lazy weeks, I've gotten back into somewhat with adjusted training plan and goals. No more marathons for now, I'm concentrating on shorter races and therefore fewer training miles - but the miles I'm doing are faster. Typically it's now three or four training runs per week, including a tempo run, intervals and a long run

I ran Belfast Half yesterday in 1.37.08 which was okay given where I'm at. I'd love to break an hour and a half so I'll soon see if that's possible using this training regime.