Marathon Goal Times
Picking a marathon goal time is a tricky thing to do. Over in the Land of Nitmos he is going with the two-pronged approach of best and worst case. He is starting with a range of 3:12 - 3:58. That’s quite a huge range. It’s the difference of about 1:45 a mile.
But I’ve been there as well. Nitmos has done all the training required to actually run faster than his 3:12 goal, but since 3:12 is his PR he seems to be saying that’s the best case, but I disagree. He will be running in Detroit in a couple of weeks and, in theory at least, the weather should cooperate for him.
I’ve been following him off and on and have seen his posted times be as follows:
20 miles 7:09
14 miles 7:01
Which is quite fast for a training run. 7:09 for 20 miles is incredible. It sets him up for a sub 3:10 finish (3:10 is roughly 7:14/m), if he can hang on the last 10k. But, in my opinion, that isn’t the way to look at it. If he can run 20 miles that fast in training, he should be well ahead of that by mile 20 and allow himself to crater slightly and still meet his goal.
I personally have four goals. I have my best and worst case, as does nitmos, that I tell people, and then I have two times that I keep to myself. For example, at St. George last weekend, I had stated goals of running between 3:10 - 3:20. I felt reasonable good about the shape I was in to go under 3:10. I had run 3:15 two weeks earlier, and so while I was still a little beat up, I actually felt better going into this race, and St. George is a super fast course. So 3:10 was a solid public goal. Privately I thought I’d run between a 3:05 and 3:12. My super secret goal was to see how I did in the first half (goal of 1:27 - 1:28ish) and then work the next few miles and try to survive to 20, at which point the bottom falls out of St. George, and let ‘er rip and if I was close try for a sub 3:00. I didn’t really expect to be able to hit that, but it was my stretch goal, and one I didn’t let anyone else in on.
So enough about me, let’s talk about you. What are your goal times, and how do you set them? I think you should have 3 times, your stated goal, your secret goal, and your revised goal depending on weather. For me, I add 5-10 minutes for every 10 degrees about 45 the weather is. I can run all day in the 40s and low 50s, but when it hits the 70-80s, I am toast.
I know going into a marathon a fairly accurate range of what I should be able to run based on the previous month’s marathon and the training I’ve done in between. I don’t do twenty milers (unless they are part of a marathon), but if you aren’t running a marathon a month you will need a longish run to test your fitness. I’ve found that I can usually run roughly 30-45 seconds per mile faster than what I can do in training for a long run up to that distance.
So taking Nitmos as an example, running a 20 miler at 7:09 pace (which I don’t believe I’ve *EVER* done outside of a race), I would plug in a 6:30-6:40 and plan on hitting that for 20 miles. Then the final 10k, which is really the second half of the marathon, I’d have in my plan the ability to drop off a full minute per mile. Basically 2:10 through twenty, and then 45-47 minutes or so for the final 10k and I think I’d be able to run a 2:55-2:57 off of Nitmos’s long run.
But since I lack the ability/motivation/skillset to run that far in practice, I chose to run marathons all the time, thus avoiding the dreaded long run.
If you are running a 20 miler at 8:00 minute pace I would think you should be able to run a 3:22-3:25 marathon.
Would love to see some feedback on how you’ve found your 20 milers relating to actual marathon times.
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My 20-milers have little correlation with my marathon times mainly because I usually train in 80+ degrees and high humidity (FL/HI) and race in places that are 20-40 degrees cooler. But most of the race courses I choose are relatively flat, have little to no trail running and are not at high altitude so I can usually shoot for 4-4:15 as a time goal despite running 20-milers at a 10-12 min pace in training. Some triathlon coaches say that training for tris will make me a better runner but I’ve yet to see it running only 20-30 MPW.
I typically run 20-30 mpw if I’m not running a marathon. I’d really like to see what happens if I bump into the 40ish range.
You should have a bigger jump since you are training in such rough conditions. I feel like I get a mile per minute back when the heat and humidity go away in the fall.
I ran Disney last year in Jan but it was hot and humid and I ran 30-40 mins slower than i did 3 weeks later.
I expect to beat that 3:12. The only reason I set the second goal is because I just don’t know what’ll happen in the race as far as cramping. I’m on a bad streak that needs to end.
As for the 20 miler, I basically treated that morning traiing run as a “mini marathon” so it pretty much was maxing out my abilities. I won’t be going much, if any, faster at 20 miles in the actual race.
Good post. Goal setting is an elusive creature because so much of it involves confidence and mental preparation over the physical.
Sorry for the non sequitur comment, but this post brought up some questions for me:
Background
My friend and I have hatched a plan to do the run training for IM CDA 2009 by doing a marathon every two months. I started running a bit over 2 years ago, and I’ve only run two marathons (both this year), and Chicago will be my third. We thought that since our mileage is already high for Chicago, we’ll keep it that way instead of rebuilding our base.
Questions
1. Looking at your profile, you started running a marathon every 6 weeks or so in your second year of marathons. How did you originally train in that second year? (Did you do track workouts, do 20 milers ever other week, target mpw, etc)?
2. What would you have changed about that original training? (I’m assuming that you got faster/stronger over the years and so the training has adjusted for this. Thus, you’re current plan wouldn’t work for me.)
3. Did you get your information/training from a person, website or just experience? If person or website, can you send on that information?
Thanks in advance!
My marathon times have proven this approach is far from perfect, but…my best-case goal is a per-minute goal time based on the pace I do an 18-20 mile run. In the marathon then I know I can run that pace for 20 miles and, if it’s really my day, I can hold that pace to the finish. Realistically, of course, I count on those last 6 miles being a good minute (or two) slower and that is my “public” goal.
One question for you Frank, or others… I can do a half at 7:00 pace but haven’t attempted anything faster than 8:00 pace for a marathon, and in each marathon I’ve hit the wall at around 2:50 regardless of pace. Should I just run the race faster on the theory that if I’m going to hit the wall at the same point timewise I might as well be that much closer to the finish? Previously I’ve always assumed that I needed to scale back the pace in the marathon because I don’t do a ton of miles when training (25-30 or so mpw, with 2-3 40+ weeks). But I’m reconsidering the logic of that.