Increasing running pace

[Cameron Clarke]

I recently graduated from high school and embarked on training for my first marathon, the Saint George Marathon in October. My dad has run ten marathons, but they have all been about 4:00 and I'm hoping for 3:10 but will be satisfied with 3:30.  I was at a loss mostly for how to train and at what speeds, so I found McMillan running and used his calculator to compute the pace I should be running at for easy runs and such.  After 3 weeks and 120 miles or so of 8:30 average pace for easy runs, I'm feeling pretty slow.  I used to run my runs at 7-7:30 (6 miles tops though compared to 10-12 now) and I want to be able to increase my pace and hold it steady. I did 400s last week, 800s today, and I usually throw a homemade Fartlek type of run in during the week.

Any suggestions on how to get faster and maintain it?

[Jeff Linger]

There's a couple ways to look at this. The first way is to assume that you can prepare for 3:10 in the time you have left before SGM. 3:10s is about 7:15s. This gives you an aerobic threshold pace of somewhere between 7:05-7:25 according to McMillan, and a lactic threshold pace of somewhere around 6:45. It probably also gives you a LSD (Long Slow Distance) pace of somehwere around 7:45-8:00. I would not run anything slower than 8s with the exception of recovery pace. I'd do the majority of your miles in the 7:30 - 7:45 range, tempo runs at 6:45 pace, and maybe every other weekend make 75% of your weekly long run run in the 7:05-7:25 range. You might want to consider building your miles up (10% increase at a time, one bump every 3 weeks) to 50-60 running 6 days a week.

The other way to look at this is to say, look, I've only got a few months to prepare for SGM. I'm going to use this time to simply build up my aerobic base. Increase my mileage slowly and steadily according to the 10% every 3 weeks plan. Run almost all my miles in the LSD range, throwing in a bit of aerobic threshhold runs here and there. See how I do and then develop a long term plan that will get me a BQ and keep me injury free. If you just graduated from HS, you may want to consider that you've got a lot of time to run a Marathon and start with a few 1/2 marathons to build up. You need to be careful not putting too much stress on your body too soon at your age.

[Sasha Pachev]

Cameron:

You can already run a 5 K in 18:04. That is sub-5:50 per mile. You only need to run 7:10 or so to BQ. You've got a whopping 1:20 per mile between your goal marathon and actual 5 K pace! I bet you go 7:10 on your easy runs without even thinking. You have plenty of speed - you'll run 3:10 if your endurance does not let you down. I'd say just keep running the mileage, and do not even bother with speed work. Race once in a while for fun, that's all you need. What would really help is run 7:00 pace for 10-12 miles at the end of your long runs. This will teach your body to store more fuel.