Fast Running Blog

I am not sure how much info to give here. I tend to be a talker, but will try to keep this to the Reader's Digest version.

I am 'training' 2 friends of mine to run St. George Marathon. SG was to be my 13th marathon in the 7 years that I have been running. I have them following the Hal Higdon training schedule for novice. That is going great, I am using a the advanced schedule...sorta. I usually run longer than he recommends. These two gals are planning on around a 6 hour marathon. They just want to finish and I have promised to not leave their side, this race is abou them, not me.

I found a new course 12.67 and loved it. I wanted to share (since I am such a giving person:)), so I took my husband on this run. He was dying most of the way. I just felt strong. About 8 miles into he said he really thought I should find another race before St. George. Long story short....I registered for Top of Utah in September (I recently moved to Western Iowa). I have completed this race a few years back and loved it. Signing up for the race gave me knew found motivation to keep up my great training.

Fast forward to my long run yesterday. Hubby and I usually run together. He was having an off time, so at mile 7 he gave me the Garmin and said 'Go, see what you can do.' I did. It was no effort at all to speed up and find my pace.

Here's where my question comes in. I finished that 20 in 3:37. My BQ time is 3:50. I was told years ago that my 20 miler should take me longer to finish than a marathon. Is that really true? If so, I can qualify for Boston at TOU next month? My fastest marathon time to date is 4:47 (I have hit the exact same time 7 out the 12 marathons I have raced in).

Sorry if this was too much info, I tried to put in the basics that would be needed to help with the question I have.

In a basic sense, this question can be simplified to this. When you 'found your pace' what was that new pace? Where you running 8:45s? Do you think you can sustain 8:45s over 26.2 miles? What was the difference between the pace you were running your first 7 miles at and your last 13? Your average pace for the 20 miler was 10:51s. If we assume that you hit BQ pace for the last 13 miles, then your warm-up pace, as it were, would have been 14:45s for 7 miles. If this is true, then essentially you ran a half-marathon at goal pace, with a warm up of 7 miles at a pace of 6 minutes/mile slower than goal race pace. What's your most recent 1/2 marathon race pace? What marathon did you run last and what was your time there? When was that? On your next 20 miler try running 3 miles aroun 9:30 pace, then 14 miles at race pace, followed by 3 more miles at around 9:30 again. See how you feel. Do you feel utterly exhausted? You probably shouldn't.

I don't think your marathon time is the same as 20 mile training run, unless you go slow on your training run.  I would guess it would be more like 22 miles.  Maybe 21. 

Either way, I think your training run shows that you should be able to crush your current marathon PR.  Can you BQ?  Not sure.  I would suggest doing a long run like Jeff suggests to find out.  Or, I like doing a long run with a few miles warm up, then 7-8 miles at 20% slower than goal race pace (10:30 for you), then 10% slower than race pace (9:40) for the rest of the run.  You should be tired but not exhausted.

The 20-mile = marathon time is not a predictor more so something to make sure you take that long run s..l..o..w.. That run should be an effort in self control to get the 20-miler slow enough to be the marathon time. If it is any effort at all to hit that time then you probably have a little way to go. That being said Jeff and Jon give some good advice.

Thank you so much for the advice and your thoughts. I was shocked by my time, and I was sore from the run. I think I can definately get a PR for myself at this next race, but I don't think it will be by the hour needed for Boston. I am excited that I have a good base so I can do some serious work.

You may want to take advantage of Sasha's "Boston Time Predictor".  Just plug in your age, weekly mileage, and it will tell you how fast you would need to run a 5k.  Then go run a 5k.  This may give you at least a ballpark figure of how close you are to a realistic shot at a BQ.