Fast Running Blog

I need some advice. I told my brother-in-law that if he qualified for Boston I'd run it with him. Well, Sunday he qualified. His plan is to simply enjoy Boston. For him that means hitting 7:45s-8:00s. Part of me is ok with this, part of me feels that if I'm going to do a marathon I should go for my best effort. Last year I returned to training probably a bit too soon after the marathon and had some minor injury issues that put me out for about 5 weeks. I should say that prior to the marathon I made the mistake of bumping from 45mpw to 60-65 mpw in about 2-3 weeks. Oops! This was probably the biggest contributor to my injury. Here's my two-fold question. If I go for my best effort, how soon after this could I return to full racing? I've been back to 55-65 mpw now for about 6 weeks and plan to maintain that mileage on a continual basis. I'm interested in doing the Indianapolis 500 1/2 marathon the first week in May. I think if I give Boston my best it would be inadvisable to do this 1/2. However, if I run Boston side-by-side with my brother-in-law would I need to do the same sort of post-Boston recovery that I would need to do if I went for my best? And as a general question, what does everyone think about simply enjoying the scenery and event of Boston instead of trying to have a great race. I'm of the opinion that 1 marathon a year is more than enough for me, but I also do not have a need to do marathons. I'm probably more content to focus on 5ks-1/2 marathons over peaking for an annual marathon.

I paced my brother through his first marathon this year in Oklahoma City and it was tough to go so slow, but nice to be there for him.  However, your situation is quite different because your brother is more accomplished than my brother.  Whatever you decide, I think you have plenty of time to get ready for Boston if you desire to, especially given your base. 

Yeah, I'm not worried about preparing for Boston. I could simply maintain what I'm currently doing and start adding some 15-20 milers in every other Saturday a couple months out. My real concern is what sort of recovery I would need if I chose to simply run it easy and where running it easy would put me in terms of doing some May and June races.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.  If you hold back, I personally think you would have time to recover in 2 weeks.  That is if the pace is really is more like a good training run, you wouldn't really need to taper either.

I don't know what your normal marathon pace is, but if the pace of the guy your running with at Boston is in the range of what you would run a normal 20M easy run at, then go for it. You won't have a recovery any different than you would after a long Sat/Sun run. My longest training run has been 24 miles done at 6:50-7:00 pace which for me is my easy pace. I felt none of the typical marathon recovery issues. You should be fine for the 1/2 three weeks later.

I said that if I did another marathon I'd try to crack 3 hours. My first, and only one was 3:11. 7:45s would be a standard, even slower than normal, LSD run.