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Well at least you replied!

Thanks, I have been experimenting with I and T workouts during the week, trying to see what's the most effective thing I can fit in my short weekday runs. I expect if I do get to my goal, it will be a slow creeping progression until I get there.

Anyways, thanks for the link!

Hi Donald. Yes, I think as a 25 year old fit male you can run a sub-3 marathon if properly trained. Run consistently and get your weekly volume up as much as you can (ideally at least 60 miles per week, but 75-80 would be even better). Get at least two interval and/or tempo workouts in per week. Get a weekly long run in. Your work schedule is a bit crazy -- doesn't seem like you have any time for morning runs at all unless you are up at 3AM, but then you compromise your sleep and recovery.

If you review the "Training Review Requests" threads you will find a lot good of advice there. A good place to start is here: http://fastrunningblog.com/forum/index.php/topic,1744.0.html. Jon links to other good threads about training that have a lot of details about all things marathon training and getting faster. 

Back in the day, this forum was a buzzin', but unfortunately now it's mostly dead. You probably won't get much more feedback here. It's nothing personal -- people just don't use it anymore. For the few people who still blog consistently on here, you may want to follow their daily training and reach out via comments if you have questions or are looking for feedback on your own training.

Good luck. 

I have been running more seriously for a little over 2 years now, training mainly for half marathons and marathons. I recently set a personal marathon  best of 3:37:44 (St. George 2016). I have a long term goal of running a sub-3:00 marathon and I've been very committed to that for awhile. I want to face reality though. Is this goal really feasible for me? It seems a lot of the fast runners started in their teens or earlier. I started running seriously when I was 22 (now I'm 25). I did swimming/water polo in high school and non-competitive gymnastics in college, and have always maintained relatively good fitness. My training schedule is also limited. Whereas I used to have plenty of time for good early-morning training, I now have a career that keeps me away from home from 5AM to 5:30PM (with every other Friday off). I do have access to a treadmill at work, and I can probably use it for an hour at the most. I usually do a 4.5 mile route right after work near my home. I take full advantage of weekends (including my Fridays off) to run anywhere from 10-20+ miles. I am trying to learn more about effective training so I can use my time better (i.e. understanding threshold, VO2, nutrition, cross training, stretching, and such).

Anyways, that is my incoherently stated situation. Please, if you have any relevant experience or advice you'd like to share, I'm all ears. Up to now, I've been a loner (I'm not well acquainted with any elite or fast runners), and I would like to start communicating with those who know more than me.

What Jon said...

In addition - my feeling is that if 10:00 pace is not something a runner can comfortably keep, we should not be increasing the mileage. First we need to learn to run the current mileage (assuming it is something reasonable, at least 1 mile a day) at 10:00 pace. Once she is comfortable at 10:00 pace, she should up the mileage.

Consider this - a half marathon at 10:00 pace is about 2:11. So she would be running a 10 minute PR by just jogging it if all she did is run 1 mile a day at 10:00 pace, then up it to 2 miles, then 3, 4,5,6. If she is comfortable for 6 miles 6 days a week at 10:00 pace, she should have no problem keeping it up for 13, so with no speed work she gets a 10 minute PR.

I did notice some magic around this threshold over the course of the years - runners that naturally run 10:00 or faster improve a lot when they up the mileage, whereas the ones that are significantly slower do not seem to improve no matter how much they run unless they push themselves into the sub-10:00 zone. I am speculating this may have something to do with a metabolism change once you start getting yourself off the ground more.

Faith,

How much weekly mileage is she running, and how many days per week? The general feeling on the FRB is that until someone is running 60 minutes per day most days (5-6 days/week), they will get more benefit from increasing overall normal mileage rather than doing hard speedwork. I'd be particularly cautious about pushing too hard- she just did her first 5k tempo, and now she's already thinking of a workout with an 8k?

I don't know if there is much difference between the two options you present. I'd be cautious about doing a 1k all out.

Is she increasing her long runs up to 20+ miles in the build up to her marathon? And why is she planning on a 2nd marathon almost immediately after her first? It seems to me there's a high risk of injury or burnout, rather than a slow increase into a long running habit. Not saying she can't do it, but I wouldn't try it. Signing up for 2 marathons 6 weeks apart when she is still building strength/endurance just doesn't seem wise, especially since she had recent knee/hip pain and her time is relatively not too fast.

Slow increases lead to long term success. Big jumps for a new runner rarely work. Just my two cents. I encourage people to do half marathons for a while (1 year or longer) before slowly building to a marathon.

Best of luck to her! Hope it works out. I'm happy to answer more questions if you have any.

I've a friend of mine who is training for her 1st HM race in Sept 4th, she is 36 and has been running regularly since February.
She ran her first HM in 2:28h, with some walk and stretching breaks due to pain around her knees and hips. (June 18)
She tried another long long run 30 days after (her 1st 22k, July 18th) and ran the HM in 2:21:25 in it, felt much better with no stop.

Since then, she has been focused on more intervals, tempo runs, since she built the cardio-metabolic adaptation for the race distance and the confidence, now time to make it much faster.

This week, she did pyramid intervals (400-800-1200-1200-800-400) and 3 x 9' (equiv. 1miles) longer intervals in another day and need to work on continuous speed in longer runs which is the question.

a) 5k negative split warm up + 5k progressive tempo + 1k recovery + 1k all out + 1k cool down (She did her 1st 5K tempo 2 weeks ago)
b) 2k warm up + 8k progressive tempo + 1 or 2k cool down

Which one you think better? Or any better idea rather than these above?

P.S. : She will run her 1st marathon (hilly) in Oct 2nd, and 2nd marathon in Nov 15th (flat).

After my baby as far as sports bras go depending on the bra I had to double up for a few months until my baby was starting to eat solids and my supply was down. Padded sports bras were my favorite. I'm not sure on how recovery is from a c-section but because of the stress on my pelvic floor from supporting a growing baby I needed to do pelvic floor therapy to help with bladder control during my runs. (Again I'm not sure how this would be different for a c-section because some of the trauma I had was from delivery). A lot of the exercises are the same as the kegel exercises that are recommended during pregnancy. Core also helped with this but it took a while to feel comfortable because of the gap between my rectus abdomini.

I've had a C-section and a couple V-bacs and recovery was completely different for the two.  I would say you are totally safe to go out and run - it will feel awkward and you might even get some weird twinges where your scar is, but running at this point should not be harmful. I felt like my organs were going to drop out of me and like I was wearing a metal fanny pack for a good 7-10 days.  But it got easier and I got faster and built up my endurance within several months.  I definitely would start slow and easy - maybe even running with walking breaks and slowly build up your miles.  The injuries you are susceptible to after childbirth are almost always related to doing too much too soon.  I like the Moving Comfort series of supportive bras.  Running Warehouse usually has some pretty good deals and has free shipping both ways if you don't end up liking it.  Good luck and congratulations!

Yeah, clearing my cache didn't work earlier, but the page is working fine today without refreshing or clearing the cache! I think it may be because I hadn't added any text for workouts this year until the 13th? I had just been adding mileage with no comments.

I'm not a girl, so hope I'm not intruding. But my wife has had 5 kids. While nursing, she usually wears a regular bra and then 1-2 sports bras on top during runs.

Although she just got some new The North Face ones that she can wear solo.