Am I being realistic

[Royce]

I am a 44 year old guy, I ran my first marathon last December with less than 10 weeks of training. I finished just at my goal of 4 hrs.
That was the first race over 6.2 miles I had ever ran, this year I have been running the entire year, not in training mode for a marathon but for several local races in my area. I log about 30 miles per week.
Now I have decided to run the Marathon in December again but with a lot more training. This past week I ran a little over 40 miles and plan to increase to 60 per week over the next several weeks.
The goal is to make it to Boston.  My qual. time I thought was 3:20, but because I will actually be 45 when the time comes to run in Boston I guess my time is actually 3:30.
Should I continue to train as if 3:20 is my goal time? and is it even possible for me to qualify or should I shoot for next December?

[Chris M]

You might find one of Sasha's articles on this useful?

http://www.asksasha.com/Running/How-do-I-train-to-qualify-for-the-Boston-Marathon.html

also this is useful too
http://www.asksasha.com/Running/Top-10-Training-Mistakes.html

[Jeff Linger]

I think the important question to ask with that goal is are you being injury-free responsible? I have a sneaking suspicion that if you jump from 30 mpw to 40mpw to 60mpw in a matter of a few weeks you're going to get run down, exhausted all the time, and you'll probably get injured in such a way that you need to take months off, if not more. Sounds like a recipe for an overuse injury. Try to keep your weekly mileage increases to no more than 10% every 2 weeks at the most, I'd even suggest you consider every 3 weeks. Personally when building miles I don't like to go more than 10% every 4 weeks once I get into the 55pmw range.

[April G]

Royce,
I read through your PR's and what you have blogged so far.  You have enough natural speed that I don't think Boston is out of the question for December but keep in mind that by then Boston 2011 will already be filled up(it was last year by November I think) so there is no need to kill yourself over the December marathon.  Make it through December un-injured and then qualify for Boston 2012 in a spring marathon--by then you will defnitely be able to qualify no problems(in the bag). You need to be very careful about building up mileage--60 miles a week is quite significant and you should work your way there slowly.  I have had the unfortunate experience of too much too fast and paid with back to back injuries.  When I finally did come back from number two and built up ever so slowly, it was the best thing I ever did.  In fact, I haven't been significantly injured since(some niggles here and there but nothing that stopped running).  I only added 3 miles a week(one mile longer on 3 out of 6 runs and then the next week one mile longer on the other 3 and so on so forth).  I would forego speed and tempo work and all that stuff for now and just run comfortably. Although you could realisitically qualify in December, I wouldn't risk injury to do it--see how your body is doing and then make your decision, but you could wait until spring and then be in way better shape and used to the mileage and run a great marathon.  Maybe for now you could work on your other PR's and that would give you an even better gauge to use to determine what marathon time to go for.  Good luck!  I think it's great that you are an ER guy--I have been a paramedic for 8 years and have recently started work as an RN in home health(and got away from the 12 hour shifts) but I definitely miss the critical stuff and will probably go work in ER when my kids get a little older(but those blasted 12 hour shifts...).

[Royce]

Thanks April thats all good advice. My body feels good right now, I got 40 miles in this last week, my biggest down fall is running too fast during my training runs.  My MP works out to be 7:40 and from what I have read my training runs should be 1 min. to 1 1/2 min. slower, I tend to run faster because I feel good, I am working very hard on keeping my pace at 1 min. slower and this week did pretty good and feel strong today. I finished my four 12 hour shifts for the week and now have the next 6 days off, thats the good thing about 12 hr shifts you only have to work 3 days a week. Anyway plan on getting some great runs in on my time off.
And yes I am going to try to qualify in Dec. I wont kill myself trying though.  There is a BQ that I go to every year in May and if I dont qualify in Dec. maybe May will be the month for me.

[Jeff Linger]

Its ok to push some of your runs .... but it is important to train your body to improve its fat burning capacity and the pace at which your body can run and still fat burn without switching over to a more glycogen oriented burning. Although it is almost never one or the other, there will come a point in the marathon where your body runs out of most of its available glycogen and you'll switch overly almost entirely to fat burning. If you haven't trained your bodies fat burning capacity correctly you'll end up dropping your pace way off at this point in the marathon. It is for good reason that you should get a few runs a week in at this slower pace and that you should encorporate this pace into your long runs. This doesn't mean do all your long runs at this pace, or even all of the run at this pace, but make sure you're getting runs in at the slower pace.

[Michelle Lowry]

Royce, you've received some really good advice so far.  Remember that training for a marathon is alot like running a marathon--it's not about how fast you start, it's about staying power.  So injury prevention is key.  I wouldn't do any more than half of your runs faster than your easy pace.