So how am I doing?

[Brice]

First off congratulations to all of you on this site who ran very well this past week at the Ogden Marathon.  Very impressive times with honest and inspiring race reports.  With that said I could use some advice.  I have taken what many of you have said and have been consistent with my training, running 6 days a week and getting in decent mileage.  I am now wondering if I need to start adding any other workouts into my training or continue to hold steady.  I know the conservative answer will be to continue to build my mileage and that is fine, I am just asking the question because at my current pace, I feel really good and feel as if I could do more.  I don't however want to be naive and injure myself by doing speed types of training before I am ready.  So I guess my question is this, should I be adding some type of tempo / speed / hill workouts to my training at this point or wait?  And if I do wait when would be a good time to start this.  My goals are to run a marathon this fall, maybe Phili or Baltimore, I think they are both around November.  I would also like to do it in around 3:30 or so, this will be my first marathon so I am not sure what a realistic goal is but I have confidence in my ability for that time.  I have been getting about 40 miles per week in now with my longest run being 11 miles.  I had to take 2 running days off a few weeks ago because of a quad bruise, other then that I have been consistent.  I am increasing my mileage using ruffly the 10% rule of thumb that someone hear had mentioned and should get in about 45 miles this week and the next.  I have definitely approached my training this time as a lifestyle choice rather then a means to an end and have been loving the process.  I look forward almost everyday to my runs, almost to the point where my wife is sick of hearing me talk about it.  I do appreciate any advice, help and support anyone can give. 

[Jon Allen]

Brice

I just looked through your last month of training.  Good job on consistently getting 6 miles almost every day.  It may be hard, but keep doing your gradual increase- 45 miles for the next 2 weeks is great.  At this rate, you should be up to 55-60 mpw or so by the end of July.  As for workouts- if you feel you want to add a bit of speed, then go for it.  Have fun.  But keep it low key.  Your May 3 workout was a good example- you felt good, so you picked up the pace at the end of the run. 

Specifically, I would recommend adding some easy fartleks or tempo runs if you want a bit of speed.  It could be as simple as doing an 8 mile run with the first 3 miles easy (~8:00 pace), then pick up the pace for 2-3 miles (~6:30-7 min pace), then 2 miles cool down.  Or you could do some little pickups in the middle of a run- like run fast for one block, then do that again a few minutes later.  Nothing formal like intervals on the track or anything, but you can certainly mix it up for fun.  As for hills, just run some routes with hills in them.  Again, I would not suggest doing repeats up a hill, but just run a hilly route and push the pace a little on the uphills.  It is generally not recommended to add speedwork at the same time you are increasing miles, but as long as you just add some pretty easy, fun speedwork, you should be fine.  Finally, make sure that your other days are even easier- you'll start having some harder days and some easier days.  Make the easy days easy.

[Sasha Pachev]

3:30 in the marathon is only 8:00 pace. You seem to have no struggle with it at all, and were able to run a mile in the middle of your run in 6:21 on a whim. So you have plenty of speed for 3:30, if it does not happen it would be because you would not have had enough base (or if you happen to be very sick the day of the race). I would say do not worry about speed, if you feel feisty, do what Jon told you to do, but do not feel like you have to, and particularly avoid it if it starts affecting your ability to run your base mileage.