Failed sub3 Marathon: Bad day or Bad training?

You were well-trained for a half marathon but need more mileage for a full marathon.

"I know some people who do way better half -> full conversions with much less training than that." -- Do you want to run your best marathon or be able to brag about how little mileage you run? There are no shortcuts in running, but that is especially true for marathons. If you don't put in the miles, you don't get the results.

Might be a combination of both. I think that is a pretty good time considering the volume that you put in.

Might be a bit early to say you suck.

Fueling can be fixed.

For me the problem in my focused attempt at sub3 was weather. I was ready for the "heat" (It was December in Dallas but warmer than CO where I live), but the wind did me in.

You can either give up or make some evaluation, make some changes and give it another try. You could also consider finding a coach to help you identify things. Some coaches will do a "consult" and sit down for a time to go over things (for a fee) and give some suggestions but not write a plan. Of course plenty will write the training plan for you. The advantage here is getting someone objective to review and ask questions and offer suggestions.

More 20+ milers, extend the length of the longest to 22 or 23. Not sure how much time you have to train but averaging 40 per week and maxing at 51 is not going to get sub-3 for most people. If you did 51 with 20 for the long run, that means you are averaging only five miles per day for the other six days, with 40% of your mileage from the long run. I typically aim for 20-25%.

"Felt terrible" for only six miles of MP tells me that it was not MP. It may be what you HOPED would be MP but it was too fast. You better be able to do MP for at least the first 17 miles of the marathon comfortably, uncomfortably until maybe mile 22, and painfully the final four.

The good news is your 1:18 HM indicates you definitely have the ability to go sub-3. My PR was 1:18:48 when I ran 2:51.

Thank you guys for the replies, this is actually reassuring. I am definitely willing to put in more miles and I'm slowly increasing volume month after month. Not wanting to compare myself with others or brag about low mileage, but when you don't have serious runners in your circle (like I do), others make you feel like you spend your life running, and so I tend to question my practice when I miss my goals. Feels good to get a reality check.

After my last half I thought a 1:30 half would be a walk and that I could have resisted in the last miles, so was disappointed to fall apart like that. But it is true my last long runs did not indicate good chances of going sub3. I know what to do next time.

It might’ve been a fine MP under different circumstances. Race a half one weekend and then do your longest run of the build (with quality miles included) the next? It sounds to me like your body never had a chance to recover from the half, not only for that one training run, but that kept you under-recovered all the way into race day. And that’s what your legs were telling you with 10k to go.

But I also agree with the points about more mileage helping you. Great half, though, and nice improvement for your marathon time!

You're running better halfs than fulls. so that's your answer about training. Up the mileage

But keep in mind race conditions can affect a marathon so much. I've been in similar fitness and ran 328 vs 314 on a much easier/cooler temp course.

I also ran a 5k at the end of a triathlon in truly brutal conditions. I should've stopped. Ran 24 mid. Yes. Slower than my marathon pace. Conditions matter.

I'm sure you know that a 1:18 half is way better than a 3 hr marathon, a 1:25 half should see you capable of a 3 hr marathon if you're aerobically well trained. That you can't convert it to a 3 hr marathon is down to weekly mileage pure and simple. Increase your weekly mileage with a few extra steady runs rather than increasing the length of the other runs. Extra runs per week giving you a bit more total mileage per week and 3 should be a doddle for you.

Sub 3 should be in the bag with a 1:18. Mileage is a little low. Typically see something more like 50-60mpw for sub-3. Also very possible that you left your marathon in training. Some like a half 4 weeks out. I think it's a little close to a marathon & would treat it more like a workout (10 @ GMP + 3 @ HMP or all 13 @ GMP). Then you followed that up with big long runs where you felt terrible. You probably weren't recovered. Did you do any hard running in between the 13.1 & the 20 miler?

Having been in the same boat as the OP, it’s not a huge change that needs to be done here. If you don’t want to make major changes, up your average mileage to 45 (peak 55ish). Have at least two 20 mile runs, and then three additional runs of 17+. I didn’t run half marathons but I ran under 2:57 off that on a fast course in great conditions. My debut was 3:07. I also did poorly in my last one but that’s because it was 70 degrees with 90+% humidity. So there is luck involved. But to the OP, you’re really not that far off. You just need to be slightly stronger.

I think you just need more weekly mileage.

All else being equal are you going to run a better marathon with 40-45 mpw and 20 mile long runs, or 55-60 mpw and 14 mile long runs? The latter, despite the shorter long runs because you're running so much more mileage each week.

I'd say shorten the long run by a little maybe 14 miles most of the time then max at 16 4-6 weeks out,but increase your weekly mileage. Run 7 days a week if you aren't already. Then increase the length of some of your easy runs.

With a 1:18 HM you are obviously better at shorter distances. I think most people need at least 60 miles per week to get to sub 3 hours.

Marathon running is hard and you might need a couple to get it right.

How were your workouts in the last few weeks? You say you felt terrible at MP in your last long runs, but what about other workouts? If you felt great and nailed your workouts, then recovery probably wasn’t a problem. If you didn’t feel great for workouts either, recovery probably was an issue.

And I wonder how you got the idea for doing your peak mileage 2 weeks out. I think Pfitzinger has 3 weeks out as the peak and Daniels even earlier.

To OP.

Need some more info. Nature of training routes vs marathon, i.e. flat, hilly, trail etc

% of training at goal MP (race pace)

When I was marginally sub 3, ( 18:30ish 5km through to 1:25 HM) I almost always nailed it off at least 55k-60km/week , max 80-90km

My PB's though much earlier (sub 2:30), were no higher than 120km/week, so was never a 'high' mileage runner, but my predictors were always in a straight line.

Race week prep, race day mental state, race management etc is a much much bigger factor than training miles, any day.

Your half time shows you were under trained for running for 3 hour marathon.

It could be you just didn’t run enough or the distribution of your effort wasn’t quite right for the marathon vs a half.

if you examine latter, look at time you spent at your pace/heart rate/power (whatever you use) for half marathon vs the same for marathon, and specifically your long run.

if you find you didn’t run much around steady/marathon effort, try bumping this up more. If this was comparable for the half then is a case of increasing your weekly distance/duration.

well done on your improvement

A few of the above responses are over-thinking it. Simple answer is just run more miles. If you can up it to around 70mpw, sub-3 should be no problem at all.

Thank you guys for all the replies. It's possible I didn't fully recover from racing the half and wanting to squeeze my two biggest weeks immediately after. I felt ok during mid-week workouts but I was certainly tired during long runs.

Seems that there is a consensus towards simply putting more miles. What is a reasonable timeline to go from 45mpw to, say, 60? Given that I'm not an experienced runner, only ran for 2-3 years. Six months ago, I was only running 20mpw and increased very gradually to 45. I'm taking 3 weeks off right now and then plan to increase as much as I can.

Also, I don't plan to run a marathon soon (next is summer 2024 as I have a bib for the public marathon on the Olympic course in Paris, but the course is so hilly I won't aim for a time), so I've got all the time. Want to focus on mileage as I just love running and racing shorter distances for fun.

I think maybe it was just down to low mileage. I was very similar last year in my Sub 3 attempt at Berlin (3:02, in perfect conditions and totally flat). Your HM was faster than mine of 1:20 but the mileage of 40 mpw was the same. Increase the mileage slightly and you will go sub 3 no problem. Your HM time is quality and you will probably go alot faster than Sub 3 with higher mileage.

check your iron level. Not necessarily the he reason, but no harm to check.

many said more volume. I tend to disagree. I think your fitness may have dropped after the half race, potentially due to overtraining, as the fact you struggled in your LR seems to be indication

it’s activity easy to check. Next training cycle, one or two weeks before the marathon, run a 5k race. It won’t burn you out, as you can easily recover before the marathon. It will tell if your fitness has dropped significantly after the tune up half marathon.

in general, it can be beneficial to run 5k races every now and then to check fitness levels. If you under perform, it would be sign of overtraining.

A conservative timeline would be maybe 3 months. After your 3 weeks off, get back to 45 as comfortably as you can and stay there 2 or 3 weeks, then maybe a month at 50, another month at 55, then get to 60. I wouldn't add workouts while you're building up to 60. Either add mileage, or add workouts, but not both at the same time. When you're comfortably at 60 (or better yet 70), then start adding in moderate workouts. I'd also make every 3rd or 4th week a "down" week with 75-80% of the mileage of the previous 2-3 weeks.