Hi, I came across a link to your journal on the 2018 Marathon thread. Thank you you so much for sharing your story here. I enjoyed reading your Dopey recap so much and then was wowed to realize how far you've come in just a few years.
Hi
@Andie16 thanks for reading! I enjoy sharing my story. I like to show the path I blazed and how it's possible that no where you are now there's a definite possibility you can go further and faster if that's what you want for yourself. It's nice to have a place where people are genuinely interested.
Thank you for being so encouraging to runners of all speeds and not forgetting where you started from!
The way I look at it is that we're all working hard at our goals on a hobby we love. Regardless if you're aiming for a podium, back of the backer or a first timer, we all deserve the respect and encouragement from one another in this community. We're all trying to better ourselves and if there's anything I can do to help others reach their personal goals, then I'm there for them.
I am wondering what you'd recommend for a runner who just completed a first marathon and wants to get faster. I ran my first marathon last weekend and had thought it would be one and done, but it was such an amazing experience that I was planning a 2020 race at the finish line. I ran by feel and surprised myself with a 4:02. I finished so strong that I know I was very close to breaking 4 hours, so now I want to work toward that. Since I am hoping to return to Disney Marathon Weekend in 2020, I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to spend 2018 working on my speed? I am thinking about doing some 10K training, then moving up to a fall half marathon to get a solid POT for Disney 2020. Just wondering whether you think working on speed is effective at this level or whether I should just focus on adding mileage and sticking with long races? Thank you
Some questions to help me figure out what would be best (these are some of my standard questions when writing a training plan for someone). Feel free to answer them here or you can send me a PM. Although your responses and my replies may help others who are reading but may be nervous to reach out.:
1) What are your lifetime PRs?
2) What are all of your race times in the last year? If any of the races had extenuating circumstances (weather, sick, super hilly, etc.) as to why they are not a good judge of your fitness please include that information as well.
3) What went wrong in your best races? What held you back from doing better? Did you feel the reason you couldn't go faster was because a) you were out of breath, b) your legs felt dead tired, or c) some other reason/combination of the two?
4) Have you had any recent injuries or do you feel over the long term you are injury prone?
5) If you've suffered chronic or a recent injury was the cause running related (because we want to avoid it then)?
6) How many and which days are you willing to run each week? How much time on those specific days are you willing to devote to running? (Most important question, so the more detailed response the better.)
7) Why do you enjoy running? What is your motivation to run?
8) Why have you chosen the goals you've chosen?
9) What other training plans have you used in the past?
10) If I told you to run as slow as you can, how fast would you be running? This would be at a pace where you're barely breathing differently than normal walking. It feels like you're barely trying.
11) Explain your Marathon Weekend 2018 training that led to your 4:02 marathon. What was the days per week? What was the pace you were running at on the majority of those days? What was the duration of your training runs on a daily basis? On a weekly basis, how many hours were you spending training?
12) How long have you been running for? How many races have you completed? Estimate how many career miles you have.
13) Ultimately, what is your "A" goal for running?
14) What are some of your other running goals?
I think this is a good starting point for me to learn about you as a person and as a runner. From there, I can start to see a path that can best help you.
Wow! Can’t wait to see how this training cycle goes for you. It’s also super interesting to see how you put together a plan — who doesn’t love a good behind the scenes look?
Thanks! Sounds like I need to write that "How to" when I find some time.
Hello again! I've been slacking off a bit on catching up with the Internet since the holiday/marathon, but I was looking forward to reading your reports! I wasn't disappointed
- really enjoyable reading in the trip and race reports. Most of all, your performances were also great - like I said to you on the marathon course, your 10k was the race of your life (so far!) and I still can't fathom how tough on the body doing Dopey must be. 20th out of 7,500+ Dopey runners is phenomenal.
Thanks for reading! That 10k was such a phenomenal feeling. It's one of those races that really makes you appreciate all the time spent training. I was happy to keep the ball rolling and nail some great races after that on some of the most tired legs I've ever dealt with during Dopey.
It was great running with you for the early, easy miles. I didn't pull ahead too deliberately - maybe I got a little excited with the prospect of running through a themepark for the first time, but when it happened I figured I would see you again soon enough,
It was such a pleasure getting the opportunity to run with you as well. Don't even worry about pulling forward. You were certainly fresher than me and that allowed you that little extra boost. I was so excited for you because at the paces we were running I had a good feeling about your race.
as I needed to take off my long sleeve top and get down to my singlet as I was getting quite warm. I ended up doing that in the portaloos after mile 8, and it seemed like it took a million years to do. What I really should have done was pull over to the side of the road, quickly strip and change. Nobody would have cared, and I wouldn't have wasted so much time and maybe stayed with you.
Ugh, yea what a time suck. I'm sure more than anything it was frustrating.
According to the Strava flyby I nearly caught up with you, about 30 seconds behind you around then.
I really enjoyed watching the Strava flyby post race. It was crazy to see the two of us (and Jaime Dawes) separated by seconds for the majority of a 26.2 mile race. Little surges here and there and all that. It was so cool.
You probably would have left me not long after that anyway, I wasn't feeling fantastic by the time we got to AK (though I was mostly maintaining pace). I was broken by the time we were coming out of WWOS, I was literally falling apart when you saw me on the screen
Ah well. Maybe my race would have been a little different had I stuck with you properly, but probably not. Your own race sounded quite tough, kudos on finishing relatively strong.
Yea, it's hard to say because part of the marathon can be so mental. To have each other to lean on may have made it slightly easier on us. But it's so hard to say. I felt physically I didn't have much left.
Despite the flatness I don't think Disney is too fast a course and all that standing around at the start can't help.
Agreed. There are portions that make it a fast course (the weather on this day and the general flatness of the course). But those theme parks are real time sucks and mileage eaters. Because there are so many tight turns it makes it near impossible to run a good tangent at a fast pace in there. And I'm not a big fan of breaking pace which those tight turns force. So relatively speaking, it's hard to nail that perfect race because you're virtually guaranteed to run a little extra distance even if there are no crowding issues and all that slowing and surging.
The other funny thing that happened in the stadium apart from being spotted by you on the screen was when I was running past the crowd, and the announcer shouted out "And it's Brian From Ireland!". I was like "wow, is that somebody from Disboards?" but then realised that I am actually Brian from Ireland and that's a reasonable thing for a race commentator to describe me as
LOL, if that doesn't describe marathon brain then I don't know what does.
The clock on the mile markers got me too, though it meant a lot less to me. In the last few miles I was trying to push myself a bit to keep pace to make <3:20, and using the time on the mile markers to figure out the required pace I reckoned I could make it. Not that I could have pushed myself much harder, but I remember being a little confused about how I'd lost a minute so quickly when I finished in 3:21 (though mostly I was relived to not be running any more
).
Such a bummer. In hindsight, I'll remember to set my GPS with total time. Agreed on the feeling of just being finish with it.
I would have loved to chat to you more after the race, though I think neither of us were really in any mood at the time!
Tired. Just so tired in those moments right after the race ended. But it was certainly nice to meet up afterwards.
My not-as-informed-as-you critique on your training plan is there's not enough shorter races? I find regular 5ks at near race effort a great way to mix things up and maintain some race sharpness. I'm pretty spoiled with easy access to timed runs here (I can jog to two free 5ks every Saturday morning!) so maybe you'd be left with time trials which are just no fun.
That's a fair critique. I spend a lot of time training vs racing (like 99% vs 1% based on duration). I mostly avoid the shorter distances because I'm not nearly a fan of them. I like my long moderate effort based runs. Those short speed workouts are a real killer. But because I dislike them and because they are difficult for me is exactly the reason I've focused my Spring 2017 and Spring 2018 training on it. Work on the things you don't like to make them "easier".
Such a luxury having those park runs in your area. Certainly don't have anything like that around here (at least not that I've found or hear about). Most 5ks here are about $30 which is quite a bit of money for something so short unless I'm really looking to focus on it.
As for our paths crossing again... maybe Boston in 2020?
Done and done! Tickets and hotel booked! Ok, so not really... But in my mind, I'm there.
When/if you decide to visit one of the European marathons in the future I'll see how that fits into my own plans
- I did apply to Berlin for next year but lost out on the draw, I'd love to do Berlin/London/Rotterdam at some stage.
Well that's Phase 2 of my running career. Phase 1 was to qualify for Boston. Phase 2 is to get out there and do different races. As far as European, the goal is London first. I've got family in Paris so that's on the list too. Overall,
London
Paris
Athens
Berlin
Skarkasse 3-Laender Marathon
Marathon du Medoc
Reykjavic Marathon
This is a lifetime list, so I'm sure it will be a while. Maybe I need to add Dublin too!
