4 hour marathon with post-half 12 wk plan?

Wendysofftoneverland

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 18, 2017
I was looking at the Jeff Galloway 12 wk plan for going from a half marathon to a full between the Wine and Dine and full marathon. I liked how it was only 3 days a week as opposed to the Hal Higdon novice 1 plan I used twice in the past. I already do high intensity cross training 1 to 3 times a week so only 3 run days would be more manageable. But there are only 3 runs longer than 14 miles. Which I liked, as I hate the long runs, but I didn't know if I would still be able to reach my goals. i am still pretty new at this, as it's is my 3rd marathon. (I did one 4 years ago and one 4 years before that. Apparently 4 years is how long it takes me to forget I hate training for a full.
 
I was looking at the Jeff Galloway 12 wk plan for going from a half marathon to a full between the Wine and Dine and full marathon. I liked how it was only 3 days a week as opposed to the Hal Higdon novice 1 plan I used twice in the past. I already do high intensity cross training 1 to 3 times a week so only 3 run days would be more manageable. But there are only 3 runs longer than 14 miles. Which I liked, as I hate the long runs, but I didn't know if I would still be able to reach my goals. i am still pretty new at this, as it's is my 3rd marathon. (I did one 4 years ago and one 4 years before that. Apparently 4 years is how long it takes me to forget I hate training for a full.

How fast have you run a recent Magic Mile, 5k, 10k, or Half Marathon? I think that would play a huge role in whether it would be enough to go sub-4.
 
It has been more than a year since I have done a race, but my magic mile was 7:06 at the end of July (which was an improvement on my 7:55 magic mile at the beginning of May when we started training).
 
It has been more than a year since I have done a race, but my magic mile was 7:06 at the end of July (which was an improvement on my 7:55 magic mile at the beginning of May when we started training).

Congrats on the improvement! That's fantastic. If you can continue to drop that MM time, then it's definitely going to increase your chances.

So on Galloway's calculator a 7:06 MM is about a 4:02 marathon when fully trained. A mile is really really hard to project to the marathon, but my initial reaction is that it isn't impossible. I used the 7:06 MM to figure out what an equivalent 5k would be (around a 23:50). If you could run a 23:50 5k, then my calculator (based on Ian Williams and Vickers data sets) suggests the following probabilities based on a normal distribution of runners who can do a 23:50 5k:

10% chance of 3:53 or better
25% chance of 4:08 or better
50% chance of 4:37 or better

The further distance you have to compare (like a 10k or HM), the better it will be able to project. The huge range given is indicative that not everyone who is capable of a 23:50 is capable of sub-4. But someone with an equal 1:49 HM would suddenly have a range of 3:48-4:02 instead of 3:53-4:37. Since your training would probably fall on the lower end of what comparable runners are doing, I would say you're probably more likely to be in the 4:37 area than the 3:53 area. Runners who fall into the top 25% area typically have these characteristics:

Ian Williams: An Updated Race Equivalency Calculator Attempt

Conclusions

The conclusions we can draw from this:

-If HM performance is equal, women are likelier to finish with a faster M time than men.
-Runners of all abilities are capable of a 1.06 or less, and roughly the top 10% of all subgroups from 1:20 HM'ers to 2:00 HM'ers were roughly the same R value (or relative performance).
-Faster runners are better converters with a lower R overall average. Makes sense then why Rigel came up with 1.06 since the elite runners available to him would have been a similar pool to the faster runners in Williams dataset.
-Runners on the slower side of the HM performances tend to have more variability as a group because of the bad converters in their groups, not because of the lack of good converters. So more people on the slower side of HM performance training inappropriately for marathon performance.
-Roughly 5:00 to 5:30 hours per week on average for a marathon training plan is considered "typical" or "sufficient" by Williams.
-Those who run more than 5:00-5:30 hours per week are more successful at being good converters than are runners who run less than 5:00-5:30 hours per week.
-Those who do 5L around 100 barely appear different than those around lesser or higher numbers. The 5L would suggest it is lower on the predictive nature than other variables.
-Those who have 5L be a lower % of total mileage from 16 weeks tend to be the best converters. The faster runners also tend to be the ones with lower %5L values. Relying less on the long runs and more balance yields a better relative performance.
-Those who train at 40-80 seconds slower than race pace more often than not will be a good converter and have a R less than 1.15.

So based on this information, I'd say you're probably going to need more training than the 12 week Galloway 3-day plan to go sub-4 based on your current fitness. By no means a guarantee, but you would be an outlier in the data set.
 


Thank you so much for all the info. I decided to do the Hal Higdon Novice 2 instead. Got my Magic Mile down to 6:51 and did a 1:59 virtual half, so I still have some work to do if I want to get a sub-4 full.
 
Got my Magic Mile down to 6:51 and did a 1:59 virtual half, so I still have some work to do if I want to get a sub-4 full.

Awesome job! This is where the data says you sit right now:

Based on mile

10% chance of 3:45 or better
25% chance of 4:09 or better
50% chance of 4:53 or better

Based on HM

10% chance of 4:10 or better
25% chance of 4:15 or better
50% chance of 4:24 or better

So I think the data is pretty clear. You have plenty of speed (6:51 mile), but need endurance at this point. So that endurance will come from training slow and enough. The HH Nov 2 (https://www.halhigdon.com/training-programs/marathon-training/novice-2-marathon/) is ok. I'd say it's too early for me to say if it is enough. I'd probably put you in the 4:00-4:15 area on an ideal day and using the HH Nov 2 plan as an educated guess. This is where I calculate your training paces at:

Screen Shot 2020-10-12 at 6.42.26 AM.png

So on Tues/Thurs, run at 10:40-11:20 pace. On Saturday, run at 10:20 pace. On Wednesday pace days, run at 9:30 pace. Going slower than these paces is ok, but I wouldn't go faster than these. It'll sound completely counterintuitive, but "Train slow to race fast".
 

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