after running a half marathon this past january, and being mostly happy and encouraged by my effort, i took the plunge and signed up for a fall marathon. i have been thinking about trying another marathon (last one was 1990) for the past several years, but frankly didn't feel like making the commitment. from past experience, i know that there is alot of time and effort that goes into training, and i have finally decided to give it a go. the race is nearby, smallish in size, and supposed to be mostly flat and fast. i am aiming for 3:15 or so marathon time.

after the half i took 3 weeks off, and then started back with easy training. mostly doing 30 to 35 mile weeks until i went on vacation late march/early april. i missed 5 days out of my 15 day trip and ran low miles the days i did run. also ate poorly and drank and smoked like a fool. since returning from my trip i have gotten back into serious training and have logged 40 and 45 mile weeks. i would like to get weekly mileage up to 75 miles or so eventually.

my most immediate goals:

keep increasing weekly mileage
try to eat better
slow down the beer drinking
avoid injury

races on my schedule:

may 25...10 miler.... hometown
june 22...5k... in the neighborhood
july 4... 4miler
august 4...10k
late august... half marathon...maybe

last three days:

4/21...5.5 miles

4/22...6.5 miles...tired/ dead legs

4/23...7.5 miles...felt great/real easy

dealing with some left groin pain/tightness these days. not debilitating but not real comfortable either. actually feels ok when i'm moving faster/stretching out. self massage seems to help some.

4/24 - 4 miles easy

4/25 - 6 miles easy

4/26 - 11 miles @ 87 min. felt best the last few miles

4/27 - 4 miles...easy

4/28 - 5.5 miles...also helped my brother move and played 9 holes...dragging ass that evening

4/29 - 6.5 miles... slow, sore all over

4/30 - 7.5 miles... plus 2x 200 striders...felt pretty good today 2nd 200 felt like one of my fastest in recent memory.

need to get to the track for some interval work

What types of things are you doing to accomplish your goal of staying injury free? Strengthening exercises after runs can help a bunch. Looks like your loggin in some solid mileage already and have plenty of time to progress. GL

basically just slowed down a little bit, and taking it easy when i'm not feeling great. I do some push-ups and planks, along with a few other assorted exercises. I warm up a lot more than I used to pre-run. feet, ankles, calves, knees, quads, and hammies are all good. some lingering groin and low abdomen tightness/soreness...sort of comes and goes. been using the foam roller and tennis ball as best as I can.

5/1 - 6+ miles at easy pace, plus 4x 200 striders

5/2 - 5.5 miles easy

5/3 - 12.5 miles @98 minutes. ran in a cool breezy drizzle for all of it but the last ten minutes. felt really good/comfortable.

5/4 - 5 miles easy

5/5 - 5+ miles total...2 miles warm-up jog, 2x 1k @ 3:45, 3:47 w/400m jog between. jog half mile, 1 mile @ 6:20, jog half mile. legs were getting a little tired towards the end.

got a little sidetracked this past weekend

5/6 - 6.5 miles...slow

5/7 - 7+ miles...6 miles slow then 4 x 400 @ 82 sec, 82s, 76s, 76s.

5/8 - 5.5 miles...2 miles in the middle at 13: 20

5/9 - 5.5 miles...slightly quicker than normal. around 7:30 pace for the whole thing

5/10 - 3 miles or so jog/walk...back was super tight, never loosened up, actually quite painful. have had back issues for years, sotra comes and goes randomly, but this was the worst in quite some time. usually any tightness goes away after a half mile or so, not today.

5/11 - 5+ miles... felt fine?

5/12 - 10 miles @ 80 min. really didn't feel very good. tight/heavy legs?

5/13 - 5.5 miles easy...felt good again? probably did too much fast stuff early last week.

5/14 - 7.5 miles...easy

5/15 - 5 miles... 1.5 miles warm-up jog, 2 miles @ 13:02, 1 mile jog, 4 x200 strides

5/16 - 4.5 miles... a bit faster than normal, maybe 7:40 pace or so. no watch though.

5/17 - 9.5 miles...first 5 miles @36:00...8.5 miles @60:50...cool down jog/walk...4 x 200 strides. had good legs today. felt light on my feet and had good energy.

5/18 - 4.5 miles...slow, felt a bit stiff

5/19 - 4 miles...somewhat hung over, hot, humid, felt ok actually

5/20 - 5+ miles, plus 4 x 200. really tight back, kind of a struggle

5/21 - 5+ miles...3.5 slow jog, 1 mile @ 6:28, 1/2 mi slow jog

5/22 - 7.5 miles...miles 6 and 7 @13:58...looking for 7 min/mile pace, went 7:08, 6:50. close enough I guess.

next two days will be short miles. 10 mile race sat. not really sure what to expect, maybe 68:30?

5/23 - 5 miles... easy, plus 2x 400 striders

5/24 - 3.5 miles...slow

5/25 - 10 mile race...68 minutes flat, 6:48/mi pace. mostly even splits, (6:45ish), except for the first mile (6:57), and mile 8-9 (7:12) which had a long uphill. passed a couple of runners with about a half mile left and finished strong. nice day for a race 50F, cloudy, and not much wind.

29/476 overall
6/43 age group (50-54)

fwiw....

5/26 - 4 miles+...slow...a bit tight in my quads

5/27 - 5 miles+...slow, tight

5/28 - 3.5 miles, plus 2x 200...quads still sorta tight

5/29 - 3.5 miles...ok

5/30 - 5 miles+...slow

5/31 - 8.5 miles, plus 2x 200...best day of the week by far

6/1 - 5 miles+...felt good

6/2 - 5 miles+...started really good, ran out of steam towards the end

6/3 - 5 miles...1.5 easy jog, 2 miles at 13:00 min, 1.5 miles easy jog

6/4 - 6.5 miles+...foot work felt out of sync/rhythm, yet the workout seemed ok??

been mostly going pretty easy the last ten days. with a couple of shorter races coming up, I guess I will start focusing on more speed type workouts.

6/5 - 7.5~ miles total. 5 miles easy, followed by 3 x long hills (500ish yards), and 3 x 200 striders. semi hard both up and down the hills, and the strides.

6/6 - 5 miles in the rain...blah

6/7 - 10 miles @ 81:00...dead legs/tired

6/8 - 4 miles easy...still sort of tired/tight

6/9 - 6 miles. 2 miles easy jog to the track. 3 x 1k w/ 600 between, @ 4:00, 3:55, 3:52. 1 mile+ jog.

6/10 - 6 miles easy. started out w/ tight back, finished feeling ok.

6/11 - 6 mile bike ride, easy. 3.5 miles run. 6 x 200 strides.

6/12 - 7 miles. 5 miles with the last 2 @ 6:35, 7:02. walk/jog 8 minutes. 1 mile @6:10. slow jog 1 mile.

That's actually an impressive training pace assuming your distance is accurate. You didn't state your age. 3:05 is not out of the question. That's a Boston Q for men under 35-years of age. It would require you run a smart and perfect race. That means even paced miles. It would seem slow during the first half of the race. Will not be easy during the second half of the race. The other runners are mostly slowing down during the second half of the race. During the first half you must run with the pack. During the second half you must be passing the pack.
Run 2 or 3 miles of your long runs at 7:00 per mile. Attempt this after mile 5. 3:05 is 7:03 per mile.

Your log looks pretty well varied with faster running while still focusing on keeping the aerobic mileage fairly high.

6/13 - 5 miles...slower

6/14 - 13 miles+... 12.5m @ 95:50, walk a couple of minutes, jog 1/2 mile or so. miles 10 and 11 @ 14:05.

6/15 - 3.5 miles easy

6/16 - 6.5 miles+...2 miles slow jog to the track, 2x 1k @ 3:50 and 3:46, w/400 jog between. followed by 4x 400 @ 84 seconds, 85s, 84s, 83s, with 200 jogs between. easy 1.5 mile or so back home. legs felt like noodles after the second 1k, hence the shift to 400's. also, kind of warm and humid. made for a tough workout.

6/17 - 6 miles easy

What time are you aiming for in the marathon?

I had hoped to hit 3:15 or so.

I haven't posted for a while, as I have been busy with some other projects. so here's an update.

I finally hit 50 miles this week with a long run yesterday of 17.7 miles in just under 2:16, with a water stop of about 1 minute around mile 12.5. I had set out to do 18 miles or 2:15 whichever came first, so I was mostly on schedule. I ran about 4 miles this morning to shake out the tightness and the run felt okay.

unfortunately, I am about three weeks behind where I wanted to be, due to three low mileage weeks early in july. between being busy and a bit of a heat wave around here, I missed out on some quality/long runs, and with only 5 weeks left I doubt I can make up those lost miles. I am planning on running a 20ish miler next Friday, then back off the next week, and try for a 22 to 24 mile long run the third week. I was hoping to get at least one run at the whole marathon distance, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen.

for the time being I will just keep on grinding along.

GL with the race. Don't beat yourself up about the lost mileage. You can only effect the future training sessions.

I went out for my 20 miler on 8/23 and it turned into a bit of a disappointment. early on I could sense that my legs were a bit dead and the heat/humidity was more than I would have liked. I made it to 17 miles in a shade under 2:16, but was pretty much spent. I walked/jogged about 2 more miles and called it a day.

jump to last Friday, 8/30...I had planned to go for another 20 miler, but I got an email from the race organizers on Thursday, saying that they were having a course "test drive" on Saturday. they have had several of these earlier and I figured I would skip Friday's run and give it a go. (I did do an 18 mile bike ride on Friday) well I woke up to heavy thunderstorms on Saturday so had to skip that group run.

so today I finally got my 20 miler done. the weather was almost perfect (cool) and I felt much better than last week. not feeling too bad after the fact although I did get a bit of a hot spot on one of my toes. may go for one more long run next sunday/Monday.

20 miles in 2:33:55

ran the marathon yesterday (9/22) and posted a time of 3:26:43.

6/85 age group (50-54)
143/1318 finishers

I knew going in that I wasn't prepared for this race, but I figured I would give it a go. weather was nice and cool (mid 40's) at the start rising to the mid 60's with light winds.
I clicked along right on 7:30 pace for 21 miles or so then started to fade. mile 22 had probably the biggest/most hilly section that came at a really bad time. from mile 23 on my legs (mainly hip flexors/ abductors) were locking up, forcing me to slow down to a jog/walk strategy. when I was running I could still move along okay, but just couldn't maintain the running for more than a half mile or so at a time. some friends at the finish said I was running okay at the finish line, but looked pretty stiff legged. to tell the truth, I just about went down about 20 yards from the finish line. I found it sort of odd that I didn't really feel that bad, other than my legs tying up. just a bit stiff/sore in the calves and upper thighs today. didn't suffer from any blisters, or chafing of any kind. I went for an easy bike ride this morning that didn't feel bad at all!

ultimately, I didn't have the base miles under my belt to run the pace I wanted. I only had three weeks of low 50's miles, when I would have liked to have been firmly in the 60's (mpw), if not more.

the only real positive is that somehow I have managed to qualify for the boston marathon.

onward...

Congrats on qualifying for Boston! Did you register for it and if so, what time are you shooting for?

after checking the boston marathon website, it appears that my time qualifies me for 2015, as 2014 registration had already closed. april 2015 is a long way off and i'll be 56years old by then. i'll probably register once they open it up, but who knows if i'll still be running long distances by then.

Of course you will.

thought I would re-visit this thread, and change the name to "training and racing towards 2015 boston marathon"...(but I don't know how to do that)

after a pretty uninspired fall and winter of running, where I either missed or blew off several races, I was finally back to training with some purpose this spring. then, a good friend called and requested my help with his business. (someone got hurt...blah, blah, blah) well my training went into the crapper for about a month and I found myself drinking and smoking way, way too much. I went from a nice stretch of 45 to 50 mile weeks, down to 15 to 20 miles/week. my speed and fitness were at a six year low by mid june. I remember telling my wife after several runs how I was gasping for air...not good.

well the last six weeks have been a pretty major turn around and I feel I am back on track for the most part. weekly mileage has been increasing, intervals are getting closer to what I want, and I have put in a few decent long runs. drinking has moderated and no more smoking. overall my body has been feeling better other than some off and on back tightness, which has been an issue forever.

so today I signed up for a half marathon on 9/21 (same races as my marathon last sept) and according to the boston site, I can sign-up for the 2015 marathon on 9/10. the plan is to run two other halfs...one in November and one in January, then train into the marathon in april. I can only hope the winter is not as brutal as last year.

near term goals:
8/8-long run 12+ miles
8/15-long run 13+ miles
8/22-long run 14+ miles
8/29-cut back 9 or 10 miles
9/5- long run 15 miles

Back problems can come from weak glutes. Are core work and one legged squats part of your weekly workouts?

What time do you need to hit for a BQ?