Starting Training for Blackpool

simon franklin 2

On Monday (8th March) I'm starting the 16 week training schedule for a sub 3:45 Blackpool Marathon. Having read up on it I think this is realistic for my first marathon. However, there seems to be a lot of running at paces much slower than I have been doing over the last 6 months. I know this schedule has been compiled by professionals who know what they are doing - can anyone explain why the training speeds seem so slow for most of the runs? Don't want to mess up!

[Deleted User]

In any training schedule, you need easy recovery running to alow your body to recover.
If you tried doing everything fast your body would run out of energy or you might get injured.
As the weeks pass, I'm sure your schedule will feel harder & then you will understand how it's working. This is why you have slow training runs.

If it becomes too easy maybe 3:30 is possible & you could extend some of your training runs but keeping to the overall patten of your schedule.

simon franklin 2

Thanks Tim. The pace on my first few runs seemed very slow, but the fact I am now doing 5 a week instead of 3 is already starting to tell on my 38 year old body. I hit my first tempo run yesterday too and this was hard work - I appreciated the warm up and warm down runs which I have not done in the past. I think I'll stick to a 3:45 target - looking at the 3:30 schedule it's not too different, but I just want to be realistic.

Unknown

If you type your estimated time into the pace calculator on www.mcmillanrunning.com, it will give you the recommended paces for all your training runs, if you want to double-check.

simon franklin 2

Lynnne - Thanks for that. It's very specific and helpful. I am starting to see now that I could not get through the training successfully running at my old paces, and that I don't need to in order to prepare properly. Still being slightly tempted by 3:30 though, based on my last half marathon - if I can just persuade my wife I need to train an extra day a week....

[Deleted User]

so maybe just 12 more day's in total, now that doesn't sound so bad!

simon franklin 2

You tell her!