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Not so speedy
Big Bertie
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in Training
Now on my third week of training (training for Madrid on 30th April, not London) but am really struggling with the speed work.
The longer runs are not a problem, 7m midweek in sub 49min and the longer weekend runs comfortably inside the 'target' times. But I'm really struggling with the speedwork. Last night when attempting a mile fast followed by 400m recovery, I could only manage mile times of 6:07, 6:20 and 6:17 - some way short of the 6:00 target time.
My marathon PB is 3:19 (London 2003) where I did hardly any speedwork (a 5 mile run around the 32 minute mark was the fastest I'd run during training)
I'm currently working to the sub 3:15 schedule - any ideas how I can modify the schedule to improve the speedwork, without compromising the longer runs?
The longer runs are not a problem, 7m midweek in sub 49min and the longer weekend runs comfortably inside the 'target' times. But I'm really struggling with the speedwork. Last night when attempting a mile fast followed by 400m recovery, I could only manage mile times of 6:07, 6:20 and 6:17 - some way short of the 6:00 target time.
My marathon PB is 3:19 (London 2003) where I did hardly any speedwork (a 5 mile run around the 32 minute mark was the fastest I'd run during training)
I'm currently working to the sub 3:15 schedule - any ideas how I can modify the schedule to improve the speedwork, without compromising the longer runs?
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Comments
I think the McMillan calculator is very good and might be worth a visit for calculating your next speed session.
If you've already done 3.19 without speedwork, why bother? It doesn't take much to knock a few minutes off on the day. Everything depends on the weather, just hope for cool conditions..Madrid will be warmer than London I suspect.
IMHO the longer runs are more important
I haven't done any since November - right now I still focussing on endurance and threshold. I think your past experience also goes to show that you don't need speedwork to get through a marathon quite briskly.
Have you tried doing the speedwork in a group? When I joined a track session with a club, I found it much easier to meet target pace.
6 minute miling sounds too fast for a 3:15 marathon schedule. (It is the equivalent of Paul Tergat trying a session of 3x mile in 3:50!!)
If you are following the RW schedule, it says mile reps OR 6 minute efforts (not mile reps IN 6 minutes). I reckon 6:30 miling would be plenty fast enough.
Good luck