re: Official Running Log/Marathon Training Thread

Congrats. Awesome race man !!

Very nice half

quote:

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Found a guy planning a similar pace and stuck with him the whole way.

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This is what I typically do on my races, and I never know if I'm annoying the other guy or not by using him as a pacer.

Anyone else randomly apply for the Chicago Marathon and get accepted this morning?

It’s the big city Marathon I want to run the most but damn it’s too early in the Fall and I’m not ready to commit to hardcore Marathon training through the entire South La summer.

That said, I’m trying to decide on a race around Thanksgiving with a BQ in mind and my choices are narrowed down to:

Tucson Marathon - BQ friendly, 2K of elevation loss, downhill. Small race, boring course and this is from someone who loves AZ.
CIM - BQ friendly, net downhill but has some rolling hills at the beginning. Huge race for BQ, OTQ, PR’s, etc. No guarantee I can get in.
St. Jude - Course changes every year so not sure how it will look, although it’s usually relatively easy. It’s closest to me logistically (which isn’t a huge deal, willing to travel) and seems to be a great experience.

As far as weather for the races I’d rank them based on history - Tucson, CIM, STJ.

Anybody ever used findmymarathon.com? Awesome site, gives a ton of info on each race.

Using my most recent HM time of 1:29:30 and my negative split first Full of 3:27:XX in Jan, where I feel like I held back and ran extremely conservative, I think I’m pretty close to a BQ fitness now. 3:10:00 standard for my AG. It doesn’t mean I can match this fitness for an early December race, but that’s the goal.

That said, I haven’t ran in 2 weeks recovering from COVID. Today will be my first easy easy attempt. No pressure/rush to get back to a plan or anything. The races mentioned above puts my 20 weeks out around August.

Do y’all think this elevation loss with demolish my quads? Is it cheating? Haha! The dudes on LetsRun say you gotta carry an asterisk if you BQ/PR it. Good thing about my new NordicTrac track is I can build this course in Google Maps and run it on the treadmill and it will adjust elevation (it has incline to 40% and decline to 6%) accordingly. It’s an unmatched way to get course experience without running it in person. Also my quads are pretty strong and I do and will continue to do strength work, with some more downhill focused stuff once I start the plan.

Every time I read Let’sRun I leave depressed

You will just have to prepare for it. I would build in some downhill work and lower body strength work 2-3 times per week. Heavy back and front squats (3 sets of 5-8 reps) with a barbell and some Bulgarian split squats (3 sets of 10-12 reps) with dumbells. Plus, heavy deadlifts at least once a week to avoid muscle imbalances.

Yo roots

don't let the 2k elevation loss over 26 miles deter you. yes you will feel it when done but that much loss isn't that bad. when people talk about quad destruction from downhill think mountain trail race where you drop 1-2k in 3-5 miles multiple times.

I'd run st judes just because who the race benefits!

watch closely to the BQ times that will be set for this year's race as 3:10 ain't gonna cut it. as of now if the race happens in oct the field will be 20k. in 2019 the field was 31.5k. if field size for 2022 is the same expect maybe 3:00ish to actually get you in the race. but we'll see what happens in a couple of months. I'm in the same age group with 3:10 BQ time. I "should be" safe with a 2:55 race time.

altitude affects everyone a little differently but I don't think you will have any issue at 5k. I've done a few races that were at 5k and higher with no acclimation. I only got a headache at one, which raced b/w 8 and 10k