Seeking Advice

[itsd2001]

Hi,

I have registered for :

1. 30K Around the bay "Hamilton-Canada" on April 30 and
2. Boston Marathon on April 21

I am looking for advice on how to run these two races ?

Thinking to do Around the bay 30K at my marathon pace and race Boston ? Is this OK or is too much that I can't recover before Boston.

My PB marathon is 3:07 "last year in Boston" and looking to break the three hour one day .....

Thanks
John

Read more: http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read. ... z2wtOt4HdK

[Double Bellybuster]

Hi,

I have registered for :

1. 30K Around the bay "Hamilton-Canada" on April 30 and
2. Boston Marathon on April 21

I am looking for advice on how to run these two races ?

Thinking to do Around the bay 30K at my marathon pace and race Boston ? Is this OK or is too much that I can't recover before Boston.

My PB marathon is 3:07 "last year in Boston" and looking to break the three hour one day .....

Thanks
John

Read more: http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read. ... z2wtOt4HdK

Good luck John. I have had great luck running ATB at sub-MP leading up to later spring marathons. But I am a slower runner than you.

[Nicholas]

I assume that Boston is your A race of the two since you intend to race it. There are many stories of people who have tried to race both and it destroyed their Boston race. ATB is three weeks before Boston...so that is when you would normally have your last long run before tapering. So, would your training plan be to do that at MP or take it a bit easier? I think the answer depends on your recovery capabilities but I would personally want to treat Hamilton more like a normal long run. Boston is a hard enough race without going into it less than 100%. A few years ago I did race ATB and then hit my goal time in a marathon 5 weeks later, with a solid 30K training run (15 secs per K slower than MP) in between. But that is not quite your scenario.
I think we have some folks on here who have done both events back to back but I can't remember what their plans were or what happened to them.....

[Jwolf]

Paging Robbie-T....

[Mark.AU]

6/10 for the obvious back door brag. Someone that qualifies for Boston - at Boston - knows the answer to your question already.

[ultraslacker]

welcome to RM! I can't help you with your question because I'm too slow and a slacker! Robbie-T would be a good one to ask though.

6/10 for the obvious back door brag. Someone that qualifies for Boston - at Boston - knows the answer to your question already.

jealous, Mark?

[richie-rich]

6/10 for the obvious back door brag. Someone that qualifies for Boston - at Boston - knows the answer to your question already.

jealous, Mark?

i can see why Mark would make that comment. Someone who can run a 3:07 marathon likely knows how to prepare and what distances and paces that would entail. it's kind of a strange post by the OP. but what do i know, i've never trained for a marathon.

[Mark.AU]

welcome to RM! I can't help you with your question because I'm too slow and a slacker! Robbie-T would be a good one to ask though.

6/10 for the obvious back door brag. Someone that qualifies for Boston - at Boston - knows the answer to your question already.

jealous, Mark?

Of what? I'm much better at back door bragging than that.

[Robbie-T]

In the house....

In 2008 I ran both, I was 38, I was a 3:05 marathoner on paper at the time. It was my first Boston. I hurt my achilles over the winter and was just barely healing before ATB. I ran ATB at marathon pace, the pace I planned running in Boston, I wanted to run sub 3 in Boston. ATB race was successful and felt good 2:06.

here is my ATB race report. viewtopic.php?t=24989

After ATB I started my taper, 23k and 16k long runs. My achilles really didn't start feeling better until about a week before Boston, but I don't think it was an issue at Boston.

I ran 3:05 at Boston, it was a PB, but the last 8k or so was punishment. I don't think it had anything to do with ATB, it had to do with dehydration, fuelling and pacing mostly.

Boston race report. viewtopic.php?t=25600

I'd run this plan again if I was racing Boston again. Worked for me.

Good luck.

[ultraslacker]

welcome to RM! I can't help you with your question because I'm too slow and a slacker! :lol: Robbie-T would be a good one to ask though.

6/10 for the obvious back door brag. Someone that qualifies for Boston - at Boston - knows the answer to your question already.

jealous, Mark?

Of what? I'm much better at back door bragging than that.

It was the best reason I could think of for someone to be so rude to a new member asking an innocent question. But clearly I'm just being stupid. ;)

[Jo-Jo]

welcome to RM! I can't help you with your question because I'm too slow and a slacker! Robbie-T would be a good one to ask though.

6/10 for the obvious back door brag. Someone that qualifies for Boston - at Boston - knows the answer to your question already.

jealous, Mark?

Of what? I'm much better at back door bragging than that.

It was the best reason I could think of for someone to be so rude to a new member asking an innocent question. But clearly I'm just being stupid.

Interesting...I didn't interpret Mark's comment as being "so rude"...maybe I'm just used to Mark
...or perhaps 35 years of working in male dominated environments have rendered me as insensitive as most guys


Happy to see that Robbie-T popped in here to respond.

[Jwolf]

Yes, welcome to the forum!

We have several sub-3:00 marathoners here who have done both ATB and Boston and I'm glad at least Robbie-T has replied. It's not all that obvious how to do both races that close together and I've also seen many people tank their Boston race by pushing too hard at ATB.

Good luck in Boston and I hope you get your goal.

(And for the record, I also think that accusing someone of a humble brag is not appropriate- the question was also posted in LetsRun where a 3:07 wouldn't be anywhere near a brag. It might seem really fast to some of us here who have never broken 4 hours, but getting down those last 7-10 minutes isn't trivial when you've worked hard for 3:07.)

[MichaelMc]

For what it is worth, a 30k MP run is a fairly gruelling challenge, and the faster you are the harder MP runs are. There are a lot of 3:07 marathoners who do NOT have enough base to recover fully from the workout, and come back STRONGER for it.

The question I would ask is "what is the purpose of the run?" If a long MP workout fits with your training plan, do it. If it doesn't, if it is a stretch, then why run it that fast?

My most aggressive (26 week) training plan has three long MP runs in it, the final one is 32k and it is four weeks out: that is as close as I would run that hard for that long.