-Stone Temple Pilots
No one has ever asked me advice for a marathon before, and really, why would they? My overall experience in marathons hasn't been that great, although I am well versed in the pitfalls of the 26.2 mile distance.
But a fellow geocacher did, and this is my advice:
Congrats again for signing up for the Publix Georgia Marathon! This race is one of my favorite races of all places that I've run, since it showcases the great neighborhoods of Atlanta! Plus I think their T-shirts are the best of all races in the area.
It's a hilly course but I think it would be possible for you to break 3:45 in it. Your 1:42 half marathon practically guarantees a good result. That said, it will be your first marathon and I don't personally know anyone who ever got what they wanted out of their first marathon, and this includes two guys who run much faster than me (one guy ran a 1:43 half marathon before his debut and has never broken 4 hours in two marathons and the other guy ran a 1:44 and debuted in 4:17. He ran 3:44 in his second marathon and now runs between 1:36 and 1:39 half marathons).
So this would be my gameplan. I think you are probably capable of running somewhere between 3:40 and 3:44 based on your half marathon time. I would shoot to train for 3:40 since this gives you a few minutes of leeway based on the hilly course. Plus the upcoming Boston Marathon had too many applicants and so they did not accept those who met the qualifying time for their age group up to 1 minute 2 seconds faster than the standard (so you would have had to do a 3:43:58 to get in the 2015 race). I imagine the same thing could happen for the next race you could run in, the 2016 race.
So that means running the race at an 8:23/mile pace. The trick will be keeping this pace and not running any faster the entire length of it! In the actual marathon, this pace will seem ridiculously slow (I trained for an 8:45 pace and found myself running mile splits at 8:01 because it seemed so easy and almost bonked out of the race!) But it's the best way to make your goal.
I recommend a training program, such as the Hanson's Marathon Method. I used the advanced program and it combined weekly base mileage, speed/strength work and tempo runs at marathon pace. Buy the book and reference it through your training.
One thing is you'll have to jump into training soon -- you will have 16 weeks (the length of most training programs) to train starting Dec. 1! The Hanson's program involves 18 weeks of training.
The Hanson's book does have a chapter involving incorporating races but you'll find if you stick to the schedule that your weekends will involve long runs that range from 8 miles Sat-Sunday all the way up to 10 miles on Saturday and 16 miles on Sunday. Near the end of it it gets really time consuming and boring. You may end up running 10 miles+ on four of the seven days of the week.
If you don't have a GPS watch for training, I recommend buying one. I have the Garmin Forerunner 610 -- there are more modern models out there. What's nice about this is you can program in your workouts, which is helpful when you do speedwork/intervals that require you to run a certain distance at a certain speed and then run slower to recover for a shorter distance, and so on.
I would train with the goal of trying to qualify (since if you can qualify with this race that you already spent money for, why not?) but not put too much pressure on yourself to do so, since first marathons are unique experiences.
If you don't qualify the first time around I would register for a fall marathon, give yourself a few months off and then train over the summer.
Hope this helps!
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