Mile 15 and beyond. Please help!

Morning all.

Have a leg problem that I'm really hoping you can help with!  First a quick bit of back ground.  I started long distance runningin January 2011.  Ran London Marathon 2011, New York Marathon 2011 and London again in 2012.  I'm setting up for New York again in november, but I am experiencing the same problem in almost every long run. 

Come mile 15, my legs just fall apart.  There is just nothing left in them and they become super tight and heavy.  I fuel pretty well with carbs and a sensible level of water the day before.  Pint of water 45 mins before I go, (now with one of the Zero High disolvable tablets in it for extra sodium etc).  I use gel(s) depending on the length of the run, but this doesn't seem to help. 

The zero high has helped prevent/reduce any major cramping, but I can't seem to reduce this pain at mile 15 - 16.  Same in every run come rain or shine.

If anyone has any advice, tips or criticisms of what I might be doing wrong, I would be so unbelivably grateful.  I'm not expecting the pain to go away, but any advice would be hugely welcomed!

thanks  in advance

Chris

What other training runs are you doing in the week?

Could be preperation, could be psychological.

Normally something close to

Sunday - Long run
Mornday rest
Tuesday - 5 miles
Wednesday - 8 miles
Thursday OR Friday 5 miles
Saturday rest of 2-3 miles

Do you think maybe I need to up this?

I wouldn't say up it. Are one of the sessions intervals? Also, do you do any strength work outside of running? Maybe drop a short run and include some leg strenth work one day??

Well the long run varies as I approach the marathon itself.  It gradually increases with the longest being about 19-20 miles 3 weeks before the marathon date.

Maybe strength work would help.  I acompletely droped any weights when I started running...

Thanks very much for your feedback, its all very welcome!

You started running marathons when you had been training for just a few weeks. You expect too much. The collapse point is usually regarded as 3 x your average daily mileage. So for a marathon thats 63 miles per week. Your mileages only indicate that you're good for; would you believe it, about 15 miles. You're doing nothing wrong at all. Apart from running marathons when you should be doing 5k's.

jeees...  that would make complete sense then.  Looks like I'd really underestimated the training amount needed to get where I wanted to be.  Wasn't expecting any amazing times, but will have to get myself a more realistic plan for the next one.

thanks for the advice.

CJJ, You deserve a special award for coping with a marathon in any capacity. I didn't dare tackle one until I'd been running for 10 years.

RicF wrote (see)

You started running marathons when you had been training for just a few weeks. You expect too much. The collapse point is usually regarded as 3 x your average daily mileage. So for a marathon thats 63 miles per week. Your mileages only indicate that you're good for; would you believe it, about 15 miles. You're doing nothing wrong at all. Apart from running marathons when you should be doing 5k's.

Hmmm...  This concerns me (though it was a theory that was easily found on Google).

I followed a programme downloaded from the Runner's World site.  This recommends less than 20 miles a week for beginners... and less than 25 miles for 'improvers' (3:30 to 4:30 target time) - although some of those miles are at faster pace / hills.

I'm glad I decided to do a little bit of extra mileage... but not that much more!  I could be in trouble in 3 weeks time.

Well I managed 4.32 for London.  Not amazing but I was aiming for 4.30 so was pretty happy based on the fact that I'd followed a plan for 4.30.  I'm not really built for long distance running (6ft4 and 90kg) so I kinda just see it as a mental / physical challenge, but defo want to get better.

I can run 9 - 9.30 min miles up to 15 and then it hits me like a train.  Looks like a few more miles in the training sessions will help me improve so thanks again for the advice.

RicF wrote (see)

You started running marathons when you had been training for just a few weeks. You expect too much. The collapse point is usually regarded as 3 x your average daily mileage. So for a marathon thats 63 miles per week. Your mileages only indicate that you're good for; would you believe it, about 15 miles. You're doing nothing wrong at all. Apart from running marathons when you should be doing 5k's.

This is probably true for some but it seems a bit of a broad brush approach.

I have never run that sort of mileage yet I managed a 3:30 marathon on my first attempt at the distance, with my second half of the race being significantly quicker than the first half, which raises different a issue I admit, but saying you need to do 63 miles a week seems excessive.

Personally I would have thought it is horses for courses, finding what fits. As a general rule I run 3 to 4 times a week and have done for 4 years now, only increasing mileage when training for a race. In the respect of the marathon this year, I increased it over an 6 week period and then tapered for two weeks and that worked for me.

But who would have time to run 63 miles a week any way? if you ran a 20 mile  long run at the weekend that still leaves 43 miles to cover. I'd have to give up work and get divorced to do that!

What the poster is doing isn't working but 63 miles could result in injury I would have thought. He needs to find some middle ground on this.

Chris Jackson-Jones wrote (see)

I can run 9 - 9.30 min miles up to 15 and then it hits me like a train. 

Try slowing down. You're almost certainly doing your long runs too fast and you're almost certainly trying to run your marathons at a speed that's faster than your fitness and training will allow you to maintain for the full distance.

Have a look at McMillan pace calculators to see what speeds they recommend for various distances. At 4hrs30 for a marathon, it says your slow runs and easy runs should be done at between 10 and 11:30 min miles.

9:30 min miles would give you a 4hr 10 min marathon, which is a fair bit faster than you've managed yet. Rather than setting out at that pace and blowing up at 15 miles, you'd get on much better starting off slower and keeping it steady the whole way round.

Logging more slow and steady miles is the way to go. It's hard to make yourself run slow and it feels totally counter-intuitive, but stick with it and you're bound to see improvements.

Thanks for the above advice.  I hit up my last long run on Sunday before NYC in November taking onboard the advice given above.

Slowed the pace down to 10.40 - 11 min miles for the entirety of the run and fueled more regulary with gels at 5, 10 and 15 miles.  I managed a solid and consistent 22.5 miles.

This probably shouldn't have come at a surprise, but really did, so massive thanks for your help.  Was a real confidence boost to finish that run knowing I could definitely have managed the extra 4 miles.