Help!! I don't understand what pace I should be training at...

I am running against my brother at the silverstone half on 3rd march so I need to run sub-100mins

But then i have my first marathon at London 21st April, if I train at a faster pace for the half, will I struggle at the 26.2??

All advice welcomed, please

You can't train separately for these events as a marathon training plan should be starting in Dec or early Jan.

However, all is not lost - I set my HM PB during marathon training, and I know this isn't unusual.

A 100min HM equates to a 210min marathon, according to the mcmillan pace calculator.  So I'd train for a 210min marathon, and you should easily break 100min for the HM.

This is assuming you have the current fitness/ability to achieve these times - if your currently a 120min half-mara runner then you'll more than likely end up injured trying to achieve this!

Thanks, that’s encouraging.

I could pull a 1:45 out at the HM distance based on my general running, so although it’s only slightly faster, 5 minutes is jump for me to get under 1:40. So that’s some work to do, but not TOO much.

I don’t think I could look at a 2:10 marathon though, that seems too ambitious. Do you think if I trained at that level up to the Half and then worked on a slower training scheme the rest of the way?

Or does that not work?

if you can manage a 1:40 half.why on earth are you training for a 4:30 full....

 maybe because he likes to stop for a Stella at mile 17 like some other people I know ???

And Sean - just to clarify Stutyr mentioned a 210 minute marathon pace, not a 2:10 marathon pace. A 210 minute pace is 3 and half hours

Good luck anyway!

I think thats a bit ambitious to get a 3.5 hour mara off a 1.40 half. 

I'd think its more likely to be 3hr 40 or so.

I'd train for the marathon - and race the half along the way. You'll get plenty of miles in your legs and some speed sessions too. 

Training for the half and then attempting to train for the marathon in the short time you have after is a surefire recipe for disaster there.

Find a plan you like and get it started asap. Don't allow 16 weeks for a 16 week plan as you're bound to lose a couple of weeks with illness/injury/life.  

hehe - I was trying to avoid confusion by consistently using minutes and it backfired!

As cougie said, a 3hr 30min marathon is a big ask for your first one based on your current half-mara time.  This is based on the mcmillan pace calculator, which is not perfect but at least gives some indication.

If you've ran a 1hr 45min half marathon without any structured training, then a 1hr 40min half from a decent marathon schedule should be possible.  I'd agree with cougie that you should probably aim for 3hr 40min for the marathon, with a 3hr 30min being the absolute best you can achieve and 4hr 00min being the conservative target.  Once you've got into your training you'll have a better feel for which of these times is the most likely. 

I always like to have a half marathon about a month before my marathon  - I think this is what you will be doing ?   You should be able to gauge your goal time in London once you have that. 

(this does presume that you're getting the long runs in - if you aren't then the full could easily be a lot more than the double the half and add twenty mins guideline)

Sean Martin 4 wrote (see)

I am running against my brother at the silverstone half on 3rd march so I need to run sub-100mins

Why?

Thanks everyone, this is really helpful.

I have to say, anything under 4hrs for the marathon would be great first time out.

And i'm more confident now I could break the 1:40 for the half.

Cougie - When you say long runs, how long do you think to go to in training?

Wilkie - That's easy ... Because i'm competetive and he is my younger brother, so I want to beat him!! And I feel like if I run sub 1:40 and he beats me, then fair play to him! I can hold my head high still.

Sean if you're running a marathon - you've got to be comfortable running 20 miles.

I'd bank on getting at least 3 runs in of that distance, and the more the merrier provided your body is coping with it.  You need to ease the speed back on the long runs though. Don't aim to do them at marathon pace. That takes too much out of you.

Personally I would prefer to run the half-mara pace dictated by how fit I had become as part of following the marathon plan, as stutyr and cougie suggest, regardless of how that relates to anyone else running in the same race. Forget sibling rivalry - he's probably had enough of that to last a lifetime. Or you could be nice and offer to pace him for his target half time?

Hello Sean, your half marathon goal may or may not be attainable.  It is possible that you could train for the half, have a cut back/rest week then continue to train for a block of 3 weeks then taper down to the marathon as would be normal.  In that way you could hit your marathon target and run a good marathonwell inside your target.

Success depends on a couple of things.  You need to have been running reasonable milage before you start the HM schedule so that you can do long enough long runs for the half that can be carried through to the marathon  Secondly you need to have run a short race flat out within the last 4 weeks.  If not you need to to do one asap in order to provide a time from which to guage ability and set the training. 

So what's your average milage over the last 8 weeks and what can you do for a 5 or 10k race.  Training run times don't count.