Race day stamina

by Pat
(Denver, CO)

Race day stamina :

"Hi Marius,
I used the 3:15 plan to run my 3rd marathon last fall and was able to set a PR of 3:38 but fell short of my goal. I ran my half in 1:30:15 suggesting a goal time of 3:17:41, so I set out to run the first half at the suggested pace with the intention of finishing with my 3:17. From the very beginning of the race it seemed as though I had to force the pace and shortly after the halfway point I simply couldn’t hold it and I faded. Given my training went exceeding well and the conditions were perfect I’m at a bit of a loss as to what happened, it just seemed as though I didn’t have the stamina. So I’m wondering if there are additional workouts or modifications to workouts that would enhance race day stamina and confidence. Perhaps increasing the weekly mileage or adding a few minutes to the pace calculator? Looking forward to jumping back into the program and hitting my 3:15.
Sincerely,
Pat"

Answer: Hi Pat and thanks for your question.

Based on your half time you seem to have paced yourself correctly and you SHOULD be very close to your goal time finish.

I've seen SOME cases where runners must add a few miles to the program, if this first round of the 100 day plan works well on the half marathon, but not hitting their predicted marathon time.

This may be the case for you.

I would increase the LONG runs in the marathon plan and maybe (if you have time) add in there some more number of runs. The hard workouts are more than plenty - in number and length ; but you can add in there minutes and frequency of the easy work.

Also : some need a few continous runs of 30+km leading up to the marathon. I will add this as an option in a future update of the plan.

How do to these ?

Run them 30, 20 and 12-14 days before your marathon - no more than 3 occasions. And do this INSTEAD of a hard run - so that you do not over-run yourself in this tapering period.

I wish you all the best and I'm sure you'll be there next time around.

kind regards,
Marius