Don’t worry, the TT AI will be able to tell you what your marathon split will be!
Your standalone potential must be 2:45, so that put’s you close to 3:15. Allow a bit for the ups and downs, subtract a bit for the power of the crowd, times by the number of Maurten gels and divide by the cost of your Alphflys. 3:22 for a sub-11 total time.
~30mins for me (plenty more than that), but quite a high percentage (18%) as I like to push it on the bike and suffer in the run . Both PB races in the same year 2019.
ETA was also helped by IM run being a bit short, so somewhat worse than that.
But then equally, it’s unlikely that you’re the same athlete at the point you set your different “bests”. A whole host of factors are going to go into various performances.
Purely on numbers, my best mara is 2:48 and my best IM run split is 3:25. But I ran the marathon over a year after, off a specific year of run focus. When I actually ran the IM run split I had 3:04 and 3:24 marathons to my name.
After that marathon, I thought low 3 might be possible, but I’ve since been injured almost permanently and only managed to stagger to 3:39 in Mallorca and jog to 3:58 in Wales after not running for 6 months.
I would however say that my mara and IM best times are both pretty optimal performances at their points in time. But that nearly 40min delta is misleading. My running (at the time) took a leap the year after IM and so had I had another year like 2018 during 2020 (after setting the mara pb in 2019) I’d have hoped to go a lot faster. Bloody covid.
Just here to join the 30 min club - actually a little less but I’ve never executed a stand alone marathon well - PB has a 12 min positive split, so I reckon adjusted would be pretty close to bang on 30 min
or under trained…
Agree, <30 minutes would be expected target, and anything over 30 diff is relatively poorer IM running (CF standalone) for someone at your speeds. More time as slower. Eg I don’t think any Ironman pros would run 2:10!?
Re your sub-3 comparison I think you start seeing quite a lot in Ironman around 3:15, and there aren’t going to be many <2:40 marathon runners doing IM ( there aren’t many of them in normal world anyway!).
For example I was 37th and 21st in Cairns/Taupo with 3:15, so plenty of others running similar. (That does include pro-field, so can probably take 5-10 places off for just AG field)
This is a point I was going to start a thread on at some point, around the dogma of not doing a marathon in the same year as an Ironman.
I accept the technicality that a marathon in an Ironman year might not be their absolute best stand-alone with less specific training, but how much difference does that matter?
Surely people are fit enough to run a marathon and 6 months later do an Ironman? Especially if they’ve planned for both. Even many AGers are regularly doing 2x IM in 12 months or an IM and multiple 70.3s.
And would that lack of specificity towards the marathon training give away more than 5 minutes to make it such an unreasonable comparison? Anyone doing both will at least be designing their IM phase to be more run heavy around the marathon time, with a lot of cross training to boot.
Zero experience in this, just something I’ve been thinking about as I think about how to improve my run.
very small data series here:
In 2007 I ran the Taunton marathon in 3h05, and then about 3 months later ran 3h49 for the marathon at IMUK.
observations:
I have tried it a couple of times, first time doing IM training through the marathon, second time Marathon training with a tiny amount of bike swim but covid cancelled race day. Both times I race IM later in the year.
Now I’m a relatively weak runner, but it does seem to be weak runners who tend to go for the marathon/IM combination.
I would agree with the general rule that it’s a bad idea, and for the generally agreed reasons - you don’t learn anything about IM running and the injury risk/fatigue is massive.
How far apart were they for you?
Presumably because they identify they need to improve and want a stepping stone along the way. Seems reasonable, and hence why I’m asking. I learned triathlon and accepted the rule that you don’t do both. But now I’m questioning. Granted I’ll agree that standalone running isn’t the same or best training for IM but doesn’t mean you might not have multiple goals that can work alongside each other?
And is this rule of incompatibility partly confined to the relatively MOP/BOP? If some pros will do IMs a month or two apart then surely some people could do a marathon and IM say 4+ months apart. Run the marathon within 5 minutes of optimum if only did specific run block, and still have time to increase the swim-bike after after 2 easy weeks.
I found the recovery from the standalone marathons harder than an IM- I’d say namely much lower overall aerobic work in lead up but gee that 30 sec/km digs you a different sort of hole
Some do because they want to have done a marathon before their first IM and some don’t because they have done one and remember how hard the training/race/recovery was.
Also, in the UK at least, many marathon slots are late April and most accessible IM races are in June - August which allows less recovery and specific IM training.
The main reason against though is that many/most IM athletes are under prepared…
Edit: There is is also the question of why? The physiological gains over a certain distance are minimal but the risks increase…
As stated by others, my experience is the recovery from a best-effort standalone marathon is deep set and takes time. An Ironman is so long, it’s all relatively moderate intensity (even if you’re fast), and therefore the recovery is actually easier. 3hr+ training runs, comprising some run walk, were fairly common in an Ironman block. I’d run the whole thing like I’d approach the race, and be doing that the day after a 6+ hour bike.
In a marathon block, my long runs might comprise sections of target race pace, but I was never getting close to pretty much simulating the entire marathon race in training. And that’s purely based on the relative intensities of the two efforts.
This is the main point I think. If you are racing a spring marathon, then you are going to need 2-3 weeks recovery, suddenly it’s the middle of May and you should be in the middle of your big IM block.
Running a marathon as part of IM training should be ok, provided you don’t get carried away, but then why enter a race?
Separating them by 6 months should be ok, so either find a spring/autumn IM or a winter marathon.
Thanks that’s insightful and makes complete sense, given how the recovery can inadvertently be easier if you have a poor triathlon run if couldn’t reach same intensity.
Hence I’ve tried to raise it from a point of over 4-6 months ago between, but yes I suppose that hasn’t really been talked about in UK perspective as much.
I was asking it from perspective of someone with multiple goals, rather than seeing the marathon as necessarily training towards an ironman. Don’t deny that both might not be perfectly optimal, but I was questioning how incompatible they actually are, presuming adequate recovery.
So regarding recovery cost. Generally most of us do longest runs of 25-30km, accepting that the training risk:benefit diminishes beyond that. But it’s probably not coincidence we then struggle at that point in the race being unaccustomed to the demands.
But do ultra runners regularly do long runs over 2.5hrs? I assume so and same physiological cost?
How long do pro Ironman athletes build their long run to?
Many males will regularly be running 30-35km I guess, but do many males/females going over this 2.5hr rule with the assumption they have better recovery? Clearly the Norwegians felt it right to do a marathon in the Kona heat days before the WC. whilst everyone else might not agree, they clearly had some reason to think they’d be fine recovering from that?
Perhaps wouldn’t need to enter a race, but yes that’s a separate Q I was asking while you typed about long training runs. Everyone says up to 2.5hrs, but there must be some argument for better replicating the demands.
I’m happy to be retold that those benefits are less than the recovery cost, and we still think the same as we did years ago. But it’s worth a thought that maybe we’re struggling from 25km onwards in races because we haven’t trained
And that’s reasonable, and achievable with the right preparation and time. But, as per my last post, most people are ill prepared for both.
It’s not that they hadn’t run further, but they hadn’t run enough at that 25 - 32k bracket. back in the day, all top runners ran a 20 miler on Sunday, every Sunday…most plans have runners running one or twice only in the 25 - 32k zone…
Yes, but much more slowly…that’s as much about time on feet and fuelling than physiological return…
At the top of their game…but not convinced they needed to run that far…
Yes, and the pro is that you get a run structure (and event-fear) that should improve your running - it’s almost all good except for the marathon itself…and the lack of swim/bike progress.
+1
My last marathon I had some success with a training plan that never went beyond 16 miles - though I think I did an 18 miler at some point. The rationale of the plan was accumulated fatigue, and the key endurance runs were 2 consecutive days, either 10+10 or 8+16. The idea being the 16 miler simulated the last 16 miles of the marathon not the first 16, as you came to it with fatigue.
Liked the whole post, but highlighting that as a correction to my understanding of usual practice. Are many others here doing 3hr sessions? Even slower than IM pace, or afternoon hike after a morning run is something I think I’d benefit from for time on feet and muscular tolerance.