Ever since I ran London in 2008 in 3:31:20 I have had a feeling that I could do much better. There have been a number of training false starts, but now I have a lot of time and so the opportunity is there to commit.
But is 3 hours a realistic goal?
Well, a 3 hour marathon essentially means that you need to be able to run it averaging 6:50/mile. I've run 5k at this pace and a half marathon at about 7:30/mile, so this is definitely a huge stretch. But I have a year, so there's plenty of time.
Looking at some of my previous running I think the first stage is to enter into a Hadd training period.
The best Hadd test I've done was in Aug 2010, with:
10.8/9.6/8.5/7.7/6.8
130/140/150/160/170
I believe from the Hadd document, and based on my HRmax of 183-185, that the 160 HR test approximates a sustainable marathon pace (assuming conditioning etc).
This was after roughly 400 miles of training, mainly focused around runs with an average heart rate of between 130-140 and had me at roughly a 3:20-3:25 marathon level.
Therefore I think the right approach, and thus Phase 1, is to begin base training until I return to this level of fitness. I anticipate that with a good level of commitment this will take until at least the end of June.
I also think as a natural consequence of ramping up mileage I should shed some weight. While my current weight of 80.5kg is perfectly fine for someone of my height, losing 3-5kg will make a meaningful difference in pace achievable and in fact I don't drop below 20 BMI until I drop below 70kg.
Things such as target weight and diet are perhaps better addressed after phase 1.
