Not me but my brother in law runs sub-3 regularly.
He does 45-50 miles per week depending on where on the schedule he is and is really strict about the schedule.
His longer runs are fast, always faster than the required marathon pace, and his last mile is always faster still.
He does speed work in the week that is even faster.
His weekend schedule is always the same, Friday off (his only rest day), fast 4 or 5 miles Saturday (he does a parkrun as part of this), Sunday long run, and always does a fairly long run the day after it (20 miles Sunday, 13 Monday for example).

No idea if this is normal but it works for him.

Edit, he’ll also cycle once or twice per week as his feels it helps recovery.

How do people find the time to run so much? I am happy if I can get an hour / hour and a half a week. 🙁

Hi.

This will turn in to a bit of a ramble, so sorry in advance. My thoughts…..

I ran a sub 3hr a couple of years ago (2.57). It was tough, I think that I trained enough to deserve the time, but wish that I had trained more and put more structure around it. I went in to the race hoping for something around 3.05-3.10ish so was pleasantly surprised with my finishing time. Through doing various sports and jobs over the years I’ve always known that I am OK at running and regularly do so, but wouldn’t call myself a runner as I enjoy other things more than running.

My training wasn’t really that focussed, I only started thinking about training properly about 4 months out, but I had a good base fitness as I’m active most days and usually do a 25mile each way bike commute once or twice a week, around 3 rides on a mtb a week and usually a solitary 3-5 mile plod jog midweek if time is tight or the weather poor. I have done several half marathons (usually one a year with friends), and had done a 3.18 marathon a few years prior with only 4 weeks notice, so thought that I stood a reasonable chance of coming in at around 3.05 if I put my mind to it.

I printed a few online training plans knowing that I wouldn’t stick to as I did not want to sacrifice all my riding and replace it with running. My general aim was to reduce the cycle commute to once a week, and mtb to a social Wednesday night ride, and a morning or afternoon on either Sat or Sunday to allow more time for running on the other days.

For training I generally did 3 runs midweek; a 3-6 mile quick paced run, a 8-13 mile good pace evening run and a either some sprints around a field or a few runs up a big hill as the third midweek session. On whichever weekend day I was not riding, I went for a long cross country run, starting off at around 12 miles and gradually increasing to around 25ish miles. I occasionally squeezed in an extra 3 mile early morning pre-work run.

I did not have a gps/pace watch for most of the training, so only got to view my distance and pace after the run when I uploaded to Strava from my phone. I found that this was a good way of doing it initially as it got me moving at what I thought felt like a good pace and was not constantly watch watching, but as the race got closer, I realised that I needed to put more effort on maintaining a constant pace on the longer runs so bought a watch.

I did the vast majority of my training off road (Surrey Hills, so a great network of trails that I’m familiar with through mountain biking) – I hate traipsing around towns on pavements. I do not think that I would have managed to keep with it if I had been bound to tarmac, but felt that I struggled on the race as the impact on the legs from road running was much more severe than I had expected, although the course was much flatter than my training runs so probably cancelled out.

I used my finishing time for the 2.57 race to get a GFA for London in 2018. I was a bit more casual in my preparation for that, but went in to it with expectations of a similar finishing time. I failed – the race itself was one of the least enjoyable things that I have ever done. It took me about six months before I wanted to put running shoes back on again.

If you can run 3.18 comfortably, then go for it.

When I used to run,I got times of 3.10 and 3.15 on the Edinburgh marathons,the old original route that finished at the Meadowbank stadium. I ran 4 times a week,never much more than an hour,I was working away from home so it was easy to fit in.Never ran anything close to the full distance in training,maybe a couple of 15 milers the month before the races. If I had known then what I know now about training and picked a flat course, I could easily have gone below 3 hours. As the Lune says,once you get your pace sorted out,it should be easy to get close to a 3 hour.Avoiding injuries seems to be hard for a lot of people.

Where any of you slower than this when you first started running?

I’m very curious about this. We had a new club record this weekend with a 2:27:57 at the Yorkshire marathon. The guy hasn’t been running long. We also have a runner who is sub 2:45 who started C25K a few years ago doing something like 9m/m.

I’ve managed a 3:23. Then long term back injury. Over the last couple of months I’ve tried to do more but my HR is through the roof, legs feel like lead with anything over 6 miles, and I can’t seem to go faster than I did in the past. It really is hard work to do 6 miles at sub 7m/m. I’m wondering why I bother as it really is hard work. I’m not feeling any progress.

Starting from when? I’m 37 and only ran my first marathon in 2016. Before that I’d probably not ran more than 6/7 miles in one go.

2:52 I was running about 25km a week at the time in sessions of 15, 5 and 5 and did the marathon as training for the Embrun man ironman distance triathlon a few months later. I was also doing a lot of biking, MTBing, swimming, X-C sking, ski alpinisme, climbing… .

A slightly different view to the guys above who are obviously extremely talented runners, and I suspect downplaying the effort they have put in… I’ve never gone under 4 myself, but a couple of guys in my club have recently gone sub 3.

Both of them are putting in between 80 and 110 miles per week, at paces close to marathon pace (under 6:50 per mile), as well as strength work in our gym. They are also watching their diet like hawks. it’s pretty much consumed every spare minute of their lives for the last couple of years building up to it. But it’s paying off, as one is on the verge of getting a Championship start at London, which is a hell of an achievement for your average club runner.