I hear the 3hr marathon goal thrown around A LOT. A large pool of runners I work with are 35-45 year old working professionals. They come to me and say, “I want to run sub 3hrs. Is that realistic?” They’re often concerned they might have left it too late. 

Here’s what you need to be able to do for a sub-3hr marathon goal to be realistic.

The first number you need to look at is your threshold pace. You want to have a threshold of around 3:50 - 4min/km (6:10 - 6:26min/mi), which is about a 39min 10km or 1:26min half marathon. If you cannot run a sub 40min 10km, you have next to no chance of running sub 3hrs. 

Your sub-3hr target pace is 4:16min/km (6:52min/mi), which means your 1km/1mi splits will drift between 4:10 - 4:20min/km (6:42 - 6:58min/mi). Unless you’re running on a treadmill, you NEED to be capable of running 4:10min/km (6:42min/mi) without going over your threshold.

Suppose your threshold is slower than 4min/km (6:26min/mi). In that case, you will burn too much muscle carbohydrate, accumulate lactate/acidity, and subsequently build fatigue too quickly, which will have you hitting the wall before the race end.

There’s more than one threshold…

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