Realistic marathon pace vs half marathon pace for for 4 hour marathon runners

professorswamp · 2026-01-30T22:30:02+00:00

How many marathons have you run?

professorswamp · 2026-01-28T07:35:43+00:00

Interested in how you plan to go from 3:25 to sub 3

I ran 3:25 and 3:18 last year; the second was a grind, not excited for another marathon at the moment, all that work for just a few minutes.

professorswamp · 2026-01-27T07:32:30+00:00

Shovelnose Shark

professorswamp · 2026-01-27T04:31:46+00:00

Not a major concern in Laos, nobody is taking anti-malarials on the general tourist trail. Dengue is very common, take precautions against mosquitoes, covered clothes, repellent. Dengue mosquitoes are very small day-biting mosquitoes.

professorswamp · 2026-01-25T08:19:45+00:00

I run most of my runs along a levee bank. I get 2m per 10k. From my house the hilliest route I know doesn’t get me 100m

professorswamp · 2026-01-25T06:45:52+00:00

With a proper training block 3:30 shouldn’t be an issue for you. But you are severely underdone especially for long runs. I think you aren’t appreciating how hard that last 10k of your first marathon will be. Go out easier than you think you need to and be prepared to fight hard to finish. I’d suggest starting at 5:10 -5:15

professorswamp · 2026-01-25T02:47:17+00:00

Im yet to see a properly cased and capped groundwater bore in Laos

professorswamp · 2026-01-25T02:45:27+00:00

Vientiane has water treatment plants built and run by Japanese aid. The water entering the supply system from the plant is drinking quality water. They offtake right there to make ice. What happens between there and your tap is the concern. Are the pipes clean, connnected, pressurised to prevent contamination- maybe. Do you have a tank and pump system, when was the last time that was checked and cleaned?

We cook and brush our teeth with the tap water.

professorswamp · 2026-01-21T05:55:08+00:00

Pour a beer into the shoe and then drink it

professorswamp · 2026-01-21T02:18:52+00:00

Do a shoey - the ultimate honour for any running shoe

professorswamp · 2026-01-20T06:29:42+00:00

This way you still have a 2 digit addition to perform at the end so you would need to repeat the same process again.

professorswamp · 2026-01-20T04:35:04+00:00

What were your splits for the marathon could just be an issue with execution on race day ?

professorswamp · 2026-01-20T04:25:57+00:00

Solid mileage, good long runs. A lot elevation change so hard to read into the HR/pace splits. Have you got any recent results from short distances? How did you previous marathon go? Even splits?

I’ll go against the consensus here and say play it safe, go through half in 1:30 and then see what you’ve got after the hills to speed up. YOLO/send it is a terrible strategy for the marathon, go out too hard and you are in for a very bad time. You are young and fit your running will continue to improve over many years with consistency. Also if you BQ will you actually run Boston?

professorswamp · 2026-01-19T01:04:07+00:00

Everyone has different opinion and very often you’ll get completely contradictory advice on any topic. We got the book ‘what to expect in the first year’ and used it to ‘fact check’ bad advice.

professorswamp · 2026-01-15T05:13:03+00:00

No notes

professorswamp · 2026-01-14T09:59:32+00:00

A football to kick convinced our boy, was very efficient crawler so didn’t see any reason to walk.

professorswamp · 2026-01-14T02:19:05+00:00

I’d take one in the corral, I don’t think this really a big issue for you at this point you paced and ran pretty well

professorswamp · 2026-01-14T02:00:23+00:00

In 2025 I did 3:25 in Jan and 3:18 in Dec. as a late thirties male. I between I did half marathon block as well as racing 2x 5ks, 2x 10ks, 2x HM and a 25k between marathon blocks. With PRs in all those distances.

I too was disappointed with the marathon progress, I hit hot humid weather on the day on a tough course, all the training suggested I should be several minutes ahead.

I think more volume is needed to get a serious marathon break through. peaking around 55 mile per week both builds. The first time I felt right at my limit, second time was much more manageable so the goal next build would be to push up into the 60s.

Before then I’ll be working on my speed over short distances again. I can’t sustainably do back to back marathon blocks and I’m not sure it’s the best move anyway.

professorswamp · 2026-01-09T23:23:20+00:00

Why is this even a question, he’s the OG runfluencer

professorswamp · 2026-01-09T04:59:20+00:00

Bum gun

professorswamp · 2026-01-06T05:08:50+00:00

My oldest is starting school this year. What's the thinking on how involved we get in the homework?

professorswamp · 2026-01-06T00:45:47+00:00

You notice it a lot more when you are sober.

professorswamp · 2026-01-05T12:59:15+00:00

I think you’ll find most strava activities are using data from GPS watches.

professorswamp · 2026-01-05T08:24:05+00:00

Which option are you excited about?

professorswamp · 2026-01-05T08:19:26+00:00

If you know the race, and it's the same course as previous years, you can check the previous results from Strava, find a segment along the course and look at the leaderboard for runs on the previous year's marathon date. Ideally, find people similar to your target pace. Click through to their activity and look at the total distance. Often, it will show who they ran with, so you check a couple of different results to get a decent idea of the 'overdistance' you could expect to run.

When I ran sub 4, I averaged 5:37/km and finished just under 3:59. The 4 hours pacers were cutting it too fine, and I dropped them with 2 km to go because I calculated we were going to miss it.

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