UKH

I'm aware I'm writing this in my post-Marathon haze (Manchester today), but would like some collective opinion:

My target was 3:15, but I fell well short at 3:24. PB is Liverpool last year at just under 3:19.

My prep this year went fairly well and I placed well in an ultra 2 weeks ago, bit analysing all my runs it is clear that my body gets to 20 miles and fades. I don't hit a wobbly-legs wall, but fade badly and lose pace.

I've tried a variety of fuelling techniques but still came up short.  How do others get through the last 10k still maintaining a good pace?

Do you think you recovered fully from your ultra? 

Potentially not, though I hit a barrier at 20 in the ultra also. I had an easy 2 week taper after the ultra.

What is your training mileage like?

It just sounded quite close to the marathon if you also pushed yourself in the ultra.

I'd agree with that. I find that if I've pushed really hard in something it takes a while to fully recover and that I can feel great at the start of a race but I hit a wall and the wheels come right off the wagon.

Potentially - though I have looked at various longer runs and it's a theme.

3-4 weekly runs varying from light recovery of around 4 miles up to longer 8+ milers. Weekend longer runs built up bit by bit up past 20 miles including some races and the ultra. Plenty of Trail/hill/mud thrown in for endurance.

Lets not beat about the bush. It's totally unrealistic to expect a marathon PB 2 weeks after an ultra, assuming you didn't just plod round the ultra and even if you did it's not exactly perfect prep.

What was the ultra?

I believe it was a factor but the 20 mile fade does seem to be a recurring theme.

Canalathon 50k. 4hrs 18.

To be fair, last year I ran the Yorkshire 3 Peaks and only 1 week later placed well in a 34 mile Ultra.

What would be your peak training mileage week, not including the ultra?

40+ miles

I'm no training expert, having largely done things on feel and trial / error but... I've found that as I've gradually increased my training mileage my recovery has improved and as a result I can race more and recover better between races. I'd say that if you want to be doing big events so close together you should be doing more distance in training. Edit: I think that would also help with your 20 mile fade thing.

Seems like a reasonable thing to believe Dave.

Last year I did 4 big events in 6 weeks with Liverpool in the middle and did my Marathon PB. Could be that this year I was expecting too much.

I think it's pretty difficult to get these things right and I continue to get them wrong! I know that more training miles isn't the only answer but done carefully it does help.

Are you doing the 3 peaks again this year? I'm hoping for something better than last year, not a bad time but just paced it badly and really, really suffered.

No - I'm not keen. I didn't enjoy last year! Good luck though!

You say you're struggling 20 miles on in training?  What time, pace there? How much time between 20's?

10k best is sub 40. I've done a few sub 90 half marathons.

45:23 at 10k

01:36:18 at 1/2m

Not sure on 15, but I was still around 7:20 average per mile agains a target of 7:27

02:28:04 at 20m

Apart from the long runs you aren't doing much milage.  I'm not sure the mud and hills are very useful.  I'd be tempted to take one of your other runs and do some sort of intervals - warm up, 3 mins hard, 1 easy, times 6 or something like that. 

You have very similar times to me. I also suffer from the 20 mile fade. Only once have I not faded too badly - marathon PB at Brighton 3 or 4 years ago, which was 3:18 something. The thing I think I got right in that one was eating Clif Bloks from 20 mins in and being very strict about keeping that up every 20 mins. I also had a lot more fast road miles in my legs, having done all interval and tempo training on roads. These days I am off road much more, which is better for my aging body but I think I now find a long run on roads a bit of a tiring pounding as I am less well conditioned to it. Everything is sorer/stiffer for longer.

I think it was an old Bruce Tulloh(spelling) book that said for every mile raced at maximum effort you should have a days easy training or rest, before you race at full speed again.(if you want your best performance).

At the not so tender age of 46 and 3/4s I need all the recovery time i can get! 

Me too - 47 now!

A rethink and reflection needed otherwise my marathon days are over.

56 minute last 10k, is a bit more than fade when you have averaged the previous 32k a minute a k quicker. I would guess you hadn't recovered from the Canalathon, friend of mine did the Canalathon 50 on a couple of days notice, six of so minutes behind you, because another friend decided it was too close to London, which isn't for another two weeks (won a club place after she had already entered the Canalathon).

Some how I can often race well the week after a big race but feel very fatigued 2 weeks after..

Do you do fast finish long runs? 

I'd run more miles, more medium/long runs. I think its just a stamina issue. People can run well off low mileage but not that many,

Thanks for all the responses.  I appreciate it. :0)

 How do others get through the last 10k still maintaining a good pace?

Run the first 32k more slowly  

That is only slightly tongue in cheek. Assuming your nutrition is right your pacing is wrong (on the day.)

You can also build more strength endurance (to stop the run falling apart) in training of course. I'd suggest finishing long runs fast. So 2h hours easy, 15mins at 10k pace, or something like that.

You need to practice running fast when tired. Try doing the last 5k of long runs at 10k pace. 

I hear you - but I was going through 32k just 4 or 5 seconds per mile inside my target time so going slower is going to leave me needing to find extra at the end - which I may not have...

Then your target time is too quick. 

Okay, I don't know loads about marathon specifics, but you see it all the time in well trained people in long distance triathlon. If you are well trained and you have eaten correctly and the wheels come off it's because you were going too fast, not because you weren't fit enough.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say don't chase a fast time, but if you are slowing down then it was too fast for you on the day (that day, there will be other days in the future ) 

This is why running a fast marathon is so hard, you probably could have got a faster time by running a bit slower over the first 20 miles, so having more in the tank later in the race, but then you would not have hit what was potentially your optimum. Maybe you peaked too early. Your Canalathon performance, was probably better than your marathon. 

Another thing turned think about its dehydration. 

It's this rather than energy that gets me about 20 odd miles.

Are you drinking enough  Can you drink enough? 

I can’t speak for the OP, but generally people over hydrate in marathons. The number of people you see retching stomachs full of water is amazing.

It's not exactly what you are talking about, but this video might help a bit:

Running at Your Target Marathon Pace Feels Too Hard?
James Dunne
youtube.com/watch?v=76OZaNpSjxo&

I focused a lot more on fuelling and hydration this year and felt like I was much more organised.  I took on plenty of fluids and fuelled regularly.

A few years ago I was trying to get my marathon PB down and decided to make a training plan (and stick to it!), eat well, stretch lots etc etc.  So I did all that but I also wanted to have a really clear plan in my head for the split times on race day.

I found some online marathon results, did a little filtering for super-fast and super-slow times then looked at the mean percentage of total race time spent on each 10 km segment.  For the first three 10 km segments the percentages were pretty consistent but, unsurprisingly, the fourth 10 km segment (30 -40 km) was, on average, everyone's slowest.  That was still the case if you filtered the results for sub 3 hour runners (i.e. people who I assumed had a reasonable idea what they were doing) so I figured I'd make a race plan with slower split times for the last 12 km.  If nothing else, I do remember that the psychological boost from reaching 30 km knowing that I could afford to reduce my km pace by 15 seconds or so for each of the next 12 km was fantastic!

All that's a long-winded way of saying that I suspect it's quite common for one's pace to drop sometime after 20 miles and, rather than trying to change that, an alternative strategy could be to plan for it by aiming to get to that point with a little time up your sleeve.

I only asked as I struggle to drink fluid, so I lose  a fair few kilograms in a long race. 

The faster I run, the less I can drink. Food isn't the problem. 

I used to do my training early Saturday morning. Up, drink a pint of water, loo, brush teeth then out. On a 20 mile training run I would noticeably slow at about 2h30 and then a good glug of water would have me faster again. It was hard to carry more than one bottle and you had to pick your places to refill. 

I run about a similar time to you, I did a 16 week training plan up to my marathon last year with 1 run a week of slow 2/3, then marathon pace final third (all approx.). I started with 10k + 2k, and was building up to 22k+14k. The last successful one was 20k@ 5:45/km, then 12k at 4:10/km. It felt great, and I think it was helping. But then I got injured not long after, so I spent the last 7 weeks up to the marathon trying to rescue what I could. I was training for sub-3, and ended with 3:11.

There's a sub 3:15 training plan on runnersworld that I followed fairly closely and it worked really well. 

It's 6 runs a week so quite a time commitment unless you can work it into a commute.

It definitely didn't include an ultra 2 weeks before

Is it this: https://www.runnersworld.co.uk/training/rws-ultimate-marathon-schedule-sub-...

If so, did you hit the sub-40 10k and sub-90 HM during the training plan?

i see it a lot- don’t beat yourself up too much.

I’d say the two biggest factors are likely to be overall training volume (and to a lesser extent type - I agree with others that hills/fells aren’t that useful for a flat/ish road marathon), and fuel/hydration and tactics on the day. 

40 isn’t that much. I did around 50 last year and 4 weeks of 60 this year. I’d run more next time (70) if I can. Plus as someone said try to get the mix right with tempo, track intervals and some very easy recovery runs. Again as someone else said, I have found that the more I have run this year the easier recovery and energy levels have been. How many long runs did you do? Some of my mates do 6 20s over 18 weeks. 

i did Grindleford gallop flat out this year and it felt like it took a week to fully recover... surely even longer for an ultra?? I wouldn’t do it that close to a Mara!

are you sure you have energy/fluid right on the day? FWIW I do a gel an hour before. The one every 40mins/10k whichever comes first is standard advice. My last gel is a caffeine one and it gives a massive boost. Drink a few sips with the gels and maybe a bit more - it depends on the temp of course.

finally, it starts to hurt at 21/22 no doubt about it. You have to dig in and find some grit. Find a mantra - mine is keep those legs turning over. Try to find someone similar to follow or run alongside - a few words/a grimace can help you both. 

Yes that's the one. I followed this for Manchester but had a decent base running fitness beforehand. In terms of total mileage for the week I pretty much matched the plan, except during a 2 week holiday in Feb. Some of the longer runs in the week I actually split up over 2 or 3 shorter 'commuting' runs, which would have been faster than the plan intended. I didn't do many outright speed sessions, which is probably why I find it really hard work to do a sub-20 5k. I couldn't do a sub-40 10k even now. I did a sub 90 half with seconds to spare, but then was comfortably under the 3:15 in Manchester.
I took a gel / water at every station and followed a pacer for the first half. 

That is a great help thank you. I managed a sub-40 10K last November (after 7 years of trying to beat my 40:15 PB!) and a couple of years ago managed a sub-90 half (however it doesn't count officially due to a course measurement error - it was a couple of hundred yards short - Brighton - arrggghh!). I consistently run 30 - 40 miles a week, 5 or 6 times, so I think this plan will be good for me.

I have a 3:18 marathon PB and would love to drop under 3:15 - each time I try I just crash and burn (and quite early on in the race relatively). I have a couple of theories - not enough quality training mileage (I think somebody else in the thread said 30/40 miles isn't that much) and not enough fast paced runs on the roads. I think some fast finish long runs might help in that regard.

Best of luck in your endeavours! PB chasing certainly seems to be addictive. One thing I'll add, which I think made a difference (to me anyway) was foam rolling. 

I did Paris marathon last year and my thighs were ruined for days with soreness (I was 20 minutes slower than in Manchester this year). After the HM this year my thighs were a shambles again, so I bought a foam roller, which I used every morning and night. After Manchester my legs feel tired but not painfully sore at all, which I can only attribute to having my muscles more limbered up to begin with. I also didn't feel like I was fighting to maintain my stride at the end of the race, which I used to experience during my longer 'pre foam rolling' runs.