Targeting a 2.40 marathon. This is how I’m training.

New York City Marathon, November 2010: 3.57.

Long Beach, California, September 2021: 2.57

Orange County, California, May 2022: 2.49

From 3.57 at the age of 30 to 2.49 at 42. In fairness, though I’m comparing apples to oranges so the idea is not impress with my progression. I was running for fun in my younger years and only recently, in the last two years, I’ve become a very good runner.

This coming year I would like to run a 2.40 marathon. That means I’ll have to run every mile of my marathon in six minutes or just a little slower.

I’m currently running about 80 miles a week.

I averaged a little over 78 miles in the last four weeks:

That’s more than eleven miles every day.

About twice a week I do double runs. Like today. I did intervals in the morning (kilometer repeats, ten times, 200 meters jog in between). Then in the evening I ran six miles. That’s sixteen miles in total today when you add up warm ups and cool downs.

Once or twice a week I do really hard runs so intervals or a tempo run (ten miles in the low six min/mile pace).

Every Sunday is my long run. I’ve trying to do twenty miles on most of my long runs.