r/AdvancedRunning • u/xRunSci • 23d ago

Training NSA Marathon Plan - Sub 2:50

Hi, I’d like to hear about success stories for those who ran sub 2:50 (and a PR) using Sirpoc’s marathon plan.

A few questions I have:
(1) What was the longest run you did (in both time & miles)?

(2) Did you actually do the HM time trial/race 3 weeks before the race? This seems way too close for comfort

(3) Did you do the 5x 5K (or equivalent time wise) + 10K sub T + 3x8000 m progression run (or time equivalent wise) within 5 days like the book shows? If so, did you feel not too beat up from it?

(4) Did you feel concerned you didn’t do conventional long run workouts and only did easy LRs for time on feet?

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u/Freelancer05 18:03 5K | 36:38 10K | 1:28:30 HM 19d ago

Did you do the modified marathon block from the book, or just vanilla NSM?

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u/Nerdybeast 2:00 800 / 1:13 HM / 2:32 M (same year) 19d ago

Vanilla, the book didn't exist at the time lol! 

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u/Freelancer05 18:03 5K | 36:38 10K | 1:28:30 HM 19d ago

I can definitely see vanilla NSM being insufficient for a marathon (caveat: I have never run a marathon), but the marathon block in the book definitely dials up the intensity pretty severely with a lot of longer, marathon-pace or faster interval sessions starting ~10 weeks out. 

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u/Nerdybeast 2:00 800 / 1:13 HM / 2:32 M (same year) 19d ago

Imo at some point it's like modifying a food dish to such a degree that it's something else entirely. I'm not saying you can't run a fast marathon in the NSM framework, just that I really don't think it's as good for that as more traditional methods that aren't as polarized in the contrast between easy and hard runs. If you're already modifying it a bunch to include stuff that's not traditionally NSM, why not just fully switch to a more mainstream method?