Running Marathon in Z4

For background: Done a couple marathons, last one in 2013 before I started in Tri. Have done IMWI 2015, many other HIM and several 1/2 Marathons since. I had not used a HR monitor before Tri so I have no info on how hard I ran those marathons.

This is an light year so just a one HIM, some running races and my A-Race is a marathon to PR in October.

This year in April and just today I did a 1/2 marathon race. Both were mostly flat with a couple rollers on part. I needed to stay in Zone 4 entire race to keep up my target pace (8:30/mile) for my A-Race marathon in October. I am 30-45 seconds/mile off my peak when I did the same race in 2015 during IM training. I also ran that 2015 1/2 marathon in Z4.

I had my zones professionally tested in 2014. Even though that was a while ago, the zones feel pretty accurate as once I go into Z5, I have about 15-30 seconds there before I start getting light headed and need to back it down. I did hit Z5 on a couple hills in April and today.

My training in last 6 months has been less than optimal because of family scheduling, additional load at work and simply not a big enough A-Race to motivate me. Upside is that I am down 15 pounds from a year ago and within 5 pounds on day of IMWI 2015

I think I know the answer to this question, but is it possible to run a Marathon in Z4? Is it reasonable that a re-committment to my training schedule (planned by Outrival) could get me to my target pace per mile by October? Is more mileage or more speedwork going to get me there?


Edited by scottficek 2017-05-07 1:47 PM