Sub 4 marathon on a 2:02 half – is it possible?

Sub 4 marathon on a 2:02 half – is it possible?

Targeting a sub four hour marathon? Is Kaapsehoop the goal? While you may have been putting the mileage in, the biggest indicator of if you can achieve it or not, is your shorter distance times. On this episode of the Ask Coach Parry podcast, Lindsey tells Nkululeko Musi what their chances are. It’s a great lesson for all.

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Transcript

Welcome back to this edition of the Ask Coach Parry podcast. I’ve got Lindsey Parry with us once again, I’m Brad Brown. Lindsey, a question in from Nkululeko Musi and Nkululeko wanted to know, is a sub four hour a realistic finishing time at the Kaapsehoop Marathon. He says he usually runs a marathon in between 4:20 and 4:25 comfortably.

July did 200km, August and September 300km mileage, he’s aiming for a sub four at Kaapsehoop and he’s heard it’s a pretty fast marathon. I asked what his 10km and 21km times are right now to give you a bit of a guide, he’s running 10km in 55 minutes and a half marathon in 2:02, is a sub four marathon at Kaapsehoop a bit of a stretch?

Lindsey Parry: It is a bit of a stretch, he’s right that it is a faster race. With these downhill marathons, the mistake that a lot of people make is that they really just shred their legs at the beginning going way too fast. Although Kaapsehoop is a net downhill race, they have left quite a lot of work to do in the last 7km of the race. If you do hammer it out and go way too hard, then you’re going to run into problems.

Be realistic with your marathon goals

With a 2:02 half marathon, I think he would be foolish to go for a sub 4. Doing 4:20 to 4:25 comfortably on a marathon means that maybe if he raced a marathon, based on his 2:02, he could probably do a marathon in between 4:10 and 4:15, probably closer to 4:15.

With Kaapsehoop, maybe you could look at 7 or 8 minutes on there. An absolute best case scenario, I think he can look at somewhere around 4:07 to 4:10, that’s the sort of time I would be aiming for. I think if he goes for sub 4, he’s going to run into problems.

BB: Nkululeko, I hope that helps, good luck in the final few weeks and the build up to Kaapsehoop and best of luck for that marathon as well. Until next time, don’t forget, if you’d like to get your questions in, all you need to do is head over to coachparry.com, check out the podcast section. There’s a form on the right hand side that you can submit your question and we could be answering it next time out. Until then from the two of us, it’s cheers.

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