Why are marathoners doing 200m repeats?

so you can run a 2:36 last 1k after running 41k.

Turnover, economy, etc.

To relieve the session monotony. 200's are fun.

The answer is right there in the same sentence: "... so that 4:55 per mile didn’t feel crazy fast."

Rothlin does/did 20-24x200 regularly.

If it works...it works....

again: this isn't to ruffle feathers and raise the hackles of the erudite, but rather to learn. what does going really really fast around a track for 200 meters have to do with "turnover, economy, etc." Those phrases are thrown around loosely; especially the etc. at the end. when i read "etc." I don't know what to think--especially when it comes to 200m repeats for marathoners.

Just curious: does "I don't know what to think" mean that you accept that they work and would like to know why, or does it mean you're skeptical they're effective until you have an explanation which seems plausible?

gotcher groupie wrote:

again: this isn't to ruffle feathers and raise the hackles of the erudite, but rather to learn. what does going really really fast around a track for 200 meters have to do with "turnover, economy, etc." Those phrases are thrown around loosely; especially the etc. at the end. when i read "etc." I don't know what to think--especially when it comes to 200m repeats for marathoners.

They are not all out...somewhere around 30 seconds I bet.

The mechanics of running pretty fast (4:50-5:00 pace) for a long time become so much easier when you do some work running very fast. When you don't do some faster stuff (hill sprints, sprints, strides, 200s, ETC) your "comfort zone" for all race paces tends to get slower and slower. Look at Hall for example-he blitzed a 3:42 as a prep, he ripped 13:16 or so on the track a few years after, then dropped 59:43 on the roads (throwing in some faster miles as low as 4:28 and looking comfortable mechanically all the way), then crushed the competition at the trials in '07, throwing in a few 4:32-4:40 miles over the hill of central park to squash Ritz by 2 minutes in the final 8 miles. After that he ran 2:06:17 (a fantastic performance, but not as good of a performance as his OT one in my opinion). Then....nothing. Some good performances in the marathon, 3rd at Boston, 4th at NY, but he got dropped midrace in both efforts, then because of his superior endurance closed well in the last 6 miles to place decently.

The 2 biggest parts of the marathon are maximizing your ability to run at a solid pace for 2+ hours+close well in the last 6 miles (general endurance, mileage, long runs and even pacing help this) while still maintaining the speed to deal with the fact that you are still RACING and people will leave your comfort zone of 4:50-5:00, and you will need the tools to at least maintain striking distance. 200s help with the latter, and the former by putting a little pep in your stride.

Greg's always been open to discussing his training methods so I brought this post to his attention. Here is his email reply:

No problem. Happy to explain. In the last 9 weeks leading into Houston, we did two 200m repeat sessions (on 11/16 and 12/28) and two 400m repeat sessions (12/2 and 1/4). For the 200s, we did 20-24 x 200m w/ 200m jog in each session. The pace was only moderate (for Brett the goal was 32-33 - 4:16-4:24 pace) and the goal was for the recovery jogs to be moderate as well. For the 400s, we did the early workout (12/2) as 12-16 x 400m w/ 200m jog and the later session (1/4) as 8-10 x 400m w/ 200m jog. Again, these were not like when we do 400s for the 5K or 10k. They were moderate and we did them progressive. The goal was to run them in sets of four in 70, 68, 66, 64. (He was usually more like 69, 66, 64, 63.)

The reason for including short, moderately fast workouts in marathon training is three fold:

1) Short repeats improve running economy (the amount of oxygen consumed at a given pace) and improved running economy is very important in the marathon.

2) Short repeats break the monotony of training. Often, marathon training starts to put runners in a pace rut and short repeats help keep you out of that rut. They challenge the runner to turn their legs over and avoid the marathoners shuffle.

3) Short repeats allow marathoners to put some volume in at significantly faster than race pace. Brett's goal marathon pace was 4:55 so we were doing workouts at 4:15-4:40 which allowed 4:55 to feel easier.

Many runners only think about 200s and 400s like they do for collegiate races of 1500-10K - hard and fast - but you can adjust the intensity to help the marathon without being as anaerobic or tiring as they are for 5K-10K runners. All the short, fast workouts Brett did were very controlled. Could he have run them faster? Of course! But, that wasn't the goal.

Many great marathoners include(d) short fast repeats for the reasons I listed.

I will say, however, that they shouldn't be used for people with no speed. For example, I didn't include these workouts with Paige Higgins (2:33 in Houston) because she doesn't respond well to short, fast running. With Paige, we would do fartlek sessions (like 20-25 x 1' on 1' off) but these are more like a tempo run with surges than a track workout. This lower intensity exposure to running slightly faster than marathon pace works much better for her but that's another topic so I'll stop here.

Hope that helps.

Best,

Greg

There you go. Straight from the coach's mouth. NDK

They shouldn't do any fast running?

Great response from Greg.

Also, I know Shorter used to do 200s pretty fast back in the day.

“Funny how clueless the interviewer was that marathoners do shorter reps.”

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=3385944&thread=3385826

Firsty wrote:

To relieve the session monotony. 200's are fun.

+1

Sprints, Hills, weight training and simply years and years of running (practicing the skill) improve running economy.

Alan

gotcher groupie wrote:

again: this isn't to ruffle feathers and raise the hackles of the erudite, but rather to learn. what does going really really fast around a track for 200 meters have to do with "turnover, economy, etc." Those phrases are thrown around loosely; especially the etc. at the end. when i read "etc." I don't know what to think--especially when it comes to 200m repeats for marathoners.

You and I would be friends; or, at least, I would try to be your friend.

gotcher groupie wrote:

I'm a Gotcher fan. I follow the link to this interview

http://running.competitor.com/2010/01/features/anatomy-of-a-breakthrough_7945

I learn he is doing 200m repeats. What can a marathoner gain from these? This isn't a rhetorical question. I am curious what this superfast stuff does for a guy who wants to go out and run 26.2 miles. Is it McMillan covering his bases or something else?

Why does it work? Well....... it`s not mainly a question about how long the reps are in an interval to get a good result out of the workout, it`s more important the total volume being at the right pace. I remember a very good American marathoner many years ago used to do 40-50 x 200m at about 32-34 sec in two sets of 20-25 x 200m . Unfortunayely I forgot his name now. Maybe some of the older people here knows the name I think of ?

It's also to remember what it's like to REALLY push.

When you're doing such long reps and stuff, sometimes you forget what it's like to really dig deep and push down the pedal. Doing shorter faster stuff occasionally makes you feel that without completely destroying you. Trying to crush a 3 mile interval might as well be a 3 mile race. And that would be something that requires an amount of recovery. Running some hard 200's doesn't require much recovery.

You might be thinking of Norm Higgins. He did a lot of short interval work. There was also a Scotsman called Alastair Wood who did 2:13 and won the London to Brighton race. He routinely did a session of 60x220. In Lydiard's early schedules for marathoners he has sessions of 220s included regularly.

Simple answer: because they make you faster.

Incorporating Daniels's rep work (including 200s) saved my marathon/5k training.