Marathon Training Thread - Week Ending 12/5

Nice job pablo on a great race. Bodes good things for you in the years to come.

I'd post my week if I felt I add anything to add, but I don't. 46 slow miles after weeks of 0, 12, 0. I'm still slow and fat. If you need advice on how to gain 15 lbs in under a month, come talk to me.

The goal is still Boston and the goal is still 2:47-2:49. But I'd rather peak on April 18th then mid-March like I did this past cycle.

blanzbison -

I tried copying Greg Meyer's last week before he won Chicago and it worked pretty well. I did the 300s slower than him, of course, but I liked his structure.

Sept 20 Mon. A.M. 10

Sept 21 -Tues. A.M. 10

Sept 22- Wed. P.M. 8

Sept 23 - Thur A.M. 8; PM. 4 up , 6 x 330 @ 46 , 1 down

Sept 24 - Fri P.M. 6

Sept 25 - Sat A.M. 4

Sept 26 - Sun. A.M. 2 up , 26.2 Race - Chicago Marathon - ***1 st , 2:10:59***

I broke the "2 up" on Sunday into one right when I woke up to help me take a dump, and then one really easy maybe 30 minutes before the race. I didn't do much for strides, just a few short ones in my start corral (that might not work depending on the race setup).

Pablo,

Wow man. Just wow. That's such an unbelievable progression. 2016 trials man.

Des,

Great race. 6:00 pr is awesome!

My week was nothing to write home about. I was traveling all week in London, Copenhagen and Helsinki, so was fortunate to get out a few days...

Races: 5k-Boston Marathon

Goals: 15:59, 26:30, 1:13:59, 2:35:59

Mon- Red eye, work, 10'ish miles around Hyde Park. Did 3 loops (don't think it was the full park). Middle loop I ran hard.

Tue- off

Wed- 10 miles on the treadmill in Copenhagen. Ran parts pretty hard (it was in km/hr, so was having trouble figuring out how fast I was going... but cranked the incline up and ran at around 15-20 km/hr for a little while at random intervals.

Thur- Off

Fri- Off

Sat- 10. Decided to do a fartlek about 5miles in. Ended up running about 30 minutes for my last 5 miles, run fartlek style. 1 1:00, a couple 2:00, 1 or 2 3:00 and 1 7:30. The 7:30 was at 5:35 pace, which felt relaxed. Doesn't sound all that fast, but most of that was on trails where running 7:30 pace feel fast (literally usually run between 7:30-8:00 pace, and when I get down to 7:00 or under, that is really moving on these trails). The last 7:30 was on the roads.

Sun- 10 VERY slow (15 minutes slower for the exact same course from the day before... now you get an idea for how rugged these trails are!)

Despite having Nationals this week, I think I'm going to ramp up mileage. I feel the desire to start committing to doubles again and to start getting into monster shape.

Oh, on the plus side... I started to get treatment on the hip/hammy issues. Been doing astym. Think its working!

Pablo, great job in the half!

Des, way to hang on the last half of the marathon (AKA the last 10k). That's often a challenge.

Mon Lift 60mins

Tues off

Weds elliptical 60mins

Thurs 6 miles

Fri off

Sat lift 60 mins

Sun off

Not much training to report. Decided to shut the running down for a week or two and see if the following nagging issues heal:

1) right-knee joint pain when descending stairs

2) pain at base of right foot big toe

3) heel pain in right foot

4) tender plantar fascia -right foot

I plan to do a little lifting and lots of stretching/core work and enjoy the holiday shopping....

Good luck to you folks running this next weekend!

Still in vegas, will report back Wednesday.

Stayed up till 3am, race at 7am. 10+ drinks the night before.

1:14:23 for 20th. 45 second PR. I will never take another race seriously again.

NoleRunner24 wrote:

Stayed up till 3am, race at 7am. 10+ drinks the night before.

1:14:23 for 20th. 45 second PR. I will never take another race seriously again.

AWE-SOME

Looking forward to your report...on both the half and the drinking. PS, before my 1:09 last weekend, I drank as well...though only 2 beers.

4TM - Good luck with club XC nats this weekend!

blaznbison24 wrote:

rhrunner: Did you used to run for a D2 school? I ran for Harding back in the day.

No, I just live in Louisville. I used to run for Rose-Hulman, D3.

oh please wrote:

I lurk this thread weekly, but I thought I'd say congrats on the sub 70 Pablo.

Same here. Awesome job!

Abu Seyame wrote:

Goal Race: Boston

Goal Time: sub-2:33

me too. i want 2:32 at boston

training is really just starting. 50 miles last week with 12 as the "long" run.

Goal Race: CIM

Goal Time: 2:37:17

Actual Time: 2:42:11

My week was: M- 8 w/6 strides Tu- 8 W- 7 w/2mi @MP (5:57, 6:01) Th- 4.75 w/4 strides F- Off Sat 3.5 Sun 27.2 (did about a 1 mile shuffle before the race)

Prerace: Before carb loading thu-sat, I experimented with a 1.5 day carb depletion Tuesday evening into all day Wednesday. That probably was a mistake, and I think next time I’ll only moderately lower my carb intake on those days. My muscles ached from Wednesday evening until the morning of the race, but my legs still felt pretty light and fresh for the race.

Also, tapering really messes with my sleep cycle. I already have issues staying asleep at night and sleeping in, and it only gets worse when I taper. I actually did much better with sleep this time around up until Friday night. Unfortunately, I got around 5 hours total each both Friday and Saturday night. I was still resting for over 8 hours a night, and I was largely inactive during the day.

Although both of these factors made me a bit nervous going into the race, I do not really think either significantly impacted the race.

The race itself: I will say that the organization of the race is top notch. It is really geared towards serious runners looking for fast times. They have volunteers at each mile marker shouting out your gun time pace per mile, which was awesome. The course was not what I expected at all. Sure it is a 300 foot net downhill, but the course is not a long gradual downhill like I thought it would be. There are many steep downhills followed by step (but shorter) uphills in the first 13 miles. The second half is somewhat more gradual, but it still had some steep declines and inclines. I guess based on the times and the number of serious runners who show up, the net downhill works for people who can handle the rolling hills, but judging by my own experience and the number of people I passed in the 2nd half who were walking, not everyone benefits from the course. Personally, if I had known the course was like this going in, I might have considered other races this time of year that seem mostly flat, like RNR Las Vegas or Rocket City, more seriously. Anyway, that’s enough prerace rambling:

Mile 1: about 5:47 - race starts with a big downhill. A guy right in front of me at the start decides right after the gun would be the best time to stop and take off his sweats. That was pretty sweet.. after the big downhill there was then a short uphill then more downhill. Lots of people take it out hard. I try to start under control (was hoping to open 6-6:10). Looked at my watch midway through the mile …. crap! Missed starting it. At mile 1, ask around for a split. Someone tells me 5:55ish, but I guess he started behind me. Based on my finish time - my recorded watch times I was probably around 5:47.

Mile 2: 6:05 (started my watch right at mile 1 marker) a spectator’s dog ran onto the course and into my pack. The dog chases a few people in front of me and weaves in and out of others, and eventually the dog runs off the course to other spectators. It was interesting. Luckily he did not seem to majorly impact anyone’s race.

Mile 3: 6:03 Others are still taking off around me. I am still just trying to stay under control

Mile 4: 5:51 saw my girlfriend cheering during this mile and I get a bit too excited and pick it up a little, but there was a big downhill so the pace was not too crazy

Mile 5: 6:05 back under control. It was either here or the next mile when the race around me really opened up, and I was left pretty much alone with people scattered in front of me

Mile 6: 6:01

Mile 7: 6:05

Mile 8: 6:02 I am tired of running alone. There is a guy reasonably close to me and a big pack about 30 or so seconds ahead. I decide to make a run at the pack over the next few miles, and I move up on the one guy and ask him to work with me to get the pack. He responds, gasping for breath “oh okay”, and proceeds to fall back. Oh well…

Mile 9: 5:57: now completely alone but making up ground on the pack

Mile 10: 5:53 the pack starts breaking apart, and I think I pick up one or two people here

Mile 11: 5:55 pick up some more people falling off the pack

Mile 12: 6:00 a few big hills the next 2 miles, but I just keep rolling and pick up more people

Mile 13: 6:01 another big hill this mile, but again I feel really strong on it. At this point, there was no more pack in front of me. It pretty much had disintegrated into people falling back, with a few moving ahead.

Mile 14: 5:47: huge spectator presence this mile, and nice downhills. I feel great, and I am very pumped up. I really start believing that I will easily hit my goal. I was pretty sure I was all done with any major uphills, and I start wondering about a big negative split.

Mile 15: 5:54: this mile is when my quads cramped/tightened up in NYC and I fell apart, but I feel strong right now. I am not worried about that happening today.

Mile 16: 5:58

Mile 17: 5:53

Mile 18: 6:05 crap.. quads start cramping, but it isn’t too bad. I can push through this.

Mile 19: 6:01 quads about the same… but still fighting it. Running right at goal pace

Mile 20: 6:14 the quad cramps are getting worse, but I am still on sub 6:00/mi pace (1:59:48). I still have hope that I might be able to get my goal by fighting through the next few miles and kicking hard the last mile

Mile 21: 6:17 volunteers shout out gun time pace of 6:01. Really feeling it but still have hope. Just need to get to mile 25 and maybe I can pull it out. I get passed for the first time since mile 4. I try to hang with the guy to for as long as possible, and that probably helped save the mile a little bit

Mile 22: 6:28 volunteers shout out gun time pace of 6:02. I start accepting sub 6/mi probably won’t be happening, but I think I can still hang on to a sub 2:40. I keep getting passed, but I am not the only one hurting. I am still passing a handful of elites and others walk-jogging.

Mile 23: 6:45 I can barely lift my legs .. head starts getting into a daze. My stomach is a mess

Mile 24: 6:59 death shuffle.

Mile 25 & 26: 14:20 Can’t even rally at all for the last full mile. I feel like everyone in race is passing me. Tried to hang on to someone I had originally passed around mile 21-22 who was hurting too, but he came back on me. Eventually, he got the better of me.

Last .2: 1:32. One last guy passes me, and I can’t do anything about it. I just try my best to open up my shuffle for the last straightaway. Those last 4 miles were probably the roughest of my life.

Post race thoughts: I don’t really know what I could have done differently in the race or my training to prevent what happened in the last 6 miles. I guess all the steep downhills and uphills early in the race did me in for those last 6 miles. I did a lot of hill running this summer when I was still living in DC, and I worked on strengthening my quads and hamstrings. In RNR Denver and the first 20 miles of CIM, it seemed like that work really paid off. After being a pretty weak hill runner for the past 5 or so years, I was able to comfortably roll up them in my races this fall. I also fueled pretty well during the race: I had gels at 7.5, 13, 18, and attempted one at 22 but could only stomach half of it.

Also, it was my first time back at sea level, since moving to Denver in September. Maybe Denver is not high enough or I just haven’t acclimated enough to train at proper paces here or I am being swayed by Jack Daniels saying altitude training is overrated in his talk at the expo, but I don’t really think living at 5000ft had any benefit for my race. I feel that I would have run the same regardless of where I lived.

In the end, I am not too disappointed. I hung in there for 5 miles further than I did in my first marathon, and that gives me hope that maybe next time I can finally figure it out. I’d really like to run a pancake flat course for my next marathon in hope that I can avoid my legs cramping up. Chicago would probably be ideal, but from what I hear about the 2nd year of my grad program, I do not think I’ll be able to fit in a fall marathon next year. I was not planning on racing much this spring, and I was thinking of searching for a decent early fall/late summer marathon in September or I would just focus on getting a half marathon pr. After yesterday, I am starting to rethink that plan, and I might look into a June marathon after I am finished with the school year. I am not sure though.

Thanks to everyone for all the advice and support leading up to the race. I train mostly alone, so it really helped to have feedback and others to bounce ideas off of.

Chip splits:

Mile 5.9: 35:03 (5:56.4)

Half: 78:26 (5:59.0)

Mile 20:1:59:48 (5:59.4)

Final time: 2:42:11 (6:11.1)

Pablo: congrats on the pr. sub 70 is awesome. It seems like you really have your own training figured out.

blaznbison: Good luck at Rocket City. I looked into running it this fall and it looks like a great race. Your workouts have been amazing, you are going to just roll out there.

NoleRunner: congrats on the pr. the last sentence of your post made me crack up.

GoalRace Y10 10 miler (feb) Cleveland Marathon (May)

GoalTime Low 70s 3:20s

Mileage:35

OK week with easy tempo run and a couple of days of striders. I actually felt good at the end of the run (8 miles with 5-7 at 'tempo'). No long runs yet. Dr. thinks I should hold off on the long+hard workouts until the thyroid meds are good, so the training works instead of killing me. I'm thinking of jumping in a 5k this weekend to get a feel for my starting point for fitness (low, but how low?). If we get a day or two of sun to melt the ice off the course that is.

It kind of weird to see everyone at different points in the training, with some on the tail end of the marathon cycle and some just beginning one.

des, great 6 minute PR. I imagine it seemed less than great the last couple though. Thanks for the report. Gets me excited for a good winter of training.

Blazzin, luck next week. For marathon warmup, I do enough of a warmup to make the visit to the bathroom productive, if you know what I mean.

mike, you are really hard core to hit the cross training like you do. I would not be able to do the eliptical like that with having a meltdown.

pablo, PRing (at the half no less) at the beginning of a training cycle is amazing. Do you have a feel for whether you could have pushed a little more if you had someone to run with?

des - Thanks for sharing the report! The marathon is a tricky event, even moreso when you factor in hills. My gut feeling is that your fitness certainly indicated that 6:00 pace was feasible, but the early pounding on your legs from the downhills took it's toll. Though I don't know much about the CIM course, the same thing happened to me at Boston earlier this year...I felt awesome early on, felt awesome through the Newton hills, once I got to Boston College (mile 22ish), it was like the flick of a switch and my legs turned to lead. Normally, I'd suggest more hill running, but with you running in Denver, I imagine you get your fair share of hills. Did you have any workouts that involved hills? Running MP over hills is very different than running easy over hills. Maybe some supplemental weight training would help with the quad cramping? Or maybe you simply need some more experience at the distance...I know I certainly haven't figured it out. But the more I do, the more I find out what I'm able to handle. Either way, it's a PR and nobody can say otherwise...so enjoy it!

niarun - Thanks! BTW, I wouldn't even call this the beginning of a training cycle, I'd call it more of an "in-between" period. But, yes, I do believe I could've broken 1:09 if I had someone else to run with. The pace never felt difficult, I was never laboring until the last 1/2 mile or so.

niarun wrote:

mike, you are really hard core to hit the cross training like you do. I would not be able to do the eliptical like that with having a meltdown.

niarun,

thanks! Although I think I hit the crosstraining hard because we paid semi-big bucks for a Sole E55 elliptical a few year ago. We set up in the bedroom and I have a TV/DVD combo there that enables me to do the workouts while catching up on various DVDs (like 'Five Thousand Meters - Nothing Comes Easy, or 'Tokyo Olympiad'; also partial to'SNL-first season', 'The Complete Mighty Boosh' and various Grateful Dead concert DVDs). Really makes the time fly!

It is not as hilly as you might expect where I live in Denver. DC, where I was all summer, was actually hillier. In August, I did a few out and back tempo runs in DC where the out part was a long gradual uphill and the back park was the oposite. I was thinking the course was more gradual and not as up and down, so I figured this would help. I probably didn't do enough specific hill work after I moved to Denver. I do a lot of quad and hamstring work without weights, but perhaps weight training would have helped as well. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now. I think I did a much better job with marathon specific workouts and training this time around. I just have to figure out more of the course specific stuff next time.

pablo wrote:

I had another breakthrough race at my half marathon yesterday morning. I'm thinking this high mileage thing I've been doing for 2 years or so is really paying off now,

Pablo - very nice race.

I used to be completely ignorant of the high mileage world and still haven't truly experienced it with only a handful of weeks over 70 miles, but I thought I'd share this article I read a few years ago. It is kind of long and probably nothing new to a lot of you; but, I enjoy reading it to rekindle the fire once in a while. I had a link to it ("Mileage Make Champions") but it doesn't work anymore. Here is a site that appears to have the text:

blaznbison24 wrote:

And what do you do for a marathon warm-up? I was thinking about a progressive mile, some light drills and a couple of 30 second strides, but I'm definitely open to ideas.

I just jog for about 5 minutes and do a few slower-than-normal strides. I encourage people to use the first mile of the marathon as the rest of the warm-up. In my 2 best marathons, my first mile has actually been my slowest of the race. This way you just roll into the race pace in the first few miles. You don't need to be at goal pace to start with. A lot of times that comes back to bite you in the last 10k...

Good luck this weekend!

des - congratulations! Good race.

When you mentioned you did the carb depletion thing I thought: "yikes, that is a myth". Maybe there is some science behind it but condering I've never done it and I've always finished the last miles of marathons pretty well, I'd say it isn't necessary and would just stuff your muscles with carbs the whole week before the race! :-)

And, reading through your report I was thinking maybe you didn't fuel up during the race. But, clearly at the end you say you took 4 1/2 gels. That's plenty so that wasn't the problem. How much did you drink during the race? Persistent muscle cramps and the fact you said your stomach was in some distress (mile 23) I'd think you were a little dehydrated. Anyway, I'd be interested to know how much and how frequent you drank...

Ok finally back from Vegas, but at work today so can't read everyone's post. I did see pablo's and des's races.

pablo - Holy Sh*t!!! You are on a freaking roll man. Keep it up man. VERY Exciting to hear about.

I feel the same way about high mileage. When I started training for Chicago, around May of this year, it was the first time I consistantly ran higher mileage. I plan to keep it up. I hope that after 2 years of this I will be dominating like you are. It's already paying off, but I am just going to continue to be more and more consistant. Thanks for your inpiration brother.

des - Awesome marathon! I know it wasn't your goal, but a great PR none-the-less. I had your same goal for Chicago and I dropped out. So it could have gone worse, much worse.

In regards to my comment "I will never take another race seriously again." There is truth to that comment. Although I don't plan on getting no sleep and partying my ass off before all my races, I will be taking racing less seriously. As some here know by following my training, I took Chicago Marathon training ultra-seriously and end up with a DNF. I also ran a HM (Virginia Beach RnR) 5 weeks out in 1:15:40. A full 1:17 slower than Vegas.

All of my PRs have come in tune-up races for a big goal race. This says something about the pressure I put on myself and how being too serious may hurt you/me.

My week:

Mo - 11am easy (death on a plate as per last night's quick pace) / 6pm easy felt better

Tu - 8pm easy followed by strength training / 6pm easy

We - 11am solo tempo 2 by 3 miles

(17:36 - 6:03, 5:53, 5:39) full recovery (16:30 - 5:40, 5:30, 5:20) / 5 miles easy easy

Th - 8am easy / 7pm followed by 3 IPAs and numerous shots (not in Vegas yet)

Fr - 8am easy hungover - flight at 7:25pm

Sa - 6am easy to Expo (still drunk. ran to Expo and back, went to bed at 6am Vegas time [so 9am EST, my time], woke up at 9:30am)

Su - What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Except for PRs!

15am, HM race in 1:14:23.

Went to bed at 3am, woke up at 5am, race at 7am.

Total Mileage - 90miles

Splits per website as I lost my running watch in Vegas. (that's not all I lost).

5k - 17:43

10k - 35:06

10m - 56:30

HM - 1:14:23

At mile 10 I was hurting bad. I seriously turned myself inside-out the last 3 miles. I put in 110% and have never felt that awful at the end of a the race. My last .1 was in 45 seconds. That shows how bad I was blowin up. I hope I can continue to put this kind of effort into every race!I look God-Awful in all of my finishing pictures. It's actually quite amusing. Enjoy...

http://www.marathon-photos.com/scripts/event.py?event=Sports/RRUS/2010/Rock%20%27n%27%20Roll%20Las%20Vegas%20Marathon%20and%20Half

;match=1917

Ran with my training partner through 10, then he took off and ended up with a 1:13:30. I remember the first 2 miles were ~5:45s then we dropped it down to 5:34-5:38 through 10. We were passing EVERYONE, flying by them!

We passed Josh Cox just after the 10k as he was on the side of the road pissing haha. He caught back up to us and ran with us until 12.5 miles as he veered off to do the Full Marathon and ended up winning in 2:25. Pretty cool guy despite all the shit talked about him.

We also saw Jen Rhines out ahead of us with a good group around mile 5. We made it our goal to slowly catch her. We caught and passed her between 8 and 9. Pretty cool experience passing an Olympian, even tho she is a girl.

This race was AWESOME! Flat course, scenic and super fast. My training partner and I both commented on how great the roads felt. It was like running on a state-of-the-art track. I definitely suggest doing this race and will probably do it again next year.

I continued partying my ass off Sunday and Monday. Flew home on Tuesday. I ran 8 miles still drunk Monday morning, and 10.5 very hungover Tuesday morning. Rest time boys!