Daniels' Running Formula - What's missing in the marathon plans?

Smoove wrote:

Extended runs at marathon pace are the hardest workouts on the schedule for me - harder than the long runs that include tempo bouts early and late.

For some runners, those runs are not as bad; particularly if you are say 3:15 to 3:30 marathoner. The difference between threshold pace and marathon pace for a 2:30 marathoner is about 16 seconds. For a 3:30 marathoner, that delta is 38 seconds. And the delta is not simply a reflection of different paces, slower runners marathon pace is actually relatively closer to easy distance pace than it is to their tempo pace as compared to faster runners. My wife is a 3:30 marathoner and had little trouble with the M pace runs, whereas they destroy me.

So people at different places on the spectrum may well have very different perspectives on the same workout.

Exactly. If you´re slow enough, MP and easy pace will be the same.

A tempo run is executed by feel. It means comfortably hard.

I see LT pace runs as a type of tempo runs. So if you're only doing tempo runs at LT pace than they are one and the same. That said I've seen prescribed paces by Daniels for tempo runs ranging between 20min, run at T pace, and 60min, which is close to M pace. I agree with you though there is not difference between a 20-min LT pace run and a tempo run, but not all tempo runs are LT runs.

So I think the not agreed upon, but working definition of tempo run 1) is any continuous run with a pace between T to M pace and is comfortably hard. Ideally they are done be feel or at least run at paces adapted for the days circumstances. 1) + 2) together mean that the longer the tempo run the slower the pace. Therefore if you did T pace for 40 minutes you would no longer be Tempoing, you'd be Hammering. This leads to a new run definition, the Hammer run, which is any continuous run at a effort that is harder than tempo effort. I personally like the occasionally Hammer run. I'm not sure what purpose they serve, maybe they are good if you're racing schedule is too light.

Adieu

I would also argue that there is room between M pace and easy pace where a tempo run is called for. Some people might call this "uptempo" but I don't believe there is anything in Daniels to support it.

Smoove, here is from his marathon guidelines from the Science of Running

Speed development for the marathon functions to improve biomechanical efficiency, increase the amount of muscle fibers available to do the work, increase strength and power, and above all to make marathon pace feel as relaxed as possible. During the base period, hill sprints are used to increase strength, power, and neural recruitment. In addition, short surges or aerobic intervals at 5k, 3k, and 1mi pace are used. These are not full workouts but should rather be thought of as for biomechanical reasons. The pre-competition period is when anaerobic support and direct support work are brought to maximum. 5k-10k paced work is done both for biomechanical reasons and to improve aerobic abilities, specifically to increase the amount and rate of aerobic energy that can be supplied. This can initially be done by progressive or combo work, and later through aerobic intervals, longer intervals, and alternations. To start with, adding on a short segment at 10k pace to an LT work is a good way to introduce 10k pace, while extending the cruise work done at 3k paces during the base phase to include short intervals at 5k pace work can serve as its introduction. The development of speed support can be done by using the first part of the specific endurance progressions for the 5k and 10k races. The only difference when taking this approach is to stop the progression earlier and to use more blend workouts. In this way, alternations, blends, or combo workouts can also be included. The end goal is to increase high-end aerobic abilities and establish a level of comfort at faster paces. During the specific period, this work needs to be kept to a minimum. The reason is that larger doses of 5k, 10k, and LT work shifts the fuel system to rely more on glycogen. This happens because when running at these faster paces the fuel supply is never the issue; therefore the body is worried about what the best way is to supply energy rapidly, not on how to conserve it for a marathon. Therefore, only short maintenance work should be done. Lastly is the issue of strength endurance from the speed perspective. Initially, the foundation of strength endurance is developed through hill sprints. From here, hill circuits work well, as do blend and alternation work at 5k-10k paces. Additionally, medium length hills (200-600m) at 1mi-5k effort during the base or early pre-competition phase will convert some of that pure speed to high intensity strength endurance. As we go later into the pre-competition period, longer hills at 5k-10k paces can be used to develop both direct speed support and strength endurance. Finally, during the competition phase, uphill tempo’s or hilly long runs put the finishing touches on specific strength endurance.

I’m not sure if they’re in his book and the stock plans that come with this and even if so what version but Daniels has published tables for longer 20-60min tempos. See here in this article by the man himself:

https://www.runnersworld.com/workouts/threshold-training-finding-your-vdot

oplain wrote:

During the specific period, [5k, 10k, and LT] work needs to be kept to a minimum. The reason is that larger doses of 5k, 10k, and LT work shifts the fuel system to rely more on glycogen. This happens because when running at these faster paces the fuel supply is never the issue; therefore the body is worried about what the best way is to supply energy rapidly, not on how to conserve it for a marathon. Therefore, only short maintenance work should be done.

This is the crux of my question - he simply says that we rely on glycogen when working at LT pace, and thus should avoid it.

But my questions are:

1. Doesn't all of the aerobic work that we are doing the other 5, sometimes 6 days a week shift our fuel system to rely on fat as well as glycogen? And, assuming so, is the work at LT pace prescribed by Daniels enough to offset the benefits of the shift that is being emphasized on those 5 or 6 days?

2. If we are properly carb loaded and have a proper in-race fueling plan, does the reliance on glycogen really matter? That is, if we have adequate carbs to burn, why do we care about the fact that we are burning carbs at a faster rate than absolutely necessary?

He gives us the what, but he does not give us the why. (As an aside, part of what I like so much about Daniels is that he gives us the why - although I acknowledge that some disagree with his "whys").

Nowadays we frame this discussion within a fuel and metabolic energy system standpoint but Lydiard as far back as the early 60s believed that ill-timed anaerobic work could "offset" the benefits of aerobic development. The terms are different but I believe it's the same idea.

It's a good question, but I think the premise is you need to teach your body to burn a higher level of fat at marathon pace effort. Even with supplementing carbohydrate, you're likely to run better if you're burning a higher ration of fat to carbs throughout the event.

The question you offer is interesting though - is the LT work enough to offset it? He is presenting as if it does, but I don't have more specific knowledge.

I do wonder how glycogen dependent LT work is. Maybe that is the reason going out slightly too fast can crush you in a marathon. Especially as you are near your potential.

Also another reason why Canova always preaches keeping marathon work at marathon pace and if anything increasing the pace of recovery reps.

questioning wrote:

Maybe that is the reason going out slightly too fast can crush you in a marathon. Especially as you are near your potential.

I don't have an answer here, just thinking out loud, but my sense is that going out too fast can be a critical error because for many runners their marathon pace is fairly close to the LT pace. Even at marathon pace, there will be some waste product (hydrogen ion?) build up, but it is gradual enough to allow you to get through the full marathon before things take their toll. If you go out too hard, you have an initial waste product accumulation that puts you in the hole right away, and since at marathon pace, you are just unable to clear more quickly than you accumulate, you suffer through that accumulation for the entirety of the race.

So instead of having only marginal accumulation in the late stages of the race, when you go out too hard, you have meaningful accumulation essentially right from the start.

All this talk about LT training conditioning the body to burn glycogen as compared to fat has gotten my attention.

I'm 12 weeks and 4 days out from my marathon at Newport, OR.

In my five previous marathons, I've bonked in the last four (in my very first one, I got a stitch in my side that caused me to walk about half of the last seven miles, so it's hard to say what would have happened in that one).

I've still got five PRs in a row but still haven't gotten the 3:29:45 (8:00 pace) I'm looking for.

Last year's marathon (also at Newport) was my first one in 17 years (at age 54) and the first time I ever really had any structured training. I did this with a Hanson's coach but after getting through the half in an estimated 1:44:36, I closed at 1:58:59. My best guess as to what happened is that my LT pace was way too close to my marathon pace and I was basically burning up glycogen from the start. Looking back at last year's workout schedule, my last "speedwork" of any kind was done 12 weeks and 6 days from the race (3x1mi w/7:18 target). After that, none of my workouts were scheduled to go faster than 7:50. Knowing what I think I know now, that seems crazy not to maintain some type of LT workout from that point forward!

This year (I'm on my own), I've been doing 5x1mi with .15mi jog rest LT workouts (started on January 4th, about once a week). 7:23 is the suggested Daniels pace but I started at 7:42. If I'm under on all five repeats, I move the next workout down :02, if I'm under in total but miss any of the repeats I move the next workout down :01. My last workout was done yesterday (7:25,7:20,7:29, 7:28,7:24) to 7:29 so my next one will target 7:27. Anyway, I'm feeling like I'm in the ballpark of where I need to be with these workouts in that they make my MP feel a lot easier than they did last year.

I've been over 50 miles for the last 8 weeks and as I move into the 13 to 3 weeks to go period, I'm planning on averaging 61-62 miles per week - in conjunction with that I'm reducing the frequency of my workouts from 3 every 10 days to one every four days. The workouts alternate between the LT workout and either a MP or Long Run. So, I'm only doing 5 miles of LT running per week, so only 8% of the total. So, I'm thinking not that risky but at the same time, I'm wondering if maybe I should only do the LT workout every other week (in place of that I could swap in a mild MP run - say 10 miles in total with the middle 7 at MP).

My longest run so far was last Thursday (16 with last 5 at MP - total average for the run was a little fast at 8:17 pace) - I'm planning on doing 18 with last 6 at MP on Friday. My other long runs that I will have left after that will then be: 14(4), 17(5), 19(6), 20(6) and 21(7). My longest MP run was 15 with last 12 at MP, a little more than four weeks ago. I'm planning on a 16(13) a week from Saturday. Then I'll have left 11(8), 14(11) and 17(14).

I'm also planning on the following medium-long runs (all done at a relatively easy pace but not higher than MP+20%): 11 once, and 12 through 15 each done twice.

I've given all the extra information to give the whole picture and in case there are any thoughts out there that I might be going off-track overall.

Assuming that you had a recent race to support the sub 3:30 marathon goal time, I am a little confused by your old workouts. It looks like you did no work anywhere near LT pace for 12 weeks (your LT pace would be 7:23 if you were in 3:30 marathon shape, as evidenced by a recent (presumably shorter) race, but you did some work slightly faster than marathon pace (which would have been basically 8:00 flat pace).

In any event, if your LT pace was 7:23, but your marathon pace was 8:00, it does not seem to me that those are particularly close. I will note that this is exactly where my wife was for her first marathon (Chicago this year, when she ran 3:30 - she was 15 years younger than you though!), so I have spent some time thinking through the work done for those in that range.

Of course, she weighs about 115 pounds and my guess is that you maybe weigh a bit more than a 5' 2.5" woman. That can change the equation on the calorie burn side of things - heavier runs burn more calories than lighter runners, so when you have a smaller runner who is not really carrying any extra weight and who properly carbo loads and fuels in race, they are less likely to have an issue than an older runner who maybe is a little less lean and just generally relatively a bit bigger. For those runners, the availability of carbs may be an issue regardless of how close your LT pace is to your M pace. But my guess is that it was not the proximity of those paces that was the issue, and that, in any event, since you didn't run much at LT pace, but rather ran significantly slower during your training, you were not really undertaking the behavior that raises Magness' concerns.

Just out of curiosity, when you go out for an easy run with a friend and maintain a conversation, what pace do you typically run?

Unfortunately, I didn't/don't have a recent race to base my workouts off of. Alternatively, I started my workouts where I fairly estimated myself to be and worked the paces down over time (1 VDOT every four to six weeks as per Daniels but I've probably been slightly more aggressive than that).

Anyway, I think last year was complicated by the fact that I was essentially doing a modified version of Hanson's (in that I was working the paces down over time - but, my first workout was 30 weeks before the race). I had to work on speed for roughly the first half of the training and that more or less led me into the last 15 weeks of the Hanson's plan. I did the nine-day cycle plan (a workout every third day) with an extra week built-in if I needed an extra recovery day. The plan pretty much rotated three types of runs: Speed or Strength, then MP, then a Long Run. Naturally, the MP and long runs increase in length over time. Speed workouts are done for the first one-third of the plan and then strength workouts takeover. The speed workouts tended to be 12x400, 8x600, 6x800, 5x1k, 4x1200 and 3x1 - because of my working the paces down, I was mostly working the shorter end of that curve (which is a problem in and of itself). So, only by the end of the progression was I really at the theoretical LT pace and each workout was only three miles (as opposed to the five miles I'm doing now). Then the Strength workouts take over - they double in length to six miles (6x1, 4x1.5, 3x2 or 2x3) but they are only supposed to be done at MP-10. So, yes, looking at this right now, this in particular makes no sense to me (when I shot my old coach an e-mail in about six weeks ago letting her know how I was doing I also asked her how Hanson's addresses the LT in their workouts, she didn't answer the question). To sum up, I was never really doing the type of LT workouts I needed to be doing and then I wasn't doing any at all the last 12 weeks!

In the end, we had a race plan for my goal of 8:00 pace when I wasn't in 8:00 shape - I knew this deep down but I let my coach convince me I was in that kind of shape (comparing last year to this year, it is totally obvious I wasn't - this year I might actually be but I think I'm going to have doubt until/if I get the job done.

Even though I'm a year older, that's far outweighed by the fact I'm in my second season of significant training (even if the training last year had been designed perfectly, I'm thinking 3:30 still may have been out of reach either way). Even with doing almost no running (or anything) in June or July due to post-race issues, I actually was able to regain what I lost and advance much farther this year so far. I'd say I'm already in better shape than I was going into last year's race (I'd say 3:36-3:37 is probably what I could have run that day).

Last year, my easy runs were basically 6 miles; this year they are 10 miles. I hardly ever run with anyone - that's just a rare once-in-awhile thing if I come across someone running somewhat near my pace. Today's 10 mile easy run was done in 1:33:10 (9:19 pace) - that's probably pretty typical of a recovery run when I'm somewhat tired. If I'm feeling pretty good, I'll be down close to 9:00 - on the high side I always keep it under 9:36 (MP+20%), just on principle.

Anyway, last year my LT and MP really weren't that much different (as evidenced by my splits, starting with mile 15: 8:26,8:29,8:24,8:32,8:41,8:55,9:06,9:12,9:27,9:39,9:58,10:17). Before that, I was under an 8:00 pace. In mile 15, I readjusted on the fly to try to run 8:20's but you can see I couldn't even hold that.

This time around, I'm feeling as though my LT pace is a lot different than my MP (I'm thinking it's not there yet but even if it ends up being 7:30 as opposed to 7:23, that should be something I can work with). Regarding Magness, I agree that wasn't the issue in any way at all last year - but could it be this year? I'm still kind of thinking no, but the last thing I want my body to be doing is burning excess glycogen, so I'm still leaning towards swapping out a few of the LT runs for MP runs. Instead of 10 LT workouts, maybe I'll do 6 LT and 4 MP, for instance.

Hanson's longest run (in my plan, at least) was only 16 miles, which I did 4 times. They are supposed to be progressive, with at least the last three or so at MP.

My best one last year was (9:39,9:18,8:57,8:55,8:51,8:56,8:48,8:35,8:34,8:33,8:31,8:39,8:24,8:18,8:17,8:18)

Last Thursday (9:04,8:38,8:33,8:31,8:22,8:18,8:16,8:14,8:13,8:11,8:08,8:01,7:52,8:00,8:02,7:58) - temperature in the 50's, lost 1.2 pounds (5'9 1/2 - 144.8 pounds).

Thanks for your input - I think I've gathered from prior posts of yours that you came to running later on but you've made the most of it! Are you from Brooklyn originally? I lived in Bay Ridge from 1987-1997.

I think you are right in that the LT is so close to MP, but if you think about it literally if you running at or near your LT by going out to hard, you are accumulating lactate faster than you can clear it which is associated with one hour race pace.

That as well as nobody knows what pace corresponds to vLT on any given day makes it even dicier.

After thinking about it some more, maybe the MP -10 workouts do have a place in the last phase of a marathon block. They are a bit slower than LT and wouldn't burn as much glycogen accordingly. I know a Canova approach says you are not really improving LT during the specific phase, but just maintaining it.

Perhaps an approach of MP -10 in the last 6-8 weeks gives you what you need to maintain your LT workout without teaching the body to be as glycogen dependent.

I think I'm going to stay away from MP-10. There must be some reason why Hansons use it but I can't remember what it was (and I don't have the book anymore). I just happened to come across another LR thread on threshold training that has a podcast with Magness and Marcus. I'm going to listen to it and see what they say exactly...

I think my current plan is good but it could turn out that one subtle difference in approach might make all the difference.

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2018/02/episode-68-threshold-training-good-or-bad-and-what-in-the-world-is-it.html

The podcast largely talks about the different types of "thresholds" and how Jonathan Marcus thinks running at MP is worthless, while Steve Magness thinks the opposite. Good listen though.

I didn't run in high school but walked on without prior experience when I got to college (Albany). Had some success, then lost focus after college. Came back to the sport later in life. Details here if you are interested:

https://www.brooklynbornrunning.com/who-are-we/

Small world - I actually lived directly next door to JJ Bubbles and attended St. Anselm's until I moved when I was 8 (1980) to a different part of Brooklyn.