shug wrote:
I have no idea what you're saying regarding... "obsessing about one factor"...
If you think PM is obsessive about ONE thing, it's clear to me that you're not educated on this matter.
Is it true that ONE open marathon is a man's legacy? I'm not following your logic.
Under this logic, you'd be inferring Puskedra didn't train hard enough for New York; though perhaps just a little harder than MA...
Nope. Puskedra is a 2:10 marathoner. Allen is a 2:40 marathoner.
MAF pace is the UPPER LIMIT. If you are more comfortable at a lower HR, he encourages that.
800 dude wrote:
This is exactly right, and it is alone sufficient to demonstrate that the guy has no idea what he's doing. He talks about the importance of easy training, but if you're a youngish runner and you apply his heart rate formulas (including the modifications), you'd be absolutely hammering your easy runs. I'm a 30-ish year old 2:30 marathoner. 150 bpm would be very close to marathon pace for me in cool weather (at least at the start--it would drift a lot higher throughout the course of the race). I do my "easy" runs at 130, and my "recovery" runs at 120 or even lower.
Lots of urea.
shug wrote:
I have no idea what you're saying regarding... "obsessing about one factor"...
If you think PM is obsessive about ONE thing, it's clear to me that you're not educated on this matter.
Is it true that ONE open marathon is a man's legacy? I'm not following your logic.
Under this logic, you'd be inferring Puskedra didn't train hard enough for New York; though perhaps just a little harder than MA...
No, Puskedra has done a good Marathon and will again.
Allen just quit.
He could have rectified it with some help from the Magic Coach.
He ran a 2:10 at New York?
You better check your sources!
ACDC wrote:
MAF pace is the UPPER LIMIT. If you are more comfortable at a lower HR, he encourages that.
]
Who isn't comfy on the couch?
S. Canaday wrote:
I agree with you for the most part.
I've pointed out the flaws of: ["arbitrary number" - age] to determine heart rate training zones and relative intensity as it is a moving target with training age, actual age, individual variations on max Hr, weekly mileage/experience etc.
My personal "MAF" pace would be way too hard as well.
For beginner runners (think new to running, low mileage etc) it can be very good because it slows them down. Many people tend to push their easy days too hard and they get injured.
cut
Maffetone training works well if you run sufficient miles at MAF HR - I'd say at least 50 mpw. The formula is controversial, but provides a 'safe' number for running that is totally aerobic. Something like 77% of maximum heart rate would also be close. One interesting thing is that pace at MAF HR if you persist with the training for a month or more becomes faster. Initially my pace was 9 minute miles or more but eventually it dropped to well under 8 minute miles which at times feels too hard for an easy run.
For the OP, my race time for 5k dropped from 19:40 down to 17:18, admittedly barely hobby jogging standard for LR but one example of Maffetone training working in terms of PRs improving.
freddy, some nice long walk/hobbles and following Phil's dietary guidelines might well benefit your dementia. If your caretaker reads this PLEASE INTERVENE. It is so painful watching a mind unravel one post at a time.
resting HR is comfortable wrote:
ACDC wrote:MAF pace is the UPPER LIMIT. If you are more comfortable at a lower HR, he encourages that.
]
Who isn't comfy on the couch?
Urine Trouble fred wrote:
freddy, some nice long walk/hobbles and following Phil's dietary guidelines might well benefit your dementia. If your caretaker reads this PLEASE INTERVENE. It is so painful watching a mind unravel one post at a time.
resting HR is comfortable wrote:Who isn't comfy on the couch?
First of all I'm not Fred and second, fred always goes birdwatching. Is that not a hobby involving walking?
You sound paranoid.
S. Canaday wrote:
The point of him posting elite training from the super fast guys (I assume) was showing the fact that one can't reach their max potential in the marathon (whatever that may be) by following MAF.
Like i mentioned earlier, for the masses trying to run a faster marathon (or just finish their first marathon). Usually all they need to do to improve is:
1. Slow down on their Easy days so they don't get hurt
AND
2. Run higher weekly mileage more consistently (i.e. instead of 30mpw they start running 45-50 mpw). MAF tends to appeal to these people. It really is not a special "method" though and for flat road marathons one really doesn't need to look at Heartrate data all the time when actual velocity/pace is more important.
@Fred: It wasn't the single 16-mile 'simulator workout' at Hansons that usually crushed me (before my 2:16, I ran it at about 5:05 pace)...it was a combination of 6:00min pace on "Easy Days" at 130mpw as well as crushing 20-mile long runs in the low 1:50s, and the notorious "8-10 mile negative split "cut down runs." The Hansons also never let me run more than 20-miles on a single long run...I personally think if I just ran easier on the Long Runs and got in some solid 22-23 milers it would have been better. It was the overall sequence/periodization of the quality workouts that was hard (lots of guys got injured....we lost Luke Humphrey and Tim Young before the '12 trials in the build-up). Running on ice/snow at Stoney Creek early in the morning and always trying to force a pace.... Many may disagree with me, but I consider my 16th place at Boston last year to be a better performance than the 2:16:52 I ran with Hansons.
This was one of the things that struck me when reading your book -- easy days too fast.
According to a recent study, doing intensive exercises is the only way that the heart cells could regenerate.
So is not really true that elite runners are all doomed to develop a heart disease.
Long-term running coupled with a high-carb diet carries a high risk of heart problems long term. E.g. Ric Sayre, Caballo blanco, +many many older runners with cardiac arhythmias (including me until I remedied my diet and reduced stressful aerobic workouts)
Your post shows that runners at this forum should be more worried about mental disease than heart disease.
Thanks for clearing that up for everyone.
shug wrote:
Your comments alone tell me that you have no idea what you're talking about regarding PM - not even a clue.
This SO true...
I am truly amazed how much bullshit have been posted here by people who obviously have deep misconceptions and close to 0 knowledge about MAF training (well but on the other hand I now start to understand how TRUMP could have been elected...).
The interested readers here may go back to page 4 where I have posted a (I think fair) summary of the MAF method (and a few complements in later posts p4-5). Then if interested to know more, I've mentioned a few articles from PM web site. And then, if still interested to know more, you have his books. But stay away of what many have posted there, this is complete desinformation...
About the typical pace corresponding to MAF HR during MAF base training (after some time of base training), according to PM it corresponds to 15-20'' slower than your current Marathon pace. This is also true for the faster runners, so MAF pace is NOT slow and easy running (it is at the beginning for those who start without a good aerobic base - which usually is the case).
Second, you DO have speed (and strength) training included in the MAF method, except at the very beginning of the base phase. Actually, for those who understand it, you realize that there is many elites who trains a way that corresponds to what the MAF method would lead them to. I've already mentioned Paula RADCLIFFE and Eliud KIPCHOGE during his marathon transition.
Last, about how much you can progress in the base phase only using MAF, I already mentioned ALLEN progressed from 8:30 to 5:15 / mile pace at the same HR in his 1 year base building the first year he worked with PM (which moved him from second fiddle dull triathlete to best ironman triathlete ever). But he is not an isolated case: in the latest posdcast (with Lucho and Tony) on "EndurancePlanet" there is a question of a farmer amateur runner who improved from 12:00 pace to 8:25 pace at his MAF HR during a LONG MAF base training.
These are only two examples out of thousands...
Excerpt of a recent Mark ALLEN interview about MAF training:
Timothy Carlson: On why Maffetone’s methods are important today, given that he apparently does not currently coach world class triathletes.
Mark Allen: What does that matter that he does not coach elite athletes at this moment? What he utilized to train people in the past is still the best approach and it will stay that way until someone finds something better that proves to work over and over again. Other approaches in the past decade give short-term results, but I am after long term race results within a program that does not totally fry athletes. People are always looking for the newest thing, the latest, greatest thing. But if you look behind the scenes, you will find so many people are injured doing it. So is that a good approach?
TC: Is Maffetone is relevant today?
MA: Phil is relevant because the guy is a genius at what he does. He knows how to keep somebody’s body working at peak performance better than anybody I have experienced in this sport. He will have you training right and eating right and keeping all the energy systems at peak performance and in the right balance.
TC: On comparing the Maffetone method with other recently developed coaching strategies.
MA: I have had success with many athletes I coach. I have looked ad nauseum on forums where people are debating questions like—Are power meters better than HRMs? Is pace running better? Is lactate a better tool than VO2 max tests? I looked at all of them and I always came back to the core elements that Phil taught. [...]
TC: On what is different about Maffetone’s approach.
MA: He looks at the whole picture while most coaches and trainers look at isolated elements even with, for example, speed work. You need it and he prescribed it for me but it is not the only thing you need, just to use one simple example. [...]
TC: Why is Maffetone misunderstood?
MA: I also think there is a certain amount of misunderstanding to his training philosophies. When you have a partial understanding about training your aerobic system and people say ‘How can you race well if all you do is train at the slow and steady stuff?’ First off, it is not about training slow. Second, he recognizes that you have to do speed work. That is part of what he tells you to do. People often miss that part of it. They are arguing against an incomplete picture. That is a classic example of what happens when people look at an isolated number and fail to see the whole picture. What Phil did was to see the whole picture.
TC: On why many people try the Maffetone regimen and say it does not work.
MA: Most people who would try this do not have the patience stick with it. After two weeks they get sick of base fitness and go back and train the way they had before. They say, ‘Oh, it does not work for me.’ They have not let it work.
TC: How important is Maffetone’s emphasis on balancing training and family life, on adapting the training and racing load to life stress?
MA: One of the important things Phil emphasizes is that gains in fitness are also related to the ability to absorb the training. The success of training occurs within an overall ball of wax of limiting and balancing the stress in your life. It has to be manageable with all high heart rate training or you never get faster. So when I coach someone I delve into their personal life. If they have too much deadline stress with jobs and other stresses going on, it puts their hormonal systems out of whack and they are never able to develop a proper aerobic base. If they have gone two months and they do not get any faster, I say let me ask you some questions. I go through a laundry list of common stresses and find people have 4, 5 or 6 of 10 going on. Once you say OK, here are the red flags, I ask them: Which can you change? Start to get extra sleep, cut back on the intensity and training volume. Reduce overall stress on the body. All of a sudden they come around and realize: Whoa! This actually works!
TC: On Maffetone’s 180-minus age formula
MA: That is a valid question to be asked. I get it a lot. If you have a maximum heart rate higher than expected for age, is the 180-minus age way out of whack? Say if you are 40 and your max heart rate is not 180 but it is 220, that does not mean you have a naturally high maximum heart rate. That means that you do not have a healthy developed aerobic system. And you have not developed your aerobic assets properly. If you train somebody aerobically who has only developed an anaerobic system, it means they have to slow way, way down to do it. But eventually the maximum heart rate will come down and they will run faster at a lower heart rate. [...] That is a classic example of what happens when people look at an isolated number and fail to see the whole picture.
bben; when you say MAF is 15-20" slower than MP, is that seconds or heartbeats?
Eldorado wrote:
bben; when you say MAF is 15-20" slower than MP, is that seconds or heartbeats?
Seconds / mile.
BBen wrote:
Eldorado wrote:bben; when you say MAF is 15-20" slower than MP, is that seconds or heartbeats?
Seconds / mile.
But this is not where you'll start (except maybe for very slow runners): this where you'll END after a sufficiently long pure MAF base training. For faster runners with a limited aerobic development, your MAF pace at MAF HF can initially be WAY slower than that...
No kidding...like 2-3 MINUTES/mile slower in my case.
BBen wrote:
BBen wrote:Seconds / mile.
But this is not where you'll start (except maybe for very slow runners): this where you'll END after a sufficiently long pure MAF base training. For faster runners with a limited aerobic development, your MAF pace at MAF HF can initially be WAY slower than that...