50+ Masters Training and Racing Open Forum

GreteHund wrote:

Curious if anyone has any feedback on one item - master's runner that I have been training with on Tues evenings suggested training hard for improved 5K times during the summers to improve my marathon times in winters. I have always worked to improve my half marathon times, and used longer workouts to do so. He is suggesting reducing mileage and upping intensity even further to improve 5K times. Curious if anyone else found improvement in marathon times by taking this approach, or if you find that endurance at the half marathon level seems to be more beneficial to translating to improved marathon time.

I had to sleep on this one.

So I actually disagree with both of you. Training for improved 5K time will obviously lead to a faster marathon time. And so will training for a faster half-marathon time. But neither one is going to lead to the "predicted" marathon performance (one estimator: 2x half +10 minutes).

There are a lot of theories out there, best to stick with what has actually worked in practice. When I asked the club head coach why I couldn't run as fast in a marathon as predicted by my half results, he answered "If you are slowing down at the end of the marathon, that's nutrition." I didn't know at that time that he had never actually completed a marathon. And later that summer he slowed down dramatically at the end of his only marathon finish.

About a year later I put the same question to a guy who had a 1st place marathon finish to his credit, he said I simply wasn't doing enough volume. A little more believable. Frank Shorter said the marathon is totally different. Frank should know. Even after his gold in '72, he raced a lot at distances as short as 3,000m.

I don't think a summer of 5K training is a bad idea, being a well-rounded runner is healthier in the end. But unless you are doing more than 60 mpw I wouldn't bother reducing mileage for it.

BTW, I like the 200s, what half marathon training plan includes those?

Rtype wrote:

lucKY I run during a 45 min lunch break M, T, and W, and I’ve found the only way to get it in is to….you know…..go faster! Ha ha.

Charlie wrote:

L2B nice 1.65

And that is partially why the 1.65 on Tuesday went so well (all relative, of course)....I was a bit under the gun. But then it kinda whipped me, so the return trip wasn't so good....and it was into the wind, too. Luckily, I did get back in time to finish preparing what I needed for class that evening.

Wow, there's a lot of good, motivating stuff this week (even the "nothing fancy" and "bland" stuff.....it's all good.)

Yes, it's really nice article on Ken. The recent favorable outcomes are both promising and inspiring. For sure.

Dave, thanks for coming out of hiding. I've experienced a similar effect during my "down" weeks. I don't know whether it is real or imagined; I suspect it partially has to do with relative expectations. For me, a lot of running is mental preparation; psyching myself up (or maybe even down) for what lies ahead.

Yes, it'd be great for Alf T. to give us an update. What's up Alf?

Alan B., I think that is a good answer to Gretehund's question. I, too, am not a marathoner, and my marathon times (all two of them) have NOT been at all commensurate with all my other times, even up through the time I've achieved in the 1/2. I believe that if you train primarily for shorter distances, you can probably come within 10-12 minutes of what the predictors would say (as I have), but the remaining 10 minutes is going to come from being able to handle the marathon distance. Kevin Castille is probably the current prime example of a guy who can't seem solve the full marathon, despite great times in all the other distances....and even trying to train for the marathon as he did last summer and fall. That said, I think it is definitely a good idea to work on improving your 5/10k times, but I don't think you should sacrifice the volume that has allowed you to race through an entire marathon. Just my $0.02.

Cheers!

I would say that training for the marathon is more likely to improve both your 5 km and half marathon performances than to have it the other ways around. Most people equate marathon training with high volume (whatever that may mean in each case) and most people today simply don't do enough volume to run their best at ANY distance. Running enough miles to do respectably at the marathon will remedy that.

Let's say you train for a 5km and knock a minute off your best. That would be a huge improvement. But I sometimes managed to beat people in marathons and even half marathons who were a minute or so faster than I was at 5 km. That's not to say that regular faster running isn't a good thing to do. It is, for any distance that you're racing. But there is a huge difference in the length of the two events (marathon and 5 km) and even a half marathon is not a great predictor of marathon success because there is still such a long way to go from there until you finish the entire marathon. If you're wanting to improve your performance at the marathon, train for the marathon.

For what it's worth, I have come to the conclusion there is not right answer to questions like this relating to training. What I have come to believe from my reading, observation and discussions with many fellow runners is that we are all different. What might work well for one will not work well for another. I have a friend who at 63 runs a sub 3:30 marathon on approximately 35 miles per week. I doubt if he has ever studied running or thought too much about his training. He just goes out and runs hard on the days he runs. His shorter distances are closer to mine and I think in a mile race I would beat him. But even running 60+ miles per week, I can go sub 1:40 in a half but can only barely break 4 hours for a marathon.

So I believe that if we both had excellent coaching, the workouts would be quite different to get the best results from each of us. I seem to need higher mileage to run well and he seems to need lower more intense workouts.

HRE wrote:

... most people today simply don't do enough volume to run their best at ANY distance. ...

I hear you. This year so far I am averaging about 68 mpw (hit 86 once). I consider my volume to be barely adequate for half marathon training, yet of the hundreds of marathoners in my group, there are only a couple doing equal or greater mileage. To be fair, there are quite a few triathletes in the mix who might be doing more than me if we count all three sports.

ScottDye wrote:

I have a friend who at 63 runs a sub 3:30 marathon on approximately 35 miles per week.

That's phenomenal.

I'm no exercise physiologist, but I think "everyone is different" applies more to workouts. With respect to volume our response is pretty much the same. More is better, as long as we don't cross that individual line that gets us injured. Build responsibly. But this guy is clearly the exception that tests the rule.

I have a friend who ran 2:17 on 40-50 a week and knew another guy who did 2:35 on 35 a week. There are always outliers. I'm not even going to fall back on the old "but what would your friend be able to do if he really trained" line because there is no answer to that and no guarantee eh wouldn't be slower.

But I do believe that if you want to race marathons as well as you can you should train for marathons, which does not rule out some harder, faster running.

GreteHund, I've only visited this thread occasionally over the last few months, but I think you've stated that your half goal is sub 1:30? Or maybe it's faster, like 1:28? And I think you said that your last half was somewhere in the mid-1:30s. From the few workouts I've seen you post, it seems to me that you have lots of speed for a masters woman as shown by your quick 200s/400s, but you are having some difficulty with the tempo pace and you run your long runs quite fast overall. It looks like you either run really hard or you run really easy or take days off. I would suggest that you try not to time your tempo runs for a while and just do them by feel. You may be trying to force the pace too much. Tempo runs work best when you are really running at your lactate threshold - once you go too fast, you aren't getting the same benefit. And as much as we'd like to tell our body to go out and run x pace, often we aren't able to predict exactly the pace that our body can run at that point. 6:50 pace may just be where you are right now - that doesn't mean you won't eventually run your race faster - but if you try to push the pace beyond what you are currently capable, you are just running too hard and putting yourself into a deep hole. Try for a couple of weeks to run it by feel and don't stress over the actual pace per mile. I think if you let your body "find" the pace, you will get more out of the workout - and ultimately you'll be able to get that time.

FWIW, coming back off an injury last spring, I jumped into a half marathon. I could only guess what my time would be based on a short track race - not a good predictor - and so I simply ran what felt like tempo effort and didn't check my watch. As it turned out, I ran pretty much dead on what my shorter race predicted (and much better than I was expecting) AND my splits were surprisingly even, despite not checking during the race. Trust your body - in the half, it's pretty easy to find the right pace if you have practiced running at your true LT and not an artificial goal time.

Good luck to you - I look forward to hearing about your result.

oh and to answer your question - different things work for different people. Some people burn out on a lot of 5k work and just get overtrained. You'll have to experiment to see what works best for you - certainly you need to do faster stuff, but how much and how often is a bit variable, especially for a masters runner.

Your answer was better than mine.

A better answer might have been to ask what would be different about your training if became "5 km training?"

Shorter would say that he trained for the 5,000 and 10,000 throughout his career and ran marathons on that training. Barry Magee told me exactly the same thing; that he was a 3-6 miler who ran some marathons as well and didn't do too badly. Between them, on 5,000-10,000 meter training these two guys pulled down a complete set of Olympic Marathon medals so there is something to the idea of running a good marathon off of training for the 5,000-10,000.

BUT, both of these guys trained for the 5-10 with weekly runs of about 20 miles, double sessions and mileage that was well over 100 a week. Both of them trained very similarly to a guy like Rodgers who was a marathon specialist. The main difference I see between what Magee and Shorter did from what BR did is that Rodgers' interval sessions were generally longer reps like miles and while Barry and Frank did mile reps they also did shorter, faster things like 440s and 220s.

If you're talking about doing shorter faster rep sessions than usual while you switch to training for the 5 km I'd say the added speed might be a good thing. But most people today, when they say they're going to switch to training to something like a 5 km from marathon training mean that they'll not only add shorter faster types of running but will also shorten their mileage and long runs. I don't think that's going to improve your marathoning and maybe not even your 5 km.

If anyone remembers the days when the New Oregon Project was really new and Nike gave Salazar the keys to it, the stated purpose of NOP was to improve American performances at the marathon. But Salazar wouldn't let the NOP guys actually run a marathon until they had broken 28:00 for the 10,000 on the grounds that you needed that sort of speed to run a fast marathon.

Yet Salazar himself only managed to beat Dick Beardsley at Boston in 1982 by a couple seconds and lost to Pete Pfitzinger at both the 1984 Olympic Trials Marathon and then a few weeks later at the Olympic Marathon. Salazar's best 10,000 was comfortably under 28:00 while both Beardsley and Pfitzinger had best 10,000s that were comfortably over 28:00. I think Salazar was at least a minute faster than either of them at the 10. The Japanese regularly crank out 2:06-2:08 guys who haven't come close to the down side of 28:00 for the 10.

So while improving speed can improve your marathon somewhat there are limits. The marathon is an endurance event and much can happen in the second half to three quarters of the race that will undo a bit of speed advantage that one runner may have over the other. But we've gotten into the habit of thinking that times in the 5 to 10 km determine how well someone can run a marathon and that's just not automatically so. If it were true, there would be no actual reason to run a full marathon. You could just have everyone race the first 5-10 km all out, then stop and award everyone whatever place they were in as their place in the marathon and use one of those tables that give equivalent performances to award them a final time.

Muddy Girl always has great advice! Thanks, MG.

Nice historical perspective, HRE. Thanks.

Yes, it'd be great for Alf T. to give us an update. What's up Alf?

Sorry for not keeping in touch.

I have been keeping my eye on all of you just to make sure you are not slacking and getting those miles in.

Around 6th march I came down with some kind of heavy cold / flu had to stop running coughing up crap and blood from my nose and chest. around the 16/18 march we had heavy snowfall 6-15 ft snowdrifts I spent my time bring sheep down from the fell and wood down from the forrest

So I started training on the 25th march

hitting 73 mile for that week but still not at 100%

so I have no idea when I will race again

My 6th full marathon is on 4/6th

The Southern Indiana Classic at Evansville, Indiana.

So far this year I have ran 2 half marathons in preparation for this full.

so this week is just 3 - 30 minute runs tapering off for the 26.2 on Saturday.

Art

http://fitatfifty-art.blogspot.com/

Good luck tomorrow Art. Looks like a good day for a race.

Greetings all, special hello to Alf as I believe you passed your virus on to me this past week :-).

Quite an amazing and eventful week for me - off the track rather than on it. The nasty headcold (had fever and sweats on Wed and Thurs nights) and life events impacted negatively on running.

Sun: 25km, 2.14 (starting to get sick)

Mon: 35min

Tues: 4 x 5mins@4.10 pace with grp of my Masters guys running Paris this weekend.

Wed: 19km, 1.40

Thurs. quite sick started the track session and after an 85sec quarter just didnt recover in the float and stepped off. (11km total with jogging either side)

Fri: 10km feeling lot better

Sat: 15km (5km warmup, 5km hill fartlek, 1km jog down hill, 4km tempo on flat). My European variation of the session we did with AIS squad in Stromlo Forest, Canberra "back in the day". HR was highest Ive seen it in years on some of the hard hills (176bpm). A decent work after a crappy week.

100km in total. no doubles and no core or achilles rehab. Too busy and/or unwell/slack.

Now to ife events. As I left for my Sunday run, a came across a chap who had appeared to have just had a cardiac arrest. As first on seen I did my due diligence and began CPR as there was no pulse. Another from our group arrived and called paramedics who arrived quickly. After 35mins the attempt to revive him was terminated. The long was was rather solemn after that start.

Sunday I was coming down with the virus and went to bed at about 8pm feeling quite unwell. At midnight my wife woke me to say that she was starting to have contractions..... I rested as much as I could over the next hours. At 6am wife suggested that if i was planning to run today I should go now :-). jogged 35mins and we then went to hospital. At 17.34 on April 1st our son was born.

An intense experience and the life-death nexus I had witnessed over the previous day and half left me rather emotionally drained. Week was spent trying to work, survive my cold, and spend as much time at the clinic with my new family.

I'd wager most on this thread are at the opposite end of their parenting duties to me... and think I'm crazy ;-). its all new (our first child) and I guess running will be pushed further into the background for awhile. Life is never dull it seems.

Anyways, I am being self indulgent and for any who read this far, thanks for indulging me.

In relationship to the question around focussing on 5k training to run a better marathon I've always found and felt that most recreational athletes and many elite athletes actually run a better 5km after marathon training. Echoing sentiments by others above, most folks run more mileage and more tempos/threshold run during marathon training which results in them being aerobically "fitter" and more efficient. GreteHund you have good speed with those 400s and 200s you posted - Id imagine though you must be having a longish recovery? My experience is that for improving distance performances, running the 400s slower and having a shorter and/or float recovery is more effective and replicates racing.

Have a good week all and again sorry for personal rant.

PS, my apologies for the typos in my above post and others. I tend to have a few moments only to type the update and rush thru silly mistakes. DrT

Sunday was some day!

Your story brought back memories of when my first son was born. My wife had begun having contractions on a Thursday evening but the hospital told us it was too early to come in. Anticipating a Friday with no time to run, I waited until midnight and went out to run. Not knowing if labor might advance while I was running, I left the porch light on and told a friend who was staying with us to turn it off if I needed to cut the run short and head for the hospital. Then I ran repeatedly over a loop of about a mile and a half passing the house and checking the light every ten minutes or so. After 13 miles, I slept until about six when it was time to go and become a dad.

It took a lot of adjusting, but I managed to run pretty much normally once the kids came along. The oldest one is 21 and has literally never known a day when the old man didn't run. Eventually he took up the sport and broke a few of his high school's track records and is now running for his university.

I've had a blast raising my kids. Hope the same goes for you.

I ran the Southern Indiana Classic Marathon today in 5:20. Far off my goal or a PR. I started cramping just over 13 miles into the marathon but I persevered and limped my way to the finish line.

Art

http://fitatfifty-art.blogspot.com/

DrT wrote:

I'd wager most on this thread are at the opposite end of their parenting duties to me... and think I'm crazy ;-). its all new (our first child) ...

Nope. Thanks for sharing and congtatulations.