Letsrun. Help me break 2.12 for a marathon.

jjjjjjjjj wrote:

Your tempo pace is only 12 seconds faster than your marathon pace. My 4M tempo pace is at least 40 seconds faster than my marathon pace. My 6M tempo pace is still probably 30-35 seconds faster than MP. At least 20 seconds faster would be better. That's more of the modulation. And I don't know that you really want to be doing that many of your miles at just 7:10 pace. That seems about a minute too slow for your level.

That was a good joke :P

Even 20 seconds/mile faster than MP for elites for sure is not "tempo running"... Do you think Meb or Hall or Vail "tempo" at 4:30'/mile? Or Kipsang @ low 4:20s? For sure not. That's a race.

Tempo running for faster runners is right into the MP/HMP range - so the OP does it right IMHO.

I like Frank Shorter's approach- Tuesdays 3/4 mile x 4 in 3:12 down to 3:06. Thurs 12 x400 in 62, 200m jog recovery. Long runs at 20 miles with the second half around 5 min pace- who knows in those days. You are lacking some quality but otherwise everything looks good. Check out Shorter's book "Olympic Gold".

on hard days 2x per week, add more volume at race pace or quicker.

10 miles in 50 minutes or 10 x 440 min miles with 5 minute recovery. that can't be too tough right?

take a day off, can bike or swim very easy.

Appreciate the feedback as well. Thanks! Elevation is alright but definitely feel it when training hard and/or racing up here.

Gojall out wrote:

My Tuesday med long run is done @ 6.20 pace. I couldn't imagine running all my runs at sub-6 pace. I wouldn't be able to get out of bed on Monday morning after the first week after 3 weeks at that intensity during high mileage weeks.

I'm not recommending all runs at sub-6 pace. But I have a difficult time thinking of any good marathon specialist who did most of his training at a pace of 7:10 or slower. And to respond to what someone else said, I'm including runners who trained at significant altitude (roughly, 5400 feet or higher).

Arturo Barrios used to say that the majority of runners trained too fast, but he still suggested a training pace of about a minute to a minute and a half over race pace. In his case, when training at significant altitude, he was typically training at about 6:10 pace. That was roughly what de Castella, another critic of many faster trainers, was doing for most of his "easy" running at altitude. Take a look at the training paces of most good marathoners, or the training paces advocated by most respected marathon coaches. 6:00 to 6:30 is, and should be, pretty easy running for a fairly wide range of decent marathoners at a fairly wide range of altitudes. If a good runner is doing most of his marathon training at 7:10 pace, then he is probably (1) not training hard enough, (2) focusing too much on the two or three toughest sessions of the week, or (3) trying to do considerably more total mileage than he is currently capable of running productively.

I hope you're either trolling or being sarcastic. I was never a top marathoner, but I don't see how anyone can run 22 miles at goal pace in training unless they're really lacking sufficient ambition in their racing goals.

Unless I had some help I could never have done more than 15 miles at that pace in training and, at least among the elites I knew back in the day, the same was true.

I agree with J.R.

When you are running 7:10 pace on most runs you will have to do much harder workouts to get enough endurance.

I am basically in the same situation as you (I have a better marathon PR but a slower 10k) and I will try to up the pace of my normal distance runs, do more doubles and do 2 - 3 challenging, but not balls to the walls workouts for my fall marathon as I feel the need to work on my speed all the time...

I apologize for my bad English:)

A lot of commentary so far about the pace. Why not just run as you feel and don't even think about it. Let the pace come to you.

You get your pace work in on the track.

Swag Lord wrote:

I plugged your 10k time into mcmillanrunning.com. It predicts 13:44 5k, 63:34, and 2:13:48. Since your other times are so spot on I think you can expect right around 2:14

too, too spot on.

rwerwe wrote:

If you're doing tempo runs 40 seconds faster per mile than your marathon pace, you're running them too fast. Jack Daniels has threshold pace about 20 seconds faster per mile than marathon pace. This might widen/narrow at different levels, but I think it's a good baseline. At 40 seconds faster, you might as well be doing intervals.

Or, maybe when I am doing that, I am improving dramatically at every level and just need to get into some races fresh, that is, without doing 3 workouts and a long run in the previous 7 days, to get the pr's way down. it just so happens that the last time I was doing that, illness and an ill-chosen race course led me into an injury just before my marathon taper.

Either way, no one defines a tempo pace as only 12 seconds per mile faster than MP, which is why I gave him an estimate of 20 seconds--not the 40 or more seconds I do (and had I run a marathon three weeks earlier, that MP would likely have been about 15 seconds faster and so my tempo would have worked out to more like 25 seconds faster than MP).

HM race pace for a 2:12 marathoner is 4:47/M according to McMillan, and that's a sub 1:03 HM, meaning that 1 hr pace is slightly faster, maybe 4:45, which is 17 seconds faster than MP for a 2:12 marathon.

So why did you tell us your weird tempo paces in the first place?

Ok, I have drawn up a schedule using Canova's philosophy. We can do a compare and contrast. Which schedule would be better?

Week 1

Mon: AM 7m easy PM 10m easy

Tue: AM 7m easy PM 12m w last 5@ 5.05

Wed: AM 5m@6.20 PM 10m easy

Thu: AM 6m easy PM 8x1000 @ 4.40

Fri: AM 6m easy PM 11m@6.20

Sat: AM 5m@6.20 PM rest

Sun: 16m @ 5.45

Week 2

Mon: AM 7m easy PM 9m easy

Tue: AM 7m easy PM 16x400m@66s

Wed: AM 6m easy PM 10@6.20

Thu: AM 6m easy PM 12k in/out 4.58/6.15

Fri: AM 6m easy PM 11m easy

Sat: AM 7m@6.20 PM rest

Sun: AM 20m long run @ 6.20

Week 3

Mon: AM 6m easy PM 10m easy

Tue: AM 7m easy PM 9m@ 5.45

Wed: AM 6m@6.20 PM 10m easy

Thu: AM 7m easy PM 4x3k@4.58 w 1k rec

Fri: AM 7m easy PM 10m easy

Sat: AM 7m@6.20 PM rest

Sun: AM 16m long run @ 6.20

Any advice with this one?

jjjjjjjjj wrote:

Either way, no one defines a tempo pace as only 12 seconds per mile faster than MP, which is why I gave him an estimate of 20 seconds--not the 40 or more seconds I do...

Ummm, "no one"?

Luckily, I have my trusty Daniels Running Formula handy here on the desk. I was curious about your claim, so I looked...

For a 77 VDOT (2:11:54 marathon), Daniels says marathon pace is 5:01, and T pace is 4:49. Hmmmm....

The margin only gets tighter for faster runners.

VDOT 77-79: 12 seconds

VDOT 80-83: 11 seconds

VDOT 84-85: 10 seconds

You have lost some credibility.

Now onto how great your training advice was and how great of shape you were in... until you got injured and missed your race. Um.... nevermind.

yougottabekiddingme wrote:

For a 77 VDOT (2:11:54 marathon), Daniels says marathon pace is 5:01, and T pace is 4:49. Hmmmm....

Unless he's revised it in recent years, he also gives an "easy" pace for 77 VDOT at 6:01. (In the first edition of his book, he gave an "easy" pace of 5:48, but I think that he got significant feedback that his "easy" paces in that book didn't sound easy enough.)

If I were to guess, canova would not support this plan. Canova emphasizes rest a lot more and longer more specific workouts. In week 2 you have a 12k in and out workout. Canova would have a 24k workout alternating 1ks at those paces. He would never have an athlete run only 4x3k @4:58. For a 2:12 marathoner it would be at minimum 5x3k@ 4:40 or 4x4k @ 4:55, but more likely 4x5k@4:58. This is assuming you are at sea level. Canova also doesn't have any of his marathon guys run 400s. Youll see their schedules peppered with 10x1200 or 10x1600.

To be honest, your program is so far from from Canova's training, I wouldn't suggest attempting to replicate it as another poster recommended.

Here's what we do know: In order to run a high level marathon, you have to spend a lot of time at or near marathon pace.

I would suggest you take a look at Ryan Vail's training blog, he just ran 2:10. I feel he has very similar training to your schedule and you would benefit from taking a look.

As far as easy days go, don't stress too much about hitting paces but remember that even easy days are training days. I sometimes have to remind myself that I am training not just running.

Here are links to some of canova's training and ryan vail's blog.

http://www.runningwritings.com/2012/06/elite-marathoning-with-renato-canova.html

http://ryanvail.blogspot.com/

Pretty good, the long run on week three could be 22miles like you had in the 1st schedule you posted, but it also depends on what you plan to do in week 4.

Give yourself a mile or two of "slush" at the beginning of the 5:45 pace runs to warm up into them (even if that means 1 less mile at goal pace/effort or a little extra mileage total).

I'd say it's god to only do the 85-95% MP long run no more than every 3rd or 4th week - as you have in your schedule you can do some regular distance runs or medium long runs at this effort, or progression runs to tax your aerobic capacity without really going into a huge hole. Keep those 6:20 pace/effort long runs in there if that is a good comfort level for you. Depending on how new you are to marathon volume training the time of the long runs themselves may still serve as a good training stimulus.

If you like hill sprints more than 400s, you could swap those two - I'd say keep in hill sprints if you know you'll have any hills in your race.

Last bits to think about (in no particular order):

1. Try and touch all efforts from a "sprint/mile effort" to just slower than MP each week. Obviously the emphasis is going to be what dictates what you're stressing, but it's good not to lose touch with each. This can be very easy to do with marathon training.

Examples: On an easy run, add a couple hill sprints or strides one day a week. On say the 3rd week you could start the Tuesday 9 miler a little slow, then do as a progression at the end and spend 5-8 minutes dropping effort down through MP to 1/2 effort, to 10k, and finish with 1-2 minutes at 5k effort. You could also do the last lap of the last 1k in the 8x1k in the first week at 5k effort.

2. Check out this article on a full Canova schedule/training plan and one way he might have an athlete emphasize different intensities throughout a cycle (a bit easier read than trying to piece together tidbits from this MB).

3. In terms of mileage (others have put up some good thoughts): Why 130 as peak? What have you been doing before and for how long? If you try and add in this Canova style of training I'd suggest staying at current peak mileage (if similar to past 6 to 12 months). This way you only introduce the new workout stress, not mileage and workout stress. Very bad thing to do! Leads to complete burnout and/or weird injuries, like tendonitis, a year or two down the line.

4. Don't be afraid to take a complete day off after some of the long efforts if you need it, recovery is just as important as hard work - that's how you adapt and get stronger.

5. Be flexible with your schedule for recovery needs.

6. For every great workout there will be dreadful ones to match (As Ron Daws said, "frustrating but fair")

7. Train for the course! If you have hills, practice pace now (everything from easy efforts to all out efforts really) to get a really good feeling for it effort-wise and as the race gets closer do some work by effort on terrain that is similar to the course (do the course if you can). If there are long downhills, really train for those! They can really zap the quads.

8. Train for the conditions - if historically it gets hot/humid or wet get ready for it.

9. Train for fluids/fuel on all long and hard efforts - both getting in what you need at the fast speeds (and keeping it down) and picking up bottles etc. Sounds simple, but a lot can go wrong...

10. Get in as much core strength work as you can. Helps you keep yourself together in the later miles when big muscle groups get tired and the little support ones get recruited...

11. Everyone has their own sweet spot for mileage and intensity/recovery, the trick is finding yours. It changes with age too...wouldn't be very interesting if we all knew exactly what to do!

Well, that's a lot, but hopefully helpful to you and others.

Very good points, especially the recovery needed to do some of the longer workouts. However, I'd argue if one wants to try the Canova approach (say the OP wants to try training like this after his fall marathon), even if they are a 2:12 athlete, they will need to transition into that style of training. 12k of alternating km's is far better to test the waters than to jump straight to 22-24km of work (which is what the TOP athletes do who are USED to the training style, e.g. 2:04 guys).

In terms of TIME to do a workout, a 2:12 guy adapted to the Canova plan may very well benefit from 18 or 20km max of alternating km's rather than 22 or 24. Ditto for the long interval repeats.

Best to ease into this training (or any training style), even if for just one week to realize the stimulus was too low. One or two weeks "too easy" is fine in the grand scheme of things.

And not really true about the 400s, Canova has athletes do 20x[1min hard/1 min easy] fartleks at times, even late in the cycle. Very similar to 400s (well depending on rest/recovery time), just less structured on distance. Goal is probably 3-fold, practice surging, some athletes respond well to faster pace training throughout the training cycle (even if not remotely close to MP), and it gives the athlete something different to do rather than continually hammer.