What was the main thing you did differently that improved your marathon PR?

George Ilie wrote:

Bullet the Blue Sky wrote:

I'll second that emotion ... 13-15 midweek and 20+ on weekend made a difference for me.

M: 8

T: 9

W: 10

T: 9

F: 8

S: 12

S: 6

A curve in volume growing from Monday with a peak on Wednesday, decreasing till Friday, a longer run on Saturday and a recovery day on Sunday.

Strength work was what made the biggest difference in my progress.

My aerobic capacity seemed proportional with my single leg squats count.

I was wondering if someone would talk about strength in a non-running context. What did your routine look like (exercises, frequency, etc.)? And with the one legged squats, what version would you do? Full on pistol squats? Partials? Step down from a box?

1. Don't decide what your marathon pace is ahead of time. Use your training to get as fit as you can, and a few weeks before the race your body will let you know how fast you can expect to run.

2. Do at least some of your long runs as progression runs by feel. Learn the effort, not the pace. Learn to feel when you're starting to strain so that you can relax and back off the effort just a tiny bit to re-balance, which usually results in faster running. You can look at your splits later for information, but the important thing is to learn to listen to your body, not force some artificial pace you got from a chart somewhere.

3. Look back at your previous marathon training segments and see which training components you were ignoring, then work on those. Lots of people probably need more easy mileage. Lots of people probably need more speed. Some people need more mileage and fewer workouts, some people need lots of workouts and less mileage. Work on figuring out where you lie on the spectrum.

Direct correlation between number of long runs (20-22miles) and marathon time. Pace less important. Also midweek medium long run helped.

Picked a marathon that had temperatures at the start around 40F. I run poorly in the heat. Been running 30 years and my PRs for 10k, half, and marathon were set in cold, dry, non-windy weather.

thursday morning intervals wrote:

Picked a marathon that had temperatures at the start around 40F. I run poorly in the heat. Been running 30 years and my PRs for 10k, half, and marathon were set in cold, dry, non-windy weather.

Which marathon? I tried that with Grandma's this year. Didn't work out for me :(

Bullet the Blue Sky wrote:

I'll second that emotion ... 13-15 midweek and 20+ on weekend made a difference for me.

Forcerunner wrote:

Adding in a medium long run in the middle of the week is a thing I think a lot of people are missing.

This worked for me as well, though I never ran more than 13 miles midweek. My mileage stayed consistent (~80-100) but I found longer runs at or close to MP a lot more helpful than interval training.

Hills: up AND down! Eccentric loading to toughen the quads for the final 10K.

Miles...Miles...Miles....You will also lose weight which helps.

Forcerunner wrote:

Adding in a medium long run in the middle of the week is a thing I think a lot of people are missing. Maybe 75% total of your Long Run volume done on Wednesday if you do the standard Monday to Sunday schedule. If you can recover from that and still hit key sessions and good Long Runs you're fit.

What adjustments do you need to make for the ML run to be effective as a double, say 5 hours apart? Or is it just not going to be effective that way?

heavy dee wrote:

thursday morning intervals wrote:

Picked a marathon that had temperatures at the start around 40F. I run poorly in the heat. Been running 30 years and my PRs for 10k, half, and marathon were set in cold, dry, non-windy weather.

Which marathon? I tried that with Grandma's this year. Didn't work out for me :(

Rocket City Marathon in northern Alabama in mid-December. Half PR at Kiawah Island in SC also in mid-December. Did you really expect Grandma's to be cool when it is run in June? I have always wanted to run it but it seems likely it would be too warm for a PR.

Yup I understand that, I too have been eating eggs. Just wanted to point out that the only man to win 6 triathlon world championships did it on a vegan diet. Also from all the elite runners there is only like males who registered to have their blood tested for PEDs randomly and showing the results publically (makes you wonder why no more...) one of them Sage Canaday runs a 2:16 marathon . Could probably do sub 2:10 on PED's like the others but he credits alot of his strenght and speed to a plant based diet. So perhaps changing somethings like processed flour and sugars for veggies and fruits can really do a difference.

consistency wrote:

George Ilie wrote:

....

Strength work was what made the biggest difference in my progress.

My aerobic capacity seemed proportional with my single leg squats count.

I was wondering if someone would talk about strength in a non-running context. What did your routine look like (exercises, frequency, etc.)? And with the one legged squats, what version would you do? Full on pistol squats? Partials? Step down from a box?

For some time I only did slow running, intervals and occasionally Fartlek.

The time when I realized the effects of strength was in one winter, when I had no choice but to run in military boots in a forest with snow, water,mud and leaves. I had to jump over fallen trees and all sorts of natural obstacles.

After two weeks of 6-8 miles/day like that one can change its way of thinking.

Soon after that I began to do speed work in running shoes and realized that I'm not tired very much after intervals sessions.

Then I had a couple of random races and my progress jump was high, without even pushing myself to 80%.

Unfortunately soon after that I broke my left arm and all work was gone.

The relationship with single leg squats is accidental. I didn't do such exercises on purpose, but because we were tested at school.

Another time when I've noticed a quick improvement was after 2 weeks of running on soft sand. The soft sand definitely strengthen my legs, hips and back.

Sage isn't exactly the poster boy for running success on a vegan diet right now. He's been getting stomped by paleo-barbarians.Maybe Rob Young or Kaiha Bertollini are willing to make the switch to fakin' running, I mean vegan running.

yupguy2 wrote:

Yup I understand that, I too have been eating eggs. Just wanted to point out that the only man to win 6 triathlon world championships did it on a vegan diet. Also from all the elite runners there is only like males who registered to have their blood tested for PEDs randomly and showing the results publically (makes you wonder why no more...) one of them Sage Canaday runs a 2:16 marathon . Could probably do sub 2:10 on PED's like the others but he credits alot of his strenght and speed to a plant based diet. So perhaps changing somethings like processed flour and sugars for veggies and fruits can really do a difference.

gregmacd wrote:

Thanks! I thought all the vegan cooments were a joke, but items #2-#12 make sense. I like meat too much to be vegan or even vegetarian.

thursday morning intervals wrote:

Picked a marathon that had temperatures at the start around 40F. I run poorly in the heat. Been running 30 years and my PRs for 10k, half, and marathon were set in cold, dry, non-windy weather.

All other factors being equal, temperature/humidity on race day and carrying excess weight are two factors that can destroy or make a race.

Shhhh; we're not supposed to mention weight because there is an epidemic of thin, fit Americans who will go too far.

The heart rate monitor has starkly proven to me that avoiding a hot day is all important.

Jack Daniels quantifies workload by providing tables that assign points for workouts based on the total time of the workout and the average heart rate during the workout.

Many 90-120 minute workouts with tempo segments on hot days this summer were far more stressful than some 2.5 to 3 hour runs with tempo on cooler mornings.

Agree with the benefits of a mid-week medium length run but only if the individual is certain that recovery can occur in 2 or 3 days. Older runners or those in the midst of heavy speed work and long runs may be prone to injury or may suffer down turns in the other key workouts. A gradual, increase in volume, spread evenly over the week may be more appropriate for some.

I can show you the plots of my HR from several marathons where it really doesn't creep up. Like I said earlier, I ramp up for 2-3 miles to hit my goal HR. At mile 20 I give myself permission to let it drift up if I'm feeling good. If I am feeling good some of those later miles I'll average high 160's. If I drift up before mile 20 it's a sign I'm going too fast and likely to bonk.

moanswers wrote:

The problem with using HR in longer runs and races is that it will naturally creep up. You have to be determine what HR range you can hold for a specified period of time.

For example, If you say you can run 170 HR for the 1/2, does this mean you hit 170 within the first mile and you max out at 190?

For the marathon, if you start at 170, that HR is going to creep up. You have to know at what point is the "creep" to high to maintain. If it creeps up to 190 by mile 18, can you hold that?

Calories wrote:

Forcerunner wrote:

Adding in a medium long run in the middle of the week is a thing I think a lot of people are missing. Maybe 75% total of your Long Run volume done on Wednesday if you do the standard Monday to Sunday schedule. If you can recover from that and still hit key sessions and good Long Runs you're fit.

What adjustments do you need to make for the ML run to be effective as a double, say 5 hours apart? Or is it just not going to be effective that way?

I think it's just the extended time on feet. Getting used to running all in one go has it's benefits from the physiological perspective as well as mental part. You can also work in a bit of quality if you'd like, or practice running longer fasted. The downside is that the MLR might take a bit more to recover from so making sure you can still hit the quality specific sessions for the marathon should come first.

1. Increased mileage from 70 to 100 mpw.

2. Longer runs (13-17 miles) at marathon pace.

3. Getting out of the middle or "junk" zone. This means taking it easier on the easy days so that I could run harder on the hard days.

4. Having a training plan that methodically builds toward a goal race.

5. I used to race in trainers and cargo shorts. I got a lot faster when I caved and bought some racing flats and short running shorts.

6. Pick a flat course and get lucky with the weather.

7. Go out easy. My best times have come when I feel like I'm holding back through the halfway mark.

8. Training with other people.

doing my long runs hard. Going out and doing 20+ at any pace wasn't helping me race that far. I didn't drop the mileage of my long runs at all, but i kept working on running more and more of them at marathon pace or faster.