Ed Whitlock style training

Ed-How much were you running before Rotterdam? How has your recovery gone since the race?

Congratulations on your Rotterdam race Ed. How did the race go? You had said before the race that you were a little short on "race distance experience", meaning long runs. Did this affect you much after 30K? Can you give us any splits, maybe 10k, 1/2, and 20M. How has your recovery been? Hopefully its been good. We look foward to you ramping up for a big run at Scotiabank in the Fall. Thanks for any info that you pass along. All the best.

Split times below from Rotterdam website. The last 2+k were run at a 5k pace of 26:21. (I stopped and drank at the last feeding station just after 40k) I ran the race the opposite of my plan which was to run 5k splits of around 24 minutes then paid the price.

Net split times (difference)

5 Kilometer 23:28 (23:28)

10 Kilometer 46:39 (23:11)

15 Kilometer 1:10:24 (23:45)

20 Kilometer 1:34:05 (23:41)

Half marathon 1:39:50

25 Kilometer 1:59:08 (25:03)

30 Kilometer 2:23:46 (24:38)

35 Kilometer 2:48:51 (25:05)

40 Kilometer 3:14:09 (25:18)

I picked up a cold about 2 weeks before the marathon and did no training for that period, it had cleared up by race day but I knew this would a bit of a problem. Before that training had been going well and I had managed to get in a couple of 3 hour training runs but not an extended number which I hope to get to again.

The day after the race my cold returned and it took me the best part of a month to get over it with little to no training. I am feeling ok now and hope to run wellon the track over the summer.

Hi Ed,

Can you post some about the type of diet you eat, what time of day in relation to your run, and what you drink during the day (how much water etc)? Do you have any idea of how many calories you eat when running 3 hours a day?

Best regards

J.R. wrote:

Hi Ed,

Can you post some about the type of diet you eat, what time of day in relation to your run, and what you drink during the day (how much water etc)? Do you have any idea of how many calories you eat when running 3 hours a day?

Best regards

I don't pay much attention to my diet from a running point of view, I just eat the kinds of things I like. Basically this is somewhat heavy on carbohydrates, bread, pasta, potatoes. Higher fats than usually recommended, particularly butter. Fair amount of fish, not a lot of red meat, more white but probably less than average. We eat 3 set meals a day, I often go running not long after eating, this is not much of an issue because of my slow training pace

Main drink in the day is tea (mostly with skim milk) some black coffee also wine. I drink quite a lot because I had a kidney stone occurrence 40 odd years ago.

I have no idea how many calories I eat.

Ed: what about the ice cream?!

Ed: what about the ice cream?!

Ed: what about the ice cream?!

Yes, that too, most days.

Thank you very much

Ed Whitlock wrote:

We eat 3 set meals a day, I often go running not long after eating, this is not much of an issue because of my slow training pace

Hi Ed,

Thanks very much for your responses. Do you eat about the same amount for each of the meals? Is that the morning meal that you run right after? It sounds like you eat right before, and right after your run.

I've got this theory that it's better to eat right before and after exercise, as compared to other times, as this way the food is better utilized where it's needed for running. Do you think this theory has any credence. :) Best regards

Lightest meal of the day is breakfast, one thick slice of bread with spread and a fair amount of liquid (tea). Greater quantity at the midday meal, often soup with bread followed by cookies. Main meal is at early evening, main course and desert.

My run is generally not that long after breakfast although in the past year or so I have been running in the afternoon figuring some casual activity before running would benefit my knee. Recently I have started running in the morning again.

I have no idea whether your theory is right, maybe?

I happened on this thread and the difference in writing responding and general dialogue from just 12 yrs ago to now is staggering.

So much respect and dignity given to Ed and others, no one jumps onto the thread and slams anyone, its such a pleasure to read pages of this and actually come away with a wealth of information.

Says so much about the decline in our society...

I was just thinking exactly the same thing. Thanks so much for taking the trouble to comment. I've been gripped by this thread for the last half hour. I've recently started a similar method of training and really appreciated the sophistication of the discussion, especially in the first couple of pages. I wouldn't have seen it, if you hadn't commented.

To be fair, it goes both ways. Ed was a legend deserving of massive respect. He gave clear, meaty answers. He didn't use his fame to push SJW nonsense, woke BS, veganism, b*tch about environmentalism --- just old school cut-to-the-chase advice. He was incredibly humble and didn't need to remind others of his previous race times. What could someone give him sh*t about?? He put up amazing results and didn't have to plaster his face everywhere and be a social media princess to gain attention and respect.

And if you go back 12 years ago you'll see there was a ton of garbage on LR back then as well. Overall the rise of social media (esp Twitter, Facebook, Reddit etc.) ushered in a new era of flaming and low-quality posting due to the speed at which you can post. Old-school forums tolerated a lot less BS and required a lot more effort to join and participate, so you had way more quality content. Though there was still crap back then as well.

Yes, Ed Whitlock is the GOAT of Masters running. Although a couple of guys have broken a small number of his records, he still has dozens of age group world records that stand unbroken to this day. There will never be another Ed Whitlock. As a middle aged Masters runner, Ed Whitlock is who we all hope to run like in another 20, thirty or more years.

R.I.P. Ed Whitlock

And he also wasn't pushing the racism of the far right. You didn't see him pushing stolen elections, tracking chips in vaccines, pedos in pizza joints, and the rest of the paranoid right talking points.

Seriously we still have decent threads here. But it is almost impossible to find them between the 100s that Jamin/Greg start, rojos obsession with trans women, the random conspiracy theories, and the pure trolling. It would be hard to imagine people like Jack Daniels and Jim Spivey posting today...

Actually I agree 100% - it's just that those conspiracy theories are usually in their own separate threads which I can ignore. On the other hand the SJW junk is often intermixed in running threads. Look at any nutrition thread - half of them devolve into childish flaming about veganism after someone has to grandstand about the evils of eating meat.

If this site even eliminated 5% of the worst jank (threads like "Can I eat 8 year old pancake mix" or anything related to politics) it would be insanely better.

I agree that Ed was given a lot of respect in the responses but whats missing (compared to now) was that when anyone else gave ideas of suggestions on their training no one jumped in and slammed them either. To me that's the big difference.

No matter what your contribution was to a thread, it was approved of, respectfully commented on or just ignored. Not any more. And its not that hard.

There are legitimate trolls on here that should have been long removed. I'd guess 70-80% of the problems here are brought on by a handful of people and we all know who they are (previously mentioned). Honestly don't even know if many of them even run.