Steve Spence Training

Go to the Shippensburg University website and ask him yourself.

Found this:

Inteview with Brad Hudson...mentions Spence.

http://www.mensracing.com/athletes/interviews/bradhudson.html

It's very individualized. It comes down to working the right energy systems at the right time. A lot of marathoners get superfit from very high mileage, and think they're ready to run a good marathon, and then wonder why they don't. The marathon is more about metabolic issues than VO2 max/engine fitness. The training should lower your consumption of fuel at marathon pace. I've seen a lot of 28:00 [10K] guys who do a marathon, they feel great running 5:00 pace for 90 minutes, and then fall apart. No mystery — they've run out of fuel, and their bodies don't know how to burn fat.

With Scotty, we changed the periods of his training. It's probably the opposite of how most people build up to a marathon. We start with the shorter stuff, and everything's an extension from there. Instead of sharpening with a lot of VO2 max work close to the marathon, we're doing more at marathon race pace. We do the VO2 max work, but earlier. Then nothing faster than 10K pace the last six weeks. I don't think you can increase your anaerobic threshold that much in that short a time, the part just before the marathon where a lot of people will start doing faster, VO2 max work.

I looked back, this is what [Steve] Spence used to do — get your running economy and VO2 up first, to build the engine, then bring in the marathon-specific elements so that you're trained to handle the metabolic demands of the marathon. Then not a huge taper. This is an area where the Italians are incredible. [Gelindo] Bordin and [Stefano] Baldini — it's not luck to get two gold medals in those conditions.

I wrote him once and he wrote back telling me he didn't have time to write about it... did it in a nice way, not rude or anything, but I wouldn't expect much. Please share if you get any info outta him.

That's pretty much what I remember of Spence's marathon training. He was heavily influenced by Bordin's success in using a marathon build-up that put the fast stuff up front, and the higher volume work later, with a short taper right before the race. Quite different from the classic peaking cycle used by track-guys-turned-marathoners like Shorter.

Well, he was living up in Maine that summer and preparing for Japan and I went on a few runs with him - so there must have been some fairly slow runs in the plan. :-)

All the best,

Giles

I know he used to really roll out the very end of his long runs from time to time. I think mostly for the pyschological edge it game him.

I actually just ran a 2 mile fun run with him tonight. He always looks like hes having so much fun when he runs. I think he ran 10:15 or something and easily won. I cooled down with him and some friends tonight and hes just a kick ass guy.

Thank you for all the replies. I am a little hesitant to e-mail him directly. I wasn't able to find much online. I did find a nice article on him from mensracing.com. He does not go into much depth regarding his training though.

http://www.mensracing.com/athletes/interviews/stevespence.html