BUILDING A MARATHONER.....(Jtupper, Joe Rubio, Renato Canova, Antonio Cabral, Nobby, Glenn, anyone)

A combination of everything to make a balanced approach. Taking 30 minutes off your marathon may or may not be asking a lot - depending what that marathon PR represents. A 2:50 off 120mi/week and serious effort is a lot different than a marathon for fun off 40 miles per week.

I would say a gradual mileage buildup to the higher end of things you can consistently handle, with a good deal of marathon pace and tempo run training. Intervals and faster work should be cycled in at certain points also. The program should have an overall goal and long-term plan, but there is no generic formula for a four year program. Rather do a few months of training and then re-evaluate where you are and keep fine tuning things based on how you have progressed and where your weaknesses are.

Send me an e-mail if you want to discuss in detail - not sure how much I'll be on the boards the next few days.

Give yourself 24 months to get to 120+ miles a week.

October 2009 you can run 2:36 if you are under 130 lbs.

Can your situation (weather and work) allow you to run

ten miles a day for the next six months? If not, find

a better situation or environment.

You will be a rare individual if you can control the urge

to race too soon and only put in training miles through

the winter.

Starting in May try 75mpw, June 80mpw, July 85mpw, Aug 90mpw

Find a half marathon to test yourself on in July, Aug or Sept

Expect sub 1:16

Race at Chicago Lasalle Marathon in October.

Depending on how creative you are at promoting yourself and lining up benefactors will decide how consistent you can be in your 120+ miles through the summer of 2009.

If you are sub 2:30 in 2010, then you won't quit and dedicate yourself even more to your goal of a sub 2:22 for 2012.

no no no no no!

Get a camcorder and shoot a few shots of yourself running. Then tell anyone who will listen that because you just ran an 18 minute 5k and are willing to claim hard you're clearly going on the plane to the Beijing Olympics. Oh, and they should pay to make a film of you doing it.

As someone pointed out what was your weekly mileage and training when you were fit?

On the one hand, you have a good ways to go. On the other hand, you're not that bad. Your mile time is the best mark out of the bunch--all things being equal it's worth a low 2:30s marathon. Your 5K time is close but the mile is a little better on paper. If you intelligently build up your mileage base by a chunk you might have a shot. It takes two years for a decent recreationally training runner to really get in his-her best shape so give it time and be patient.

Search for various detailed training threads on this site with contributions from those coaches whom you reference related to marathon training. The answers to your questions are already buried on here somewhere.

Your speed is impressive (56/400, 4:30/mile) but your endurance gets worse as the distance goes up.

You have the speed, and if you work at endurance you have the potential, with your basic speed to run a marathon as fast as 2:20 or faster. I would need to see your running style and efficiency in motion. Those are important factors.

Ghost in Korea

I went from 16:37(xc) to 16:01(track), and from 4:52 to 4:30 for a full mile with a year of Arthur Lydiard style training. Right from the book. I ran the 2:50 marathon at the end of a very easy 3month mileage buildup, at about 7:30-8:30 pace everyday. The buildup got to a week like this- 150,75,85,75,110,75,70, probably about 80-90miles.

The thing I don't like about Lydiard training is that I was only a decent runner for about 6 weeks of the year. The rest of the year I was a slug.

I dont feel like that is correct for a marathoner. I think training should be progressive. Probably doing speed, pace work, and threshold year round, slowly adding more and more stress and more and more mileage.

Thank you for your replies, I look forward to reading more.

grirc,

Alot of what I recommend for the runners I work with has to do with working in mileage around thier life. Do you work? 40 hours a week? more? less? Do you train with anyone? Could/Would you?

It looks to me like you know what needs to happen in your training. When you did you prior buildup, you were not consistently high in your mileage. Given 4 years, I think you could work toward 70-80 mpw this year, then add 10-15 mpw each year and hit your goal of being at your best as you approach 2012. I do not see any mention of using Lydiard's Hill sessions. Those can improve your speed over the long haul. Laying out progressive years of training is not something I would do. Probably no more than 3-4 months at a shot. That way they can be tweaked along as your condition changes, be that for the better or worse.

Hope that helps. Good running,

Glenn

Has anyone here had success with multiple years of Lydiard style training?

grirc,

that is THE key to success with the Lydiard system. Arthur told me that it takes 3 years of consistent training to maximize your results. That has been supported by the results of many, many runners. The runners at Colorado who were walk-ons and ended their careers as All-Americans are good examples. Erin Marston, who is currently running number 3 on the CU women's team barely broke 20 for 5km in HS, she ran under 36 for 10 km last spring. Progressive development is a key to all runners' success.

Good running,

Glenn

grirc,

Here it goes:

1) Take the next 2-3 months and build up to running every day consistently, nothing but easy mileage.

2) After this move to a 3 day schedule with day 1 being a hard workout, day 2 and day 3 being easy runs. Ease into the hard days, don't bust a gut out of the blocks.

3) Utilize 3 type of hard days: tempo runs, speed work (intervals) and long runs. Alternate these.

4) Very slowly increase your weekly mileage adding 5-10 miles every 6 weeks or so (after first 2-3 months of building up on easy runs). Marathoning is about slow gradual improvement over a long period of time. You can't get there quickly.

5) 2 to 3 times a year take a 2 weeks of down time, with nothing but rest and easy jogging to refresh you mentally and physically.

6) Start running doubles (every day except your long runs) once your mileage exceeds 50-60 miles per week.

7) Once you've built up to above 70 miles a week, schedule 2 to 3 marathons per year about 18-26 weeks apart. Race a shorter race (10k to half marathon) once or twice between each marathon.

8) Goals: set attainable short term goals and mid term goals to help you focus along the way.

9) Ultimately you will want to get your weight down til your BMI is between 19.5 and 20.2

10) Your ultimate goal mileage will be in the 120-130 miles per week range but you will have to get there slowly over multiple years. No short cuts.

11) Remember each time you go out the door to run what the goal is for the workout and execute. That means if it is recovery then you need to run slow enough to recover. If you are doing a tempo run and you race it you didn't gain anything that day. You will not make great improvements in any one workout. Marathoning is about slow gradual callousing and improvement - it takes time, dedication and consistency.

Best of luck to you.

grirc wrote:

I went from... with a year of Arthur Lydiard style training. Right from the book. I ran the 2:50 marathon at the end of a very easy 3month mileage buildup, at about 7:30-8:30 pace everyday.

(first off, I'm not a huge Lydiard knowledge base, just a guy who's run a bunch and read a bunch under several different training philosophies, so take the following in that context)

Glenn is obviously correct about multiple years being key to the production of a great Lydiard athlete.

One thing to keep in mind next time you go through the aerobic conditioning phase is that (particularly now that you've been through it once, and have some experience with running at different effort levels) all of the running probably shouldn't be done at the same effort level.

Get some days in at 3/4 effort and such. Still a good completely aerobic effort, but starting to feel a bit of swiftness in it. This is where you'll really start seeing some new results your second time through the aerobic phase.

At the other end of your schedule, I think here's where a lot of people can go wrong while following schedules from Lydiard's books. (And who am I to say this? Nobody)

I think when you're getting ready for a marathon race, as opposed to anything 1/2 marathon on down, you've got to look more at the intention and effects of the coordination and sharpening phases than just the types of work you'd do for a 5000m or such. So, your time-trials type work would be long time trials at near marathon effort/pace--pretty obvious. What would your equivalent of the sharpeners though? Something like Canova's alternating 1000s sessions swinging just a bit faster and slower than marathon pace?

Anybody got a good answer for this?

In any case, I'd definitely say that those last 4 weeks of coordination and 2 weeks of freshening should place a heavy emphasis on marathon specific work, and not be wasting much time/effort with working on peripheral tools anymore.

Good luck.

Amazing!! I was thinking the exact same thing as the original poster just yesterday. "How may I best develop as a marathoner to qualify for the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials?"

My background: Age: 24, Height 5'11" Weight: 140-150 lbs. I graduated from a DII college in May '06 and have been running a consistent 30-60 mpw since. I ran my first marathon following my final track season and turned in a 2:53 off of 30-60 mile weeks. (I would have liked my mileage to have been higher but foot and IT band issues kept the mileage low). I have trained very consistently in the 40-70 mpw range this year gearing up for another Chicago marathon. I ran a 1:19 half marathon 4 weeks before the marathon and felt amazing. Unfortunately though the weather in Chicago took its toll and I finished in over 3 hrs, when the plan was to break 2:50 which I believe was definitely attainable. Also, I work a consistent 40hr/week job at a desk for a Fortune 100 company and have time before/during/after work to train.

My current PR's are as follows:

1500m - 4:08 (April 2006)

5000m - 15:18 (March 2006)

10000m - 32:16 (May 2006)

13.1miles - 1:19 (September 2007)

26.2 miles - 2:53 (October 2006)

50K road - 3:38

From what it sounds like, most people are recommending a Lydiard based training method (over the next 4 years) with a consistent ramp-up of weekly mileage. Is this a correct assumption? Is there a resource (book, website, etc) that would be recommended to follow to accomplish this using Lydiard?

Are there other training methods or plans anyone would recommend following? (Oregon Project (I have really liked what I have heard about the holistic approach Salazar has put together for the Project), Hansons, Zap, XO, USA Minnesota, etc)

Building a Marathoner.....

bump

Who is Glenn that the original poster is looking for direction from?

People tend to do better and improve most when they focus on 4-6 month goals back to back to back to back for years on end. They race XC, then race track, then start over. Once they are fit and confident, then they look to tackle the marathon. Heck look at Rhines and Kastor, what did they do this past Summer? 2 of our US Marathon Olympians from 2004 and what were they doing? 5k's and 10k's on the track. They were working on improving their track times at shorter distances because they know that for nearly every runner out there who wants to be competitive, this is how you improve your marathon times. I know someone is going to name a few runners who this didn't apply to, but the list who did use track and XC as a springboard to their best 42k performances is much, much greater. There are always exceptions, the idea is to target what works for the vast majority of runners. In this case, to get good at the marathon, you should focus concentrated effort on racing track and XC.

So what does this mean for you? Start racing. Get into a cross country race this weekend, get your ass handed to you, start training to improve your performances in November and December. This November and December. Sit down after XC and decide on a plan that will lead to racing effectively in the 1500-10k. Get on the track, get on the roads. Race every other weekend. Looks for small improvements along the way - over time these add up to the big improvements you're looking to make. I can all but guarantee that if you just train for the next 3 years without racing consistently, you will be back here posting a new message on how to make the 2016 Trials because you will have made zero progress and still be holding that dream in the back of your mind.

Your plan of shooting for 2012, while it sounds good on paper, has too much time until you are being held accountable for your training. I have not had anyone have success with racing where they are focused on a single goal over a 3 years away. It's too easy to bail on it if it's that far out. Race now, race consistently. What you need to focus on in your training will become clear as day.

Race first, then go about working on the marathon stuff down the road after you start seeing improvement in the shorter distances. Focus on improving your track times today, the rest will follow much easier and more effectively.

Joe

so joe, you're recommending to race alot. even while building the mileage up and getting into shape? i like this idea but it's a little scary as well. as someone in a similar situation (some recent time off) with eerily similar pr's to the second 'hopeful,' the thought of right now going out and 'racing' a 10k while rebuilding my mileage and fitness (40-50 mpw now) and running say, 4-6 minutes slower than my average race times in college doesn't do a whole lot for my confidence. do you see this as a good tool for when the times do start to drop as the fitness increases? i'm under the idea of focusing on 5-10k's for the next year, 10k-1/2 marathon the next year or two and then really keying on the marathon. i might like to do a marathon or two in the next couple of years just to start getting the feel for an event that long even if i'm not solely training for that event. thoughts?

edit to previous post...similar pr's at 5k and 10k

I think what he's saying is to have short term goals as well. He's probably not suggesting you race when you are out of shape, but it does not take 3 years to get in shape. Does that make sense? Even though you will be steadily increasing your mileage over the years, you should break each year into separate racing seasons (ex: xc season, indoor track, outdoor track, etc.), where you will go through the different training phases (base, strength, speedwork, racing, etc. and repeat). The reason for this is to stay motivated.

Hope for 2012 wrote:

Are there other training methods or plans anyone would recommend following? (Oregon Project (I have really liked what I have heard about the holistic approach Salazar has put together for the Project), Hansons, Zap, XO, USA Minnesota, etc)

Building a Marathoner.....

by holistic approach you mean training, supplementary training (weightless treadmill, pool, etc) eating right, and a proper drug regimine right?