Van Aaken training program for marathon

Your best bet would be if "vladmir," who sometimes posts here and used to train with EvA answers. But having looked at van Aaken's training seriously and gotten to know his son I'll have a go.

Van Aaken's syetem was not one that simply sent you off to do long slow runs and perhaps a few short reps at a faster pace. You've done very well to get to those 9:00 miles going at the same effort as 10:30s used to take.

I don't know, however, if that will translate to twenty six consecutive 8:00 miles.

You might want to do some extended stuff at that pace or something thereabouts; maybe a 10-15 mile run at that pace, maybe a session of 1 km repeats at 5:00 per km, maybe a high number of 400s at 2:00.

I recall that one thing van aaken had his marathoners do was to cover the marathon distance at race pace but spread over a whole weekend. You might do something like a 13 mile run at 8:00 pace on saturday morning, maybe 20x400 in two minutes that afternoon. Then on Sunday you might do a couple of four mile run s at race pace.

It is possible that you're running so easily at the slower paces that you'll handle the race effort just fine. But van Aaken training does involve more than just constant slow runs.

My recollection is that EvA thought you could build up to every run (or once a day if doubling) to end for 5 minutes or so at marathon pace (or close to it as long as it was 100% aerobic) so it wasn't all slow running. He did have a little chart that if training for a marathon you should run a total of 42km a day. He realized for most people this was impossible due to time constraints. He also mentioned running 2-3-4 even up to 5 times a day to get the miles in. His schedule for this gave about 5 hours of sleep a night which didn't sound like much to me but maybe some people can do it.

Here is Frank Horwills take on how to train for a marathon according to Van Aaken (exert toward bottom of article):

http://www.serpentine.org.uk/pages/advice_frank02.html

He drew up a mileage table as follows: 400m runner, 4 miles; 800m runner, 6 miles; 1,500m runner, 10 miles; 5km runner, 15 miles; 10km runner, 18 miles; marathoner, 26 miles. Now this may look like a recipe for one-pace running.

But he added a significant corollary: three times a week after these outings, run a section of your event at race pace, eg, 1 x 350m for the 400m athlete, 1 x 400m for the 800m runner, 1 x 800m for the 1,500m runner, 1 x mile for the 5km specialist, 1 x 2 miles for the 10km runner and 1 x 10km for the marathoner.

So this looks like 182 miles of slow running a week + 1x10K at marathon race pace three times a week.

Like most coach/theorists who wrote and spoke about their methods, there were various ways to apply their ideas and there were differences between the idealized version and the application.

Having looked at several samples of the training of marathon runners who were influenced by EvA I haven't seen any who got to that 42 km a day each day and I haven't seen any samples where an athlete ran more than twice a day despite what EvA had written about the 4-5 sessions except that "vladmir" has mentioned here that they used to have a week called "Hell Week" where you ran for an hour and rested for an hour all day long starting at 6:00am. Generally, van Aaken expected people who trained under him to commit to at least an hour a day. He didn't sleep all that uch himself and didn't think people needed as much sleep as they think they did. But he never made that part of his training and actually took several cat naps each day.

He often had runners finsih at fast paces and it wasn't all aerobic running. Norpoth would sometimes finish a run with something like 3-5x500 meters in 75 or better.

The best source for samples of van Aaken's marathon training that I know of is Manfred Steffney's "Marathon" book.

HRE wrote:

The best source for samples of van Aaken's marathon training that I know of is Manfred Steffney's "Marathon" book.

How is the name or author of this Book ?????

Manfred Steffny authored "Marathon Training" in 1979 or

thereabouts. The book was published in English by Runners World, I think. Maybe Mountain View Publications.

Manfred updated the book this century, but the updated book is only available in German.

Manfred ran in two olympic marathons, 1968 and 1972.

Remember that EVA was all about getting the body healthy. If he had spent his time recruiting and training athletes we would be looking a records that would still be unbroken (my opinion). Yes you can run at 10:00 and still race a marathon at 3:30. I was reading an article a while back from Japan where they stated the ideal distance pace is 125% of your racing pace. This would be right on for your race. Remember that the body needs to also know the pace and for this you will need to run a little faster. If you do some repeats at 5:00 for distances from 1k to 5k at the end your body will not go into shock when you run your marathon. From your handle I guess you are around 38 years old and hopefully injury free as well as not overweight. If all of this is true you should have no problem achieving the 3:30 goal-- provided you are: 1) giving yourself enough time to prepare 2) you did not pick Pike Peak or any race on a hot, cold, windy, etc day. Keep us posted as many are interested in hearing results from real runners trying to achieve personal goals.

Hi Vladimir,

Please email me.

papassen1970@aol.com

Thank you,

Philip Passen

For example....

Today I ran 10 miles.....

For the first 8 miles, I did 1 min @ 10 min pace followed by 1 min @ 6:30 pace.

After slowly jogging 800m after completing the 8 miles (no rest just a float recovery), I ran 1 mile in 7 minutes and then floated the last 800m to complete 10 miles. So, although my overall average was 8:30/mile, I did run a significant portion at planned race pace or faster.

If I do a workout such as this every week combined with long, steady runs (12 miles or more @ 9 min pace), will this allow me to go sub 3:30 under the Van Aaken training method?

I am just getting back into running after 3 year hiatus (got married-lol)and I was runnling 17:20 5k and 4:57 mile only 5 years ago. If I do the Van Aaken plan, will my former speed allow me to get back to my previous times even if I do most of my runs at a much slower pace than before my hiatus. I used to do all my easy runs @ 7:10/mile but I think the lighter effort will not harm me on the base building.

Please let me know Vladimir.

Thanks,

Philip Passen

As a side question for anyone,

This running at 10 minute miles being OK for 8 minute pace at the marathon, is that assuming a solid base already with the ability to do easy runs at a faster pace? I have no base at all yet, so I assume 10 minute miles for a marathon program will not translate to a 3:30, correct?