Marathon Training in mid to late 30's? Do you still hit the big mileage?

Found this old post. I'm late 30s now and am running Berlin next year. I would like to run "well", which for me would be 2:45-2:50. My best was ~2:42. I'm still fit from years of consistency, but I have not done big mileage or a marathon for ~6 years. My best estimate is that I could run a half marathon today in ~79 min.

I do not recover like I used to and am trying to put together a training plan. I am curious to get opinions, especially from older runners who have been here before.

I would also like to have a solid showing in the beer stein holding competition, so I need to factor that into my training, likely with pullups and dumbell raises.

Good bump. A few thoughts:

- People age differently, so it's hard to come to really firm conclusions.

- It's often easy to run huge mileage in your 30s because it takes a very long time to build up to it. At the age of 35, 110 feels a lot like 80 used to feel in my 20s.

- If you have a lot of lifetime mileage in your legs, then you can get away with lower mileage training for shorter distances. For the marathon, there's no substitute for mileage. High mileage is the key to not fading at the end of a marathon.

- Intensity is a bigger problem for older runners than volume. It's more likely that you'll have to drop from 3 to 2 workouts per week, for instance. Total mileage isn't usually the issue. That said, it's extremely important that older runners stay in touch with their speed, so making the most out of your intensity is a big deal.

- Controlling weight is a huge performance factor for older runners, and mileage can make this easier.

I’m not sure if the huge mileage is necessarily required for everyone. This year I ran 2:32 off 40mpw. I just had very specific sessions and cross-trained instead of going out for recovery runs.

Having said that, I will try a different approach in the build up to the next Spring marathon. Extend up to 60mpw and cross-train less (if my legs take it, of course).

Tt46, thank you for sharing. If possible could you please extend a bit on your crosstraining, what kind of work and how much of it did you do? Maybe share week's schedule if possible? I am trying to get some aerobic benefits without running as well and would really appreciate someone else sharing their experience.

Thanks!

I hit 4 weeks of 100 mpw during my build up for CIM. The rest of the year I average about 70-80 mpw. I have only been running for 6 years.

Agreed. I would be curious to learn more about cross training approaches as I've found that my legs recover slowly from higher mileage impact now. I've been rowing or cycling 1 day per week coupled with 5 days of running and 1 day off. I seem to be holding steady in my fitness / speed and am not as tired as when I run 6 days per week, but I am nowhere near where I need to be for a marathon.

Sure. This is an example of a peak week:

Mon: 4 miles treadmill easy

Tue: 6 miles (ish) track

Thu: 8-10 mile tempo, 75% of this at effort

Sat: 20 mile long run

Cross training would be 25 min elliptical Mon/Wed/Thu lunch with a longer 40 min elliptical on Sunday. Weights twice a week and sports massage fortnightly.

Looking back on it the mileage looks crazy low but it worked for me as it saved the legs. I found the tempos really tough initially but they definitely helped.

Thanks, Tt46!

Yeah, it seems you were doing quit a lot of quality work just from tempos and track work and keeping the milleage low. Now, it's interesting, I am not sure if 25min on ecliptical does provide much of aerobic benefit, it's likely more helpful with recovery as you get blood flowing, stretch muscles, etc. And that was exactly what was needed with your amount of quality and almost not existing easy runs (excluding treadmill).

I saw that for spring marathon you are planning to up the milleage a bit, it would actually be interesting if cross-training would increase instead. Although, I am not sure how much can you benefit from that. Interesting take from Daniels', according to studies done on rats, benefit from activities of 30 to 60 minutes do not really differ that much, while from 10 to 30 quite a lot. Not sure how similar human bodies react.

"The degree of change in the number of mitochondria and the concentration increases of the proteins involved in aerobic metabolism are dependent on the duration of the training runs. Table 2 shows the increase observed in cytochrome c (a protein involved in oxidative metabolism and located in mitochondria) in rat muscle with different durations of daily training five days a week for 14 weeks.

TABLE 2. Changes in cytochrome c in rat muscle with different amounts of training

GROUPS

Sedentary CYTOCHROME c,%INCREASE

l 0-Minute daily running 10

30-Minute daily running 30

60-Minute daily running 40

120-Minute daily running 100

In this experiment,· the protein concentration increased as the duration of daily running increased. Running beyond two hours a day brings little further increase in mitochondrial protein, and generally results eventually in deterioration, as the animal becomes chronically fatigued and unable to complete the daily run. At the other extreme, a stress above some minimal level is required before muscle adaptation occurs. In the experiment reported in Table 2, IO minutes a day,

five days a week was adequate. However, another investigation found 30 minutes of daily swimming for eight weeks to have no effect. It is important to point out that this study was performed on rats."

The fact that you run 2:32, wow. Really great work! Thanks again for sharing.

Providing an update as I'm one month into my marathon prep.

I'm running 5-6 days / week with 1 day of cycling or 1 day off, depending on how I'm feeling. Of the 5-6 days running, I'm doing 1 two-a-day, 1 long run (up to 16 miles so far), and one tempo run (the last 5 miles of my long runs). Overall I'm hitting 55-60 miles running + 40-60 miles on the bike. It has been tough, especially the two-a-day. My legs feel good usually 1-2 days of the week. I'm hoping that this will begin to feel less tiring over the next 4-6 weeks.

Over the winter I was running 30-40 miles and XC skiing about 15 miles per week so it was a decent jump in activity.

Back to this theme wrote:

Providing an update as I'm one month into my marathon prep.

I'm running 5-6 days / week with 1 day of cycling or 1 day off, depending on how I'm feeling. Of the 5-6 days running, I'm doing 1 two-a-day, 1 long run (up to 16 miles so far), and one tempo run (the last 5 miles of my long runs). Overall I'm hitting 55-60 miles running + 40-60 miles on the bike. It has been tough, especially the two-a-day. My legs feel good usually 1-2 days of the week. I'm hoping that this will begin to feel less tiring over the next 4-6 weeks.

Over the winter I was running 30-40 miles and XC skiing about 15 miles per week so it was a decent jump in activity.

make sure those running days have purpose. either recovery running or hard running. and if your legs feel good 1-2 days per week, that's fine as long as it's the long run and the tempo day.

Wanted to bump this thread as I'm now 4.5 months into my training and the Berlin marathon is 1 month away.

Overall, I felt pretty crappy during the first 3 months in which I bumped up my training (April - June). I cross trained about once per week with a long cycle ride to reduce impact. Then, in July, things started to click and I started feeling much better. I'm hitting 50-60 miles per week on 6 runs. I've done three 20 mile-ish long runs and a fair amount of tempo work. I'm also doing strength work (mostly dynamic lunges, pullups, and dips). Overall I feel good, better than I've felt in years. Maybe my mileage was simply too low before?

Any guesses about my time? Today I did an 11 mile tempo run in 1:08:07 and felt pretty smooth. I think I am still shooting for high 2:40s, coming through 10 and 20 miles in 1:03 and 2:07ish. Thoughts?

On this subject one may want to look up Jack Foster.