Marathon Training - Week Ending 12/13

Hate to break it to you but the same thing happened to me at San Antonio last year and marathonguide still doesn't list me. The RD got it fixed within a few days and I got my prize money.

Timing company guy emailed to say that they figured out the glitch and would fix it tonight. He also said "Anyhow, I know you didn’t cut the course by your times" -- not quite sure what that means. I didn't think my 1:26/1:32 split was THAT bad.

Denver Runner wrote:

Hate to break it to you but the same thing happened to me at San Antonio last year and marathonguide still doesn't list me. The RD got it fixed within a few days and I got my prize money.

Timing company guy emailed to say that they figured out the glitch and would fix it tonight. He also said "Anyhow, I know you didn’t cut the course by your times" -- not quite sure what that means. I didn't think my 1:26/1:32 split was THAT bad.

More math!! I've only done that once (started the math at 15 or 16, I think in my first-usually it's starting at 22 or so) and it turned into a death march over the last 10k

Way to hold it together after starting the math at 15. That takes a lot of discipline.

More math!! I've only done that once (started the math at 15 or 16, I think in my first-usually it's starting at 22 or so) and it turned into a death march over the last 10k

Way to hold it together after starting the math at 15. That takes a lot of discipline.

You know, it was a big confidence booster from about 15-19 when I was feeling like absolute crap and cranking out high 6:40s/low 6:50s. Made me think that even if the pace slipped (and it did), I wouldn't drop much slower than 7:00. And looking at the various splits that I have or remember, I was never much slower than 7:00 anywhere -- for example, I averaged a 7:12 from 20 to 24, but that includes a bathroom stop and an all-uphill mile 20. Take out both, and I was at 6:53 pace on the remaining bits. And then the last 2.2 was at 6:58 pace (though in fairness, it was slightly downhill).

So I guess the bottom line is that I essentially ran two races -- a 2:52 pace first half, and a 3:00 pace second half with a bathroom stop and a big hill.

Woohoo! The updated results knock another second off my time. 2:58:14. So instead of 6:47.91 pace, I ran 6:47.88 pace.

Nice job DR, and thanks for an entertaining race report. Glad they fixed those results for you. I had 2 electronic timing glitches this year, and wasn't able to get either straightened out.

Spring Marathon: Eugene or San Diego

Goal: Sub 2:40

Took the week off from running. I lifted upper body weights Wednesday and Sunday to do something physical. I road 30 miles today on the road bike and the legs feel great. All soreness was gone by Thursday of last week but I want to be cautious coming back to ensure I don't get hurt from being run down. I'm going to start back slow this week and hope to be up to 80 a week by February. My plan is to have a nice spring road season while focusing on on higher milage and quality long runs. I would like to go into my spring marathon off of a average of 70-80 a week instead of my pathetic 40 for CIM. In the past I seem to break down if I go higher then 80. So I will max there and incorporate hills, and real workouts. Now that I know I like the marathon, I'm all in for my next one! I've even joined a club team so I'll have some fast guys for workouts and long runs. The spring should be fun.

Nice rae DR! You ran super tough the 2nd half! Great work.

Great job, Denver.

Goal: ~2.45 at Rotterdam, April 2010.

M - AM: 6M easy

T - AM: 8M easy

W - AM: 4M slow jog on 5 hours' sleep / PM: First attempt at Lydiard hill circuits. Ran 2M easy WU to hill; slow running up 150m hill with high knees and strong arm drive, 2 mins recovery jog; fast running with quick leg turnover down a gentler, longer hill; short recovery jog and then 2 x 20 sec relaxed 'windsprints' with equal distance jog back. Each loop was about 1 mile and I did three of them before 2M easy CD. Good workout - pushed the leg muscles.

T - AM: 8M easy

F- AM: 6M easy

S - PM: County XC league race (5M+). The course is typically firm underfoot and relatively flat. Last year, everyone went off too fast in the first lap and a lot of people were dying by the second. With that in mind, I started a little conservatively but kept certain rivals in sight and then worked my way up the field. I expected people to respond to my challenge when I passed them but clearly the fast first lap had taken its toll! Didn't make my club's scoring 10 but placed somewhat respectably (67th) given the depth of the field and right behind a strong runner from my club. Pleased with performance. ~2M WU and 2M CD.

S - AM: 5K easy WU, 10K at adjusted tempo pace (hitting each 2K mark in around 7.35), 5K easy CD. Legs tired from Saturday and I did consider dropping this workout but then figured it would be good to see how I managed running a long tempo on fatigued legs. Good preparation for marathon running was my conclusion.

Total miles: 66. Decent week overall but I'm struggling to shake a persistant cold virus and can't remember the last time I felt at full strength.

That's exactly the change I'm making.

I'm not sure if you have more speed than you thought. I think it is just a result of consistent volume of the marathon training.

suar - don't adjust your plan because of one workout/race. Look at the body of work.

PR Seeker wrote:

I ran a 4 minute PR off of 12wk/70mpw marathon training at Philly and was very happy. Not quite three weeks later (and with my last speedwork session of 3x1 mile about a month ago) I ran an indoor 3k and nominally (ie Vdot, MacMillan, Wava etc. all indicated) I had a better race.

Any thoughts on what this would suggest I change/add to my training? Do I have more "natural speed" than I give myself credit for?

You're probably right in your assesment of having natural speed. Couple that with a solid marathon base...there you go. Some people don't need a ton of workouts, intervals, etc. to run good track times. It also looks like you have a great ability to recover from hard efforts. Three weeks after my marathon, I certainly wasn't thinking about an indoor 3k.

If you had a 4 minute PR off what you did for Philly, I don't think I would alter the training much...it seemed to work. The only thing I suggest, would be to go back and look at your weeks leading up to it and cut out workouts you didn't like or didn't run well, and add the ones you did run well.

There is a good running times podcast (and article) that came out in the last couple of days about when to shake up training and when to not. I think the summary of when to not shake it up is just as cutter said.

For the 3k pr guy, there's been a lot written on 5k (so 3k?) pr's after marathons for those whose marathon training involved a lot more mileage than their 5k training. It seems to show you have alot of room for improvement with increased mileage. High mileage guys don't usually get their 5k pr's after the marathon (like cutter and the others on this thread who are over 100/wk) as they already are getting all the volume benefits they can. I'm hoping to duplicate what you did after getting a higher volume this training cycle I'm going for a 5k pr in the early summer.

Cutter wrote:

That's exactly the change I'm making.

So within marathon style training, what kind of workouts are you planning on doing Cutter? My thought on adapting Pfitz was to make Tues more traditional speed (400's 800's), keep the mid-week long run at 10-13 and let Sunday long runs top out around 2 hr (17-18 mi.?) but focus on 1/2 MP - tempo finishes.

niarun - The marathon was the PR. The 3k was 10:06, but about 30 sec. away from my 3k PR (set as a high schooler almost 25 yrs ago.)

Here's a few that I've done so far:

Last night on bridges:

2/2/3/3/2/2 with 2 minute recovery. These were rolling! I was with 3 current D1 guys home on break from different schools and they were getting after it. They did two more 3 minute efforts after that.

4*1,100 in 3:17-3:19 with 3 minute rest.

1600/2*800/4*400/8*200 all at just below 5K pace and with equal rest.

12*400 with 60 seconds all at below 5K pace.

The main thing now is leg turnover and pure speed. That's why I increase the rest. I'm taking the same rest on 400s that I was taking on mile repeats during marathon training. The strength and aerobic capacity is there and I'm maintaining that with 100+ mile weeks its just a change in focus away from the Tuesday mid-long run and Saturday long run to the fast stuff.

My week basically will look like this through January.

M - Fast Fartleks over bridges (we don't have hills here)

T - Steady state 12-15

W - Recovery

T - Hard track work with 100% rest

F - Recovery

S - LR with some efforts mixed in

S - Steady state

Don't let the D1 guys break you, cutter.

I adjusted my workout for tonight- had scheduled a 6m w/ 2@MP, but will instead just run 3/4 because of my sudden knee soreness. Might try the run scheduled for tonight tomorrow night.

I think PRs must reset every ten years or so...

It must count. (spoken as an old guy)

Race: Austin

Goal: Sub 2:40

Sunday: Off

Monday: 20.1 Miles in 2:20

Tuesday: am 8 easy, pm 8.5 with 30 minute fartlek in the middle

Wednesday: 12 easy

Thursday: 10 easy with 8x150 strides

Friday: 14, middle 10 miles in 1:00:20

Saturday: 6 easy

By the way, niarun, we found out today that the twins are boys. I told my wife that we should try for a third boy so we could get a DMR team together (I assume I'd run the 400m so that my lack of speed would only cost us 15 seconds or so).

She told me that if I don't make an appointment to get fixed by the doctor, she'll do it herself with whatever is handy in the kitchen. I'm not sure if she's joking or not.

Just got fixed. It wasn't bad, excepting the burning flesh smell. You'll know what I'm talking about soon enough. Once they were born i realized that having twins (or maybe it was because the are girls? Or the inability to tell them apart for 6 months? Its all crazy) ends any ideas on additional kids. The DMR is definitely out! Don't you have a girl? Maybe you can mix her in.

Goal Race: Indy Mini

Goal Time: Sub-1:08

M - 0 miles

T - 0 miles

W - 0 miles

R - 5 miles very easy in brutal cold

F - 3 miles easy on USATF Club Nationals course in Lexington, KY, plus 4 x strides

Sa - 12 miles total; 2 mile morning shakeout, 2 mile warmup, 10k XC race (32:09), 2 mile cooldown

Su - 0 miles

Total: 20 miles

Well, as you can see, this week was not so good. On my Sunday run last weekend, I tweaked my right achilles. I have a history of achilles problems dating back to college. I've somehow avoided any issues for the past couple of years, but I've been doing a lot of form work lately, and I think it tightened up my calves a lot, causing a lot of stress on my achilles. So to be smart, I took a few days off and tried to rehab the achilles as much as possible. I finally ran on Thursday, and things felt good, so I decided to go ahead and go down to Lexington for Clubs with my team. Things felt good on Friday's run on the course, so I made the decision to race. I actually felt reasonably decent in the race, though I held back a bit for fear of messing up the achilles with all the hills and mud. Fortunately, it seems to have survived the trauma for the most part. I took Sunday off and will be taking a couple more days off this week to work on rehabbing the tendon. Hopefully after that it will be ready to go. I think I've averted disaster for now. I'm just hoping to get things back on track quickly so that I can get into a solid groove again.