Marathon Training Thread - Week Ending 6/27

greg: That's pretty admirable that you just run by feel. I admit that i am somewhat a slave to my watch. However my garmin broke last week and so lately i have been just running (over known distances) and then looking at the time when i finish. It's actually been quite liberating! I've been following Pfitz for my marathon buildup so i have 3 full recovery days where i end up running somewhere between 8:15 and 9:00. Easy days i usually start at 8:00 and work down to 7:00-7:15 and the average for the run is around 7:30.

My ankle injury has become weird. The ankle itself does not hurt when i run. It is still mildly swollen and hurts only when i press it with my thumb. But now my achilles is tender, feels tight and is giving me trouble. Actually some of the pain has now travelled towards the inner ankle area. I wonder if this is because i have altered my stride to compensate. I have been running through this issue but now i am rethinking it.

MI Index: I wonder how robust this measure is. Next weekend i will be somewhere where the temperature/dewpoint is:

9am-7pm 90-100/ 40-45

9pm-7am 75-80 / 55

I'll have to run in the middle of the night. I can't imagine that 95/40 is fun.

I'm going to keep track of paces versus MI for the next week. This looks like a good topic to obsess over for the next couple of weeks.Another, do you add on any points for a really hot sun versus a hazy or cloudy day?

CTA wrote:

MI Index: I wonder how robust this measure is. Next weekend i will be somewhere where the temperature/dewpoint is:

9am-7pm 90-100/ 40-45

9pm-7am 75-80 / 55

I'll have to run in the middle of the night. I can't imagine that 95/40 is fun.

Just asked this on the broader board. What do you guys think?

At the end of a relatively easy 10 mile run tonight (avg 7:15 pace) I sprinted for about 200 meters (HR got up to 181) jogged about 150 meters (got down to 164) and then sprinted for roughly 250-300 meters. My HR got up to 188 that second time. I was pretty lactic at the end of that.

I imagine this isn't the best way to get a max. I would think that its probably 5-10 bpm higher? Or do you think this is pretty close?

I was pretty surprised today. 7:15 pace, depending on terrain, had me at between 151-160 bpm. Most of the time I was in the 154-156 range. I either:

a) need to slow it down (but then I get into an unnatural stride)

b) have a very high max heart rate, in which case, hovering between 150 and 160 is probably fine for an easy day

c) have a slightly off HR monitor

Surface is cinder, so I imagine that would play a small factor on effort and pace.

Hey 3TM,

What was the weather like for your run today? My HR (like most people) is greatly effected by the heat and wind. For instance, the other day I did 12mi at a HR of 160 and averaged around 6:40/mi (75deg and low humidity); whereas last week I did 10mi at a HR of 160 in 85deg and high humidity and my pace started around 7:00-7:10 and slowed to 7:30 as I struggled to keep my HR below 160.

A good way to get your max which I have used pretty accurately in the past is to find a 400-600m hill and sprint up it as hard as you can three times with the jog back down as your recovery. When I did that I hit 194 which I believe is likely close to my max.

I think the HR monitor can be a great help in the summertime as it is so easy to go out and run your "normal" pace in the hot weather and really overtax yourself as your HR might be 20 beats higher than normal b/c of the weather.

Hope that helps a bit.

1. Oh my. What a difference weather makes. Who would have though on July 1st that it would be a little chilly this AM. My MI started at 97.6 (49.9F) and ended at 111.2 (56.4F). I ran over 10 miles @ sub 7 pace at HR 150-155 (which is 10bpm lower than marathon HR for me).

2.niarun - no I don't take into account the sun. Most of my runs are early morning, so only really at the end of my runs does the sun come into effect. I would suspect running mid-day would make it even worse. However, this MI thing isn't anything scientific, just something to quantify temperature and humidity.

3. 3TM - I would suspect your maxHR would be anywhere from 188-193. It is very difficult to get to your maxHR. I find I can only get to it at the end of a hard 5k or so, going all out. And even then, that happens rarely. Highest I've ever seen in 187. This past Monday I got it up to 181.

I rarely if ever get it over 178 in workouts (i.e.v02max stuff).

Pfitz and HADD are good places to look to see what HR ranges you should be in for certain runs. Abu is also right, temperature and other factors will fool around with your HR. Sometimes that is good, sometimes that is bad. It depends on how obsessive you are with this stuff (I am rather obsessive).

Another - We too have had a break in the weather, during my long run last Sunday, the MI was 162 (91F/71DP). My run last night had an MI of only 157 (85F/72DP). Needless to say, I'm quite jealous of your MI. BTW, when did you put the "1" after your name...did someone else register as "Another"?

3TM - I'd love to help you out on the HR stuff, but I've never used a HR monitor, and have no idea what my HR is during a run. My only assumption is along the lines with what Abu said...the weather plays a major role. I also know that doing efforts like you did during that 10 miler...the 200-300 meter sprints, will keep your HR elevated. Take in/out miles for example: if you alternate miles from 5:00 to 7:00 every other mile, your HR should be much higher than if you averaged 6:30 the entire way. The distance was covered in the same amount of time, but it takes a greater effort (resulting in a higher HR) doing the 5:00/7:00 approach as opposed to the 6:30 approach.

The weather was pretty nice (especially relative to the early part of the week).

I did notice that my fastest miles had the lowest HRs. Probably because those were the only flat'ish miles. I also run on a cinder path, so I have to think that is harder then the roads. Will be interesting to see how the HR changes as the weather, courses and surface change.

I would guess my max HR is in the 190-195 range. I figure that is close enough to get an approximation of where I should be on easy days and tempos (the 2 days I would care about HR). I will get a more accurate max in the coming weeks.

What do people think of the Karvonen method? I am going to get my resting HR tomorrow morning and figure out the ranges for that. I am assuming my resting is in the mid 30s, but will find out tomorrow.

Anyway, assuming the 190-195 range max, that puts me between 133 on the low end to 156 at the high end for a regular easy day. That seems reasonable to me.

If I use the Karvonen method, and I assume 35 as my resting HR, then that puts me between 144 on the low end (assuming 70% of 190 as my Max HR) and 163 on the high end (assuming 80% on 195).

Will be interesting to see how these change with more accurate tests. Will also be interesting to see how they correspond with what I perceive and what my race times suggest I should be hitting on workouts.

For example, I tend to run V02 max work at 3K-5k race pace and threshold work at 15K-1/2marathon race pace. I wonder if, going by HR, I will find that the HR ranges work out to these paces.

At the end of the day, I like the idea of using current race pace fitness as a gauge for workout times. If I run a 1/2 Marathon at 5:45 pace, my 5-7 mile tempos should roughly be at 5:45 pace. My theory is that I may be able to keep an elevated HR longer then what the training zones would suggest.

HOWEVER, maybe it will work out to be the same. The other advantage of the HR is that it does take into account exogenous variables like weather and terrain. So my 5:45s for a 1/2 may have been in ideal conditions and my tempo my be on tough terrain in hot conditions.

Now that I think about it, the better way to approach this is probably to get my avg HR during races and then use that HR as my training zones. So if my avg HR running 5:45s for a half is 180, then avg 180 for my 5-7 mile tempos regardless of what pace that comes out to be. This may be high relative to traditional "zones", but its what I know corresponds to my 1/2 marathon HR.

HMM... I'm sure I'm not the first to think this way, but I think this sounds pretty legit. Don't train to a specific pre-conceived zone, and don't use recent race paces, but rather recent race Heart Rates. I like that idea.

If you are going to train by heart rate, certainly Karvonen's Heart Rate Reserve (HRR) is better than just straight up percentages of maximum. But I would get your maximum from a good hill workout, not from a race.

I learned a lot from training by heart rate for a couple of years. Racing by heart rate, however, proved to be a terrible decision. Particularly for marathons.

3TM I do keep track of my HRs and have been doing so over the past 4 years (i.e. my entire running "career"). At first, i was obsessed with knowing precise formulae about the correct/optimal HR i should be at for a given pace. But after awhile you kind of know what's going on for you. Just like good runners know what pace they are running at, i know approx what HR i am currently at based on how i feel. I have never measure my HRmax but i think it is around 177-179. My recovery runs are 118-126, easy runs are 135ish, my pfitz long/medium runs push towards 150 at the end, my marathon pace is around 156. Tempo pace pushes 160-162, and v02max a bit higher but not much. If you go by percentages then perhaps it means i'm not working hard enough on my tempos and v02max intervals or alternatively it means that my estimate of HRmax is wrong. It doesn't matter. Just get a sense of the HR ranges that correspond to your various paces and forget about the %.

pablo - just a mistype of my name at home for the extra 1.

3TM - For HADD I usually run in a ran of maxHR - 45 to maxHR - 30 for my base period runs. That is the maxHR limit on the run. So for me I have run where I let the HR get to a max of 140,145,150 or 155... The 150, 155 runs are fairly fast but easy to recover from since they are well below MP HR. Today was 90 min with last 70min@155, which I managed 10.05 miles @ 6:58, AHR 152.4

For Pfitz he has a whole bunch of ranges..

Recovery: < 76% max

General Aerobic: 70-80% max

MLR-LR: 74-84% max

MP: 79-88% max

LT: 82-91% max

Vo2Max: 93-95% max

Another wrote:

I miss my 20F runs....

I miss running with 20 yr old females as well. ;-)

On running by feel: I tried that for 3 weeks last summer. Never made out of my cul-de-sac. I have to have a plan or it won't get done.

Speaking of running by feel.....

I have a friend who has a loop that he runs every day, year round (except when he races).

It is a 7 mile loop and at the 5 mile point there is a 3 mile side loop he can add on to it if he wants to to make it 10 miles.

So each day he waits until he approaches 5 miles to determine if its a 7 mile or a 10 mile day based on how he feels. Then on his long run day he simply does the loop twice getting in either 14, 17 or 20 miles depending on how he feels.

Over the years he has ended up spray painting a dot every quarter mile for the whole loop and so now he does his speed work and tempo runs on the course as well.

He jokes that one day he is going to start a road race that uses his normal course so he can have the home field advantage on everyone. :-)

I was talking to my best friend today at lunch (former 3:45, 4:02, 14:01, individual qualifier for NCAA D1 Cross) who is in medical school. He trained under Marcus O'Sullivan for a while (who is big on HR training) and also worked in a lab before med school testing V02Max and whatnot on people who had heart trouble.

Basically, a good resource all around.

We were talking about HR and the best way to use it, and he had similar thoughts I did, which is to do it REALLY right, you really need to know your V02 Max, Lactate threshold and your Max HR. This goes along with what I said earlier of some people may be able to run at a higher percentage of max without going lactic, so the standard formulas may not work.

He actually gave a pretty interesting example. One of the guys I used to coach ran 2:20 in Chicago in 2006. He had around that time a V02Max of 81 or 82. My friend (the 14:01 guy) also has a V02Max of about 81. They both have similar max HR, but the 2:20 guy can run at something like 90% of his max without going lactic, whereas my 14:01 guy can't. Basically, the 2:20 guy can run almost as fast as his heart will let him... going lactic doesn't appear to be the problem. He doesn't go lactic as he approaches his VO2 Max. He can basically run at V02Max and have a very high HR, but still be aerobic.

So, if you really wanted to nail it, you would need to know your lactic threshold as a percentage of your V02Max and then correlate that to Max HR to then back into your training ranges.

He still has a few connections in the lab and I'm going to try and get in there and get everything tested. Kind of neat.