Looking at the video of this past weekend of the Fukuoka Marathon;I started looking at some of the history of the race. I see that Jerome Drayton set the still standing Canadian marathon record 2:10:08 back 1978 at the Fukuoka Marathon. Wondered how he trained & what he must think of the current state of Canadian marathon..?
Not sure, but I do know that Peter Buniak and Jerome Drayton have never been seen in two places at once.
Not sure how close this is to what he actually did but this is waht I found on the internet:
Believe it or not, Jerome Drayton’s 2:10:08 marathon, set in Fukuoka, Japan in 1975, is still the Canadian record.
Here are excerpts of Jerome Drayton’s training. What works for him may not work for you. But I do like the meticulous detail and approach that he puts into planning for a major marathon. The recovery and regeneration component is missing is the excerpt below. I doubt he used ice baths back then.
TRAINING PARTNERS:
Most of the time, I trained alone, particularly on Mondays to Saturdays. I wanted to get the training over with as fast as possible in order to get on with my personal life. Most Sundays, I joined the club members at High Park where I would join the main group for a “social run”.
TYPICAL TRAINING SCHEDULE:
For a major competition, like the Olympic Marathon or Fukuoka International Open Marathon Championship, Japan, I had a plan that took 26 weeks. It was divided into four phases.
1.The first phase consisted of a general build up of strength and aerobic capacity. It meant a lot of slow steady running with lots of miles – up to 150 miles per week in the later stages of this phase, which usually lasted for ten weeks.
2.In the second phase, I concentrated on the development of speed. It consisted of a lot of interval running on the track about two or three times per week – for example 12 to 16 x 400 meters, each at maximum aerobic capacity, with a short break between each interval. The rest of the week would be the same as in the first phase – casually running, twice a day, up to 20 miles a day. Near the end of this phase, I introduced anaerobic running – for example 8 x 200 or 4 x 400 meters, sprinting flat out. Each was followed by two to five minutes of jogging. The total weekly mileage was also less than in the first phase. This phase lasted for nine weeks.
3.In the third phase, I tried to combine strength and speed. That is when I started heading towards my seasonal peak. The weekly mileage and the number of speed sessions went down, but the ones I did were faster than in the second phase – for example 6 x 400 meters at maximum aerobic capacity; followed by 4 x 200 meters at maximum anaerobic capacity. This meant that the reserves I had depleted in the heavy mileage training stage of the first phase and the aerobic and anaerobic speed training stage of the second phase began to return. This phase lasted for four weeks.
4.The fourth and final phase consisted of continued reduced overall mileage, a continuation of the third phase but with further reduced quantity and an introduction of short distance races for peaking purposes. This phase lasted two weeks. The final phase culminated with THE RACE, usually the Olympic, Boston, New York or Fukuoka Marathon.
I'm pretty sure when Reid Coolsaet flies by Jerome's apartment on Lakeshore during the Waterfront Marathon he doesn't even bother to roll out of bed to see if his record is going down.
Drayton says he pushed his training up to 190 miles [300k] a week after hearing that four-time Olympic champion Lasse Viren, a 10,000m specialist, was hitting 210 miles [336k] a week. “Of course he wasn’t working at the time, so he could run three times a day,” Drayton says. “I started off slowly, working up to 190. It became uncomfortable mentally after 140 miles a week because of the work situation. I sat at a computer at work. I had done 10 miles in the morning. I kept sitting there thinking ‘Oh God, I have to do another 18 miles tonight.’ Saturdays and Sundays I looked forward to because you got an extra eight hours of personal life.”
“I’ve got osteoarthritis,” he offers as an explanation for his limp. “It’s nothing to do with running, by the way.”
Denial is not a river
It is interesting that the guys in the 70's and 80's ran almost no mileage at marathon pace yet produced good results.
Google is my friend wrote:
8 x 200 or 4 x 400 meters, sprinting flat out. Each was followed by two to five minutes of jogging.
That's quite serious speed training for a marathon runner, and helps to explain some of his runaway victories, though he never bettered 2:10.
3.In the third phase... 6 x 400 meters at maximum aerobic capacity; followed by 4 x 200 meters at maximum anaerobic capacity. This meant that the reserves I had depleted in the heavy mileage training stage of the first phase and the aerobic and anaerobic speed training stage of the second phase began to return. This phase lasted for four weeks.
Can someone explain why reserves depleted in the 2nd phase would return in the 3rd phase, as they look almost identical.
Some good details on Drayton and the competition back in the day...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzkaYrZ2pCQ5OUZrNjduWTZuUUk/edit?usp=sharing
J.R. wrote:
Can someone explain why reserves depleted in the 2nd phase would return in the 3rd phase, as they look almost identical.
He likely means the depletion is mostly from the heavy mileage followed by the faster stuff. By the third phase he's further away from that cumulative fatigue and starting to recover.
That's unlikely to happen immediately in phase two.
Hodgie-san wrote:
Some good details on Drayton and the competition back in the day...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzkaYrZ2pCQ5OUZrNjduWTZuUUk/edit?usp=sharing
Good stuff - the way it was done then.
Yes, interesting how not much of Drayton's marathon training was done at marathon pace - then he had those intervals months later though.
No wonder he sucked. All that training was a waste. I am sure Canova would be laughing hysterically at reading this.
Cam Levins will break this record, and when he does, it will be off of 110 miles/week.
SMJO wrote:
J.R. wrote:Can someone explain why reserves depleted in the 2nd phase would return in the 3rd phase, as they look almost identical.
He likely means the depletion is mostly from the heavy mileage followed by the faster stuff. By the third phase he's further away from that cumulative fatigue and starting to recover.
That's unlikely to happen immediately in phase two.
Thanks. However it seems to me those sprints would deplete him even more quickly. Geoff Smith trained similarly, with 6x 200s flat out and long recoveries. I tried such training and it didn't work for me.
Coll wrote:
Cam Levins will break this record, and when he does, it will be off of 110 miles/week.
How is that possible when Cam has already done multiple weeks of 190? Is Alberto going to have those miles drained or surgically removed
Coll, You are a twit. JD was one of the all time greats; yes 210 is not state of the art now... In 1975 13:20/27:40 type track times were world class. You young guys have no respect. Drayton could've run much faster but didn't need to. I'm sure when the WR drops to 2:01:49 you'll be the first moron to say 2:03:59 sucked.
Coll wrote:
No wonder he sucked. All that training was a waste. I am sure Canova would be laughing hysterically at reading this.
SMJO, as soon as you take a 2-week break, those 190 mile weeks don't mean sh!t. You don't run, do you?
Coll wrote:
SMJO, as soon as you take a 2-week break, those 190 mile weeks don't mean sh!t. You don't run, do you?
So it all leaks away in two weeks? You can't read, can you?
Yes, it sure does.
According to your theory, Alan Webb should be able be bang out a 3:46 mile because those "weeks haven't left him."
When did Alan Webb ever run a 190 mile week and then a Marathon?