Letsrun. Help me break 2.12 for a marathon.

You're right, but BR was doing this level of mileage a year or two before his 2:09:55. The winter immediately preceding he was typically doing 10/16 doubles- 6/10 would have been an easy day! But you are correct, he is absolutely on the right track here and is building toward some great results down the road.

I know that there are people who view so-called "easy" runs as just recovery sessions. I don't buy that, especially for marathoners. Your weeks each include 12 sessions, with nine of them at 7:10 pace. I realize that there are exceptions, but I think that the vast majority of marathon specialists in your targeted range run most of their miles much faster -- 6:00 to 6:30, and often considerably faster than that.

OP - how close to your marathon are you? If it's early this fall drastically changing your training this late in the game could cause disaster...

Your questions would have been better a year ago. I'd say the best thing you can do is continue doing your current training, as you're used to it, and see how it goes. Try going by effort rather than pace on race day. Maybe you'll hit your goal.

After this race, look into Canova training for ideas on specific marathon training (e.g. long sessions at 80-95% of MP) or the Hanson's training and maybe see what type of coaching you can get.

Best of luck getting onto the national team. If you don't make it, well, try marrying rich and then the significant other can fund your running.

I can't believe elites train like this. I was expecting 4 or 5 serious workouts every week. I have seen sub 2:30 marathoners with way tougher plans than this.

fdg wrote:

OP - how close to your marathon are you? If it's early this fall drastically changing your training this late in the game could cause disaster...

Your questions would have been better a year ago. I'd say the best thing you can do is continue doing your current training, as you're used to it, and see how it goes. Try going by effort rather than pace on race day. Maybe you'll hit your goal.

After this race, look into Canova training for ideas on specific marathon training (e.g. long sessions at 80-95% of MP) or the Hanson's training and maybe see what type of coaching you can get.

Best of luck getting onto the national team. If you don't make it, well, try marrying rich and then the significant other can fund your running.

The marathon is very late fall. My Saturday run will be built up to 13 miles @ MP and I will have my long run the next day or an easy med-long of 15 on Saturday with a long run with the last 1/4 @ near MP on Sunday.

The idea in this was to create stress before my long run one week and towards the end of my long run the other. I will have a med-long runs @ MP in every 2 out of 3 weeks and a long run finishing @ near MP. Is this not a good MP workout every week?

Could you give me some examples of a staple MP workout from Canova's philosophy for this period in my cycle?

I am going to keep this training method for this marathon and see how it goes. I would like to keep this thread going for discussion on where improvements could be made for my next cycle. I will continue to post my training and I would appreciate any knowledge anyone can impart on me.

Your tempo pace is only 12 seconds faster than your marathon pace. My 4M tempo pace is at least 40 seconds faster than my marathon pace. My 6M tempo pace is still probably 30-35 seconds faster than MP. At least 20 seconds faster would be better. That's more of the modulation. And I don't know that you really want to be doing that many of your miles at just 7:10 pace. That seems about a minute too slow for your level.

jjjjjjjjj wrote:

Your tempo pace is only 12 seconds faster than your marathon pace. My 4M tempo pace is at least 40 seconds faster than my marathon pace. My 6M tempo pace is still probably 30-35 seconds faster than MP. At least 20 seconds faster would be better. That's more of the modulation. And I don't know that you really want to be doing that many of your miles at just 7:10 pace. That seems about a minute too slow for your level.

Dont boast that you are doing everything wrong.

If you're doing tempo runs 40 seconds faster per mile than your marathon pace, you're running them too fast. Jack Daniels has threshold pace about 20 seconds faster per mile than marathon pace. This might widen/narrow at different levels, but I think it's a good baseline. At 40 seconds faster, you might as well be doing intervals.

there are lots of things out there that are probably great "stimulators for your metabolism" (whatever the h*ll that means), but won't do jack for helping you run 5:02 pace for 26.2mi. a 25 mile slog is probably one of them.

[quote]Gojall out wrote:

It's something I have seen alot of true elites doing at training camps and I feel it would be a great simulator for my metabolism./quote]

i agree with the poster who says 16-18 milers @ 90-95% of marathon pace. break it up if you have to (30min warmup then do 3x10K or something like that). that is specific training to run 2:12. a 25 miler at 5:30-6:00 pace isn't. just my take.

Link wrote:

Training just like this got Bill Rodgers (whose PRs when he first did it were about what yours are now) multiple sub 2:12s. I'd say that, if you can do this training, you're on your way.

When Rodgers was in sub-2:12 shape, he was doing the bulk of his training at about 6:00-6:30 pace, not 7:10 pace. Earlier in his career, when he was training at about 7:00 pace, his race times were much slower.

I can think of a few pretty good marathoners who ran much, perhaps even most, of their mileage at around 7:00 pace, but I can probably think of many more who ran most of their miles at sub-6:00 pace. 7:10 pace is an easy warm-up pace during the early miles of a morning run. It seems like a very odd pace for the bulk of an aspiring 2:12 marathoner's training, especially one who does not appear to be doing really hard sessions throughout the week.

My Tuesday med long run is done @ 6.20 pace. I couldn't imagine running all my runs at sub-6 pace. I wouldn't be able to get out of bed on Monday morning after the first week after 3 weeks at that intensity during high mileage weeks.

I've seen some cases where people really burn out if they try and hit MP week in and week out for too long. Might be one reason why Canova does a lesser percentage - still a stress, but not as demanding and also leaves room for good/bad days on how you feel (not to get discouraged by missing pace). He also mixes in quite a bit of faster speeds to mix things up.

Examples: build up to 18-20 miles of 85-95% of MP pace, so if one wants a MP of 5:00/mile then 85% = 5:45/mi and 95% = 5:15/mile.

another week you could do an in-and-out workout, build up to 18km of 1km at 80-90% of MP and 1km at 101-103% of MP. You'd start at say 12km of this with the 75%/101% and build to 90%/103% (1st year you may be at 12km, 2-3 years later at 18km).

Another workout is 4x3km at 103%-105% of MP, you may do this on a week you do a shorter long run at 80-85% of MP.

The longer workouts can be very challenging, so you may need up to 7 recovery days after one of these.

The in/out workout (at the slower end), the repeat 3ks, and 85% of MP long run would probably be good workouts for where you are at now. As you got closer to the race, you'd bring the % of MP closer to actual MP.

Throwing in days with strides (like 10-20 minutes of them, e.g. alt 100m fast/100m float) is always good to keep up the turnover and be ready for race surges.

Not a bad schedule, but you need more neutral spine loading if you want a 2:12. I'd skip the Mon and Wed AM runs and spend that time doing some planks. Otherwise, looks good.

What if he or someone similar (goal & PB wise) is training at elevation. Would you still say 7:10 per mile is slow? What is the conversion from sea level -where I assume he and most other exampled are/were training- vs elevation of say 1800 - 2000 metres.

Thanks man!!:). I will do up a schedule with that philosophy and I will post it ASAP.

Gojall out wrote:

In every 3 week build up phase, I have 2 weeks where I have a MP workout which will be built up to 13m before the Marathon. On the other week, I will be finishing my long run at MP using the 3/1 system, e.g 24m long run with last 6 @ MP.

13 miles is too short.

I feel you should run a 20 - 22 mile run at marathon pace every 3 weeks leading up to the marathon, peaking at 3 weeks prior to the race.

Everything else is supplement to those. You can run the 13 milers on the in between weeks, making sure that your focus is the 20 to 23 milers at marathon pace. Go ahead and pick up the last few miles of those if you want.

Should I be adding MP work to a midweek med long or would this be over doing it?

Maybe a fast 4 or 5 miler or two but nothing longer than that.

Boulder Bound wrote:

What if he or someone similar (goal & PB wise) is training at elevation. Would you still say 7:10 per mile is slow? What is the conversion from sea level -where I assume he and most other exampled are/were training- vs elevation of say 1800 - 2000 metres.

I didn't make any comment on 7:10 being too slow. I was giving numbers for key workouts. Yes, if one is running at elevation or on hilly trails or poor footing, you're going to run slower so 7:10/mile may be perfect, or it may even be extremely challenging for a 2:12 guy.

At elevation you'll want to hit some pace work and faster than MP pace work- even if you have to do 800m to 1km repeats with lots of rest - to get used to the faster pace.

As for the 85-95% of MP runs (or any other efforts), you'll just slow them down for elevation. I think at 1800-2000m that's 15-25 sec/mile depending on how well you've acclimated. If you've been at elevation all your life or you adapt well it'll be closer to 15 sec/mile, if you don't adapt as well it will be at the upper end or even a little slower. Pace is generally a guideline (except for a few key workouts), effort is far more important.

Personally i think you can go under 2:11 with your stats. But if you aim for 2:12 it gives you a certain margin. You do a lot of easy runs situated all at the beginning of the week. I just would add one endurance session let's say on tuesday. A good advice my coach gave me to adust the metabolism is doing some very slow long runs. This would be much slower as your easy runs. You can do this every two or three weeks. Good luck and keep us posted.