critique this weekly schedule for sub-3 training on 60mpw

Where is the base period? You should devote at least 12 weeks to base conditioning.

too hot wrote:

Where is the base period? You should devote at least 12 weeks to base conditioning.

I'm just coming off a marathon in November, so have been running easy miles + 1 tempo workout a week since then. Targeting a May marathon. So I don't really have a pure aerobic base, but have been running 60mpw since the marathon recovery (about 4 weeks).

Nick is that you?

Here's the plan for sub 3 hours

Sunday church

Mon am 20 k @ marathon pace pm 60 min jog

Tues 10 x 1k

Wen am hour jog pm hour jog

Thurs 20 x 2 min hard with 1 min easy

Fri same as wen

Sat 30 to 40k @ 90% of marathon pace

That may be pushing it but you migght get away with it. Certainly your best performance will come after an extended period of base building. Don’t forget that is what prevents you from peaking too early and what enables you to handle both the volume and intensity of workouts which follow.

This seems like a solid training plan, actually. Are you sure it's not something like nutrition/fueling or dehydration that's the issue with your races rather than your training?

I agree that it seems like a generally smart approach. I am not sold on the need for three workouts per week, but if one of those workouts is a few miles at marathon pace to finish out a long run, that makes sense. I generally run 2 workouts per week, but that includes my long run which on some weeks is just easy distance, on some weeks is 17 miles with 13 miles at marathon pace and some weeks is a combination of easy distance and threshold pace. That usually leaves me feeling very well prepared.

The only food for thought that I would give you in addition to that is that you may want to consider running the 4 x 2 style workouts at closer to 6:25 pace (although I would keep the longer straight tempo runs at 6:35). the 2-3 minutes of recovery that you get after the 2 mile intervals (or the 3-4 minutes you get after the 5k) should make that a manageable, if challenging, workout.

Something you should consider adding would be strength training. Obviously you won’t want to be lifting everyday but some body weight exercises, maybe one lift session with weight a week would be beneficial. Don’t focus on light weight high reps. You won’t actually build endurance doing this and the purpose of strength training is to build strength not endurance. That being said, try doing 4 sets of 6 to 8 squats and dead lifts at your maximum and throughout your base phase increase the number of sets or increase the number of lift sessions you do per week. Once you enter your general training phase, try to maintain the strength without increasing difficulty. Once you’re 6 weeks out from race day lower the difficulty(sets and number of sessions a week). When you’re 14 days out from the race, stop lifting entirely(lower the difficulty progressively until you get here, don’t just stop without building up to it). The strength should allow you to run stronger for longer.

Or you could just get the 4% shoes and change nothing.

injuries

I'm curious about the injuries you got going over 60 mpw. There's got to be an explanation. Maybe you built mileage too fast, or did too many workouts, or had old shoes at the time, or ran on too much concrete. Something? 60 mpw shouldn't be too much for a 3hr marathoner who has done 50 mpw for years.

the wall

I doubt you are hitting the wall at 21 due to only running 2 workouts per week. The wall generally refers to glycogen depletion, which you can avoid with smarter nutrition during the race. How many calories do you take during a marathon? It would be silly to overhaul your training if you could just fix your problems with better fueling instead.

workouts

the workouts you mentioned are not the types of workout I usually see 2:50-3:00 marathoners doing. I would expect to see more interval workouts and fartleks instead of repeating tempos every week. 2x5k is only 6.2 miles of hard effort. It would benefit you to do some longer fartleks that end up being 8-11 miles in total at an average pace of close to MP.

so with all that being said...even if you stuck at 60 mpw you ought to be able to make improvements to sub-3. Do some faster track workouts at least once every two weeks along with more focus on MP. And I hope that you don't just do marathon training year-round. Spend a few months aiming for a fast 5k or 10k and it could have great impacts on your marathon.

try the gu wrote:

This seems like a solid training plan, actually. Are you sure it's not something like nutrition/fueling or dehydration that's the issue with your races rather than your training?

I am not sure at all that it isn't something like nutrition or dehydration. I tend to stay away from gels because experience has shown that they often send me right to a port-a-potty. As a result I simply drink gatorade or whatever they have at every aid station. The marathons I run have had these every mile or two. I'm sure I am somewhat dehydrated, but I've hit the "wall" in very cool temps where the sweating was not ridiculous. I suppose I could try gels again, but I'm worried about sabotaging a race if the digestion goes sideways. (Gels work fine for me when I have used them in training, so I think it is a nerves thing... makes it hard to practice that stress for digestion purposes).

I am not sure there is an easily identifiable explanation. I've done all the things you list at various times: too many hard workouts, wearing old shoes, too much concrete. I've also twisted my ankle on trails, run too much on the beach and screwed up my achilles, not stretched/stretched too much, etc. I've also been too heavy due to a bad diet. I've tried to get smarter over the years and have incorporated softer surfaces, more treadmill, etc., but it just seems that I'm playing with fire once I inch up past 70 mpw or so. Genetics could be a large part as well.

See above - you might well be right. I'm just hesitant to going back to food nutrition since I've had issues with it in the past. But you could very well be correct.

This is very helpful. Thank you.

I think you might well be in danger of overtraining-under recovering. Remember you don't get faster from the session, you get faster when you recover from the sessions.

Your workouts seem to be based on the idea that to run sub-3 requires you to be faster. Actually it requires you to have the stamina to run 26-miles at 6:50 pace. Therefore you could build some support by changing that Weds session to about 9-10 miles at 7:00 - 7:15 min/mile pace plus wu + cd. I'd make the Tuesday an easy run to ensure you have the glycogen stores to complete Weds.

And as for VO2max ints in the last few weeks ... your aim is to improve your aerobic conditioning with your marathon training. Doing VO2max could well push your muscles back to anaerobic which would raise your chances of hitting The Wall. Throw in some strides or short pacework to give the legs a bit of comfort for moving fast but don't do too much in the last few weeks.

Hmmm .... wrote:

Doing VO2max could well push your muscles back to anaerobic which would raise your chances of hitting The Wall.

I honestly want to understand what this means. As I understand it, your muscles aren't aerobic or anaerobic, but rather produce energy through a combination of aerobic and anaerobic means. I get that we want to get our bodies better at producing energy through aerobic means as part of marathon training, but what is it about "doing VO2max" that reduces that ability? Is it just that you are using time that you could have spent working on further improving your ability to produce energy aerobically?

And as I understand it, hitting the wall is a phrase used to describe the condition of using all of your body's glycogen, thus forcing your body to resort to burning fat as its primary energy source. How does "doing VO2max" impact your glycogen stores come race day?

Muscle fibres source energy either aerobically or anaerobically. Those that source energy anaerobically use lots of glycogen. Those that work aerobically source a mixture of fats & glycogen. (2-3units of ATP for anaerobic glycolysis vs 33ish for aerobic glycolysis vs 450ish for fat lipolysis).

If you do lots of endurance training, you get more muscle fibres working aerobically. Obviously there may still be some anaerobic in there but you're trying to maximise on the aerobic side.

If you do Vo2max work then you potentially start to train muscles to working anaerobically. To run at vVO2max pace means you recruit a large percentage of your muscle fibres including the ones you've endurance trained. With that training you're getting out of breath and going into noticeable oxygen debt. The training can signal to muscles that they need to increase the levels of anaerobic enzymes / decrease aerobic.

Remember speed is really not the issue for most marathoners, it's the stamina/endurance they need.

So the thought is that the convertible fast twitch fibers might be recruited back into their fast twitch role by doing VO2max after having been recruited to act as slow twitch fibers as a result of the high volume of aerobic training? Does that recruitment happen at those speeds? Would that fear be offset by the continuation of long runs?

It’s not an aerobic versus anaerobic issue. It’s the fact that doing too much sub-threshold works lowers pH. That’s why periodization is so important. You can’t just throw things together in any random order.

That's the question, right? When in the periodized plan should you do VO2max? What is it about lowering pH through increasing hydrogen ions that is bad ? Doing VO2max is a common approach to training, so there must be a place for it. Is that place early or late in a training cycle? What is it about lowering pH early that is good and late that is bad?

This thread has shown us that training is not science. It's like pop science at best.

I think it is like any other field. There are some setttled principles and there are some principles in flux. Recruitment of fast twitch muscle fibers is in flux. The mechanisms impacting performance associated with running at threshold pace is a work in progress. Add on to that people using different terminology and people believing or making believe they know more than they actually do and you have confusion. Plus, some are actually knowledgeable but not articulate so that adds to the mess. Then there are the trolls on top of it all. So I think we as a group are pop science, but there is real science out there.