Hey guys, I live in a valley at 8500 feet in Colorado on the western slope. There isn't anywhere flat to run or anywhere within 5 hours that Is lower elevation than 5500. Any advice on speed training? I am switching from ultra mountain races in august to training for a sea level road marathon in November.
hyperbaric chamber on a tread mill actually
Frank Shorter- Hills are speed work in disguise.
Ultra Trail Guy wrote:
Hey guys, I live in a valley at 8500 feet in Colorado on the western slope. There isn't anywhere flat to run or anywhere within 5 hours that Is lower elevation than 5500. Any advice on speed training? I am switching from ultra mountain races in august to training for a sea level road marathon in November.
No offense, but BS. Grand Junction is 4500' and pretty damn flat. Unless you're not actually on the western slope. If that's the case, just use your high school track and adjust times/rest.
You could certainly get to sea level within five hours on a flight.
IllinoisPhotographer wrote:
Ultra Trail Guy wrote:
Hey guys, I live in a valley at 8500 feet in Colorado on the western slope. There isn't anywhere flat to run or anywhere within 5 hours that Is lower elevation than 5500. Any advice on speed training? I am switching from ultra mountain races in august to training for a sea level road marathon in November.
No offense, but BS. Grand Junction is 4500' and pretty damn flat. Unless you're not actually on the western slope. If that's the case, just use your high school track and adjust times/rest.
im 5 hours from grand junction home nug. I drive there every few weeks to run. Love Kokopelli in fruita
runn wrote:
Frank Shorter- Hills are speed work in disguise.
This :) thank you
Ultra Trail Guy wrote:
Hey guys, I live in a valley at 8500 feet in Colorado on the western slope. There isn't anywhere flat to run or anywhere within 5 hours that Is lower elevation than 5500. Any advice on speed training? I am switching from ultra mountain races in august to training for a sea level road marathon in November.
I'm sure you can find a track at a school somewhere that is somewhat near...why do you want lower elevation for speed work? You can do all your running at elevation and feel amazing at sealevel. Nothing wrong with doing hilly runs either. Sounds like where you live could make you really tough and prepared for a marathon at sealevel and presumably flat.
Seriously mate? wrote:
You could certainly get to sea level within five hours on a flight.
I'm 5 hours from Denver and my local airport cost about 800 dollars to fly out of
Man up, brah, all I hear is excuses
sdfsdfsdfsdf wrote:
Ultra Trail Guy wrote:
Hey guys, I live in a valley at 8500 feet in Colorado on the western slope. There isn't anywhere flat to run or anywhere within 5 hours that Is lower elevation than 5500. Any advice on speed training? I am switching from ultra mountain races in august to training for a sea level road marathon in November.
I'm sure you can find a track at a school somewhere that is somewhat near...why do you want lower elevation for speed work? You can do all your running at elevation and feel amazing at sealevel. Nothing wrong with doing hilly runs either. Sounds like where you live could make you really tough and prepared for a marathon at sealevel and presumably flat.
I guess thats what I was paranoid of. I watched a few docs on it and it seems like people train low and sleep high. I wasnt sure the benefits
manup wrote:
Man up, brah, all I hear is excuses
haha well if I have a bad race I need excuses!
Ultra Trail Guy wrote:
sdfsdfsdfsdf wrote:
I'm sure you can find a track at a school somewhere that is somewhat near...why do you want lower elevation for speed work? You can do all your running at elevation and feel amazing at sealevel. Nothing wrong with doing hilly runs either. Sounds like where you live could make you really tough and prepared for a marathon at sealevel and presumably flat.
I guess thats what I was paranoid of. I watched a few docs on it and it seems like people train low and sleep high. I wasnt sure the benefits
Nah you should be fine, just remember that it might take you some time to feel good running faster paces at the elevation. I know you're an ultra guy, but I'm assuming your pacing will be quite a bit different between training for a marathon and an ultra. I spent a couple weeks in Estes Park once with a group of my teammates in college and by the second week, we were feeling pretty good with the elevation and not running that much slower paces for regular runs. Another guy I know lives in Estes and ran a sub 3 hour marathon at that elevation. I believe Estes is about 7,500 feet or a little more.
"Speed" is not what you will be doing for marathon training...
I think most people consider speed work to be anything at like mile pace or under?
Do you really need "speed" work for a marathon? You can still do speed work at high elevation, just run shorter intervals or hills at higher pace (do the Run the Rockies 10K / half marathon from Copper to Frisco). Depending on where you live, there are probably some flat areas to train (ie. most of the water storage reservoirs have fairly flat trails along them or roads around them that are fairly flat and paved). I spend a lot of time in Grand Lake / Granby area, and the East Shore trail from Shadow Mountain to Monarch Lake is ideal for running fairly flat on a soft surface. The only place I could imagine someone being 5 hours from 5500 ft is up by Crested Butte. Coburn hasn't had any trouble running fast, though, and she spends a lot of time up there. Stop making excuses.
I've switched from ultra training to marathon training (recently) and it's a tougher transition than you'd expect. I'm not even at altitude and it was tough to get my speed back.
Ultra Trail Guy, it's gonna be tough for you if you're faster than 2:40s for the marathon. The people here think of hills as a 10mi run with 500' of climbing, but I'm sure you could hit 500' in the first mile alone if you wanted to.
To start, you need to start doing drills and strides regularly. Every other day. Take them seriously too, don't just do them on some singletrack because they won't be as effective. Do them at the end of your run, and do the drills just before to make sure you can really open up your stride. Do them barefoot on grass or on some hard/consistent surface. Not gravel, not a trail.
After a few weeks you should be more comfortable and getting faster with ease. You should then start the actual speed workouts. These could start as fartleks (still avoid singletrack for any quality workouts) and turn into track workouts and tempo runs. Your workouts may not go "well" for quite some time, but realize that you're still getting the benefits even if you aren't feeling fast.
Also, I just noticed that you plan to make this transition from August to November. That's an issue - it's not enough time. What race are you doing in August? Hopefully it's not a sky race or something steep/slow. If you care more about the marathon than that race, you should start doing the faster workouts in June or July in addition to whatever mountain running you're doing.
As for altitude adjustments, just deal with it. You have no solution other than to suck it up. You can still do speedwork, it's marathon training, nor 1500m training. You don't need to do 8x400 at mile pace to run a good marathon.
sdfsdfsdfsdf wrote:
Ultra Trail Guy wrote:
I guess thats what I was paranoid of. I watched a few docs on it and it seems like people train low and sleep high. I wasnt sure the benefits
Nah you should be fine, just remember that it might take you some time to feel good running faster paces at the elevation. I know you're an ultra guy, but I'm assuming your pacing will be quite a bit different between training for a marathon and an ultra. I spent a couple weeks in Estes Park once with a group of my teammates in college and by the second week, we were feeling pretty good with the elevation and not running that much slower paces for regular runs. Another guy I know lives in Estes and ran a sub 3 hour marathon at that elevation. I believe Estes is about 7,500 feet or a little more.
I am more a trail marathon/ 50k guy that does 50 milers too. But the marathon distance both road and trail is crazy exciting to me. I have the mileage down...but rarely do anything speed. Lots of running to the top of a mountain and back down. Maybe some downhill runs for speed?
joedirt wrote:
Do you really need "speed" work for a marathon? You can still do speed work at high elevation, just run shorter intervals or hills at higher pace (do the Run the Rockies 10K / half marathon from Copper to Frisco). Depending on where you live, there are probably some flat areas to train (ie. most of the water storage reservoirs have fairly flat trails along them or roads around them that are fairly flat and paved). I spend a lot of time in Grand Lake / Granby area, and the East Shore trail from Shadow Mountain to Monarch Lake is ideal for running fairly flat on a soft surface. The only place I could imagine someone being 5 hours from 5500 ft is up by Crested Butte. Coburn hasn't had any trouble running fast, though, and she spends a lot of time up there. Stop making excuses.
haha Lifes a garden
reed wrote:
I've switched from ultra training to marathon training (recently) and it's a tougher transition than you'd expect. I'm not even at altitude and it was tough to get my speed back.
Ultra Trail Guy, it's gonna be tough for you if you're faster than 2:40s for the marathon. The people here think of hills as a 10mi run with 500' of climbing, but I'm sure you could hit 500' in the first mile alone if you wanted to.
To start, you need to start doing drills and strides regularly. Every other day. Take them seriously too, don't just do them on some singletrack because they won't be as effective. Do them at the end of your run, and do the drills just before to make sure you can really open up your stride. Do them barefoot on grass or on some hard/consistent surface. Not gravel, not a trail.
After a few weeks you should be more comfortable and getting faster with ease. You should then start the actual speed workouts. These could start as fartleks (still avoid singletrack for any quality workouts) and turn into track workouts and tempo runs. Your workouts may not go "well" for quite some time, but realize that you're still getting the benefits even if you aren't feeling fast.
Also, I just noticed that you plan to make this transition from August to November. That's an issue - it's not enough time. What race are you doing in August? Hopefully it's not a sky race or something steep/slow. If you care more about the marathon than that race, you should start doing the faster workouts in June or July in addition to whatever mountain running you're doing.
As for altitude adjustments, just deal with it. You have no solution other than to suck it up. You can still do speedwork, it's marathon training, nor 1500m training. You don't need to do 8x400 at mile pace to run a good marathon.
HAHA leadville 100. Thanks for this advice im printing this one out
Still working on the puzzle. Here's what we have so far:
Western Slope of CO
5 hours from Grand Junction
5 hours from Denver
5 hours from < 5500 feet
My best guess was, "Above Pagosa Springs" (just over ~7k feet, but easy to get to 8500)
HOWEVER, Farmington, NM is