Canova for hobby joggers: marathon training result

Here’s another update with a marathon build-up and result, this time less successfully.

I was supposed to run Boston this year, but we all know what happened to that plan. My Boston build-up, based on the same training plan as b efore, was going well when I ran into some injuries. They responded to PT well and overall I was in pretty decent shape when the race was canceled (I did 13.1 in sub-1:27 as a long tempo run), and I had a chance to run a few races this June/July (sub-37 10K, 17:40 5K). So I was in good shape when I went into my fall marathon build.

Since Boston canceled its fall race, and my Plan B race also canceled, I was looking for a less intense buildup, and I also found I could only tolerate one big marathon workout a week, if that. So I decided to emphasize the long run this time around. If I got more experience with 20+ mile long runs, my hope was that the last 6 miles of the race would go better.

Weekly mileage since July 6: 70, 55, 70, 76, 63, 86, 64, 90, 62, 66, 36, 42 (including 26.2 race)

Long runs: 20.5, 20, 21.5, 23, 23, 24, 25, 26.5 (virtual Boston)

Workouts: 3 x 3mi (6:34), 6 x 1.5 (6:29), 10.5 @ 6:40, 4 X 3Mi (6:42), 6 x 2mi (6:24), 2 x 5mi (6:37)

While the long tempo was the key workout of my first marathon buildup, I only did one this time. It went okay but not great, pretty much like all my workouts this summer.

The race:

My Plan C marathon actually happened. The point-to-point course has a few small hills but is net -500 feet. It’s at altitude (5000+ feet) and I usually train at 800, so I took just over a week to acclimate. I felt pretty good on race morning and I thought I got out to a fairly sensible start for someone with a sub-1:18 HM last fall and 9 months of marathon training:

First 12 miles: 6:45, 6:46, 6:36, 6:49, 6:23, 6:34, 6:29, 6:33, 6:24, 6:34, 6:40

I wasn’t looking at my HR, but the data looks pretty steady, all 154-157 bpm after mile 2.

Then things started to feel difficult, about 4 miles earlier than they did in my first marathon. I kept things together up a hill and down it and through mile 18, but I knew I was in trouble:

6:45, 6:45, 6:30, 6:45, 6:43, 6:45. HR 157-161

I got my first bad leg cramp at mile 19, and by then the wheels were coming off:

6:55, 7:04, 7:13, 7:21, 7:35, 7:21, 7:35, 7:25. HR still 157-162.

The course wasn’t certified, so I jogged a bit to get to 26.2 on my watch, which got me to about 3 hours even.

This was the most painful race I’ve ever run. By the end I was swearing I’d never run again. I felt awful for the last 10 miles, needed help to make it to the car, and spent an hour lying on the couch shivering as my muscles twitched involuntarily. Not a fun time.

What went wrong? I’m not sure.

a) Maybe nothing. If you account for altitude and another 2 years, the age-graded, altitude-adjusted time is a bit better than my first marathon. (Not buying it. This wasn’t supposed to be a 10 mile suckfest to finish the race.)

b) Nutrition or the other factors in marathons? Probably not. I took a little gel at each water stop but could only get through 2 gels by mile 18, and gave up after that. But my overall energy level was okay.

c) Maybe it was the altitude. Possibly a factor, but the effort level felt about right for the first 12 miles. I hit 13.1 in 1:26:30, and with a prior 2:53 and fitness suggestion 2:50 was possible, I didn’t think I had done anything too crazy. And I was wearing Vaporflies this time, so I should have been even faster.

d) Excessive leg muscle damage over the first 7 miles. The race started out in the dark, with 3 miles on rutted gravel roads with some hills, and facing into a strong headwind. So there were a lot of misplaced footstrikes and awkward ground contact. That cumulative damage made itself known at mile 12.

e) In retrospect, I think my approach to training this time didn’t pay off. All those long runs helped keep me staggering toward the finish at 7-7:30/mile, but the long tempos were the key factor I was missing. Two years ago, I made it to 14 miles @ MP in training, and my pace started slowing at 19. Last year my 11 mile long tempo was just right for a 13 mile race. But this year, with only a 10.5 mile long tempo, things got difficult a lot earlier. I need to get back to hobby jogger-style Canova for marathon prep.

f) Also possible: I suck at marathons. I should stick to 5K-HM.

In retrospect I should have been even more conservative at the start, but I don’t see how I can ever run sub-2:50 or a new PR unless I take some risks with the pace at the start. That means that sometimes blowups will happen.

Conclusions? You did not build proper funnel in your body= 3hrs at intensity less than M pace +2heasy+40min M pace +1 hour intensity at LT threshold above M pace+20min 5K pace workouts and so on...?

Wait for it...

Thanks for sharing!

Sample,

I suspect and hope that this thread is still active in the sense that you haven't forgotten it and will be using it again soon. I was reminded of you by 2 other threads - the very recent Canefis one in which he pastes long Canova writings the gist of which were already familiar, and this one:

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=10339274

I weighed in on this linked one and made it a point to use the same handle here. Now, there is some question whether Canefis is JS himself or his buddy acting in concert with him, so it's best to ignore him. They have a thread in which someone is supposedly going to run 2;20, but I consider them to be a waste of time.

Well, I hadn't read your (this) thread since the most recent result and want to say that maybe the high-altitude marathon wasn't the worst thing in the world. I agree that the long marathon-pace runs are important but I don't dislike your approach to this last one. I have found that long runs significantly longer than 20 miles are key. I was in great shape on March 15, 2020, and the training block I was in was preceded by 22, 24, and 25 milers on hilly courses at high altitude. I feel that stuff is key, but maybe a little more MP work was needed. Still, I suspect that the altitude, the wind, and the course were part of the equation, so I tend toward the 'it wasn't as bad as it looked' viewpoint.

My 2 cents on the build-up would be as follows: you were in great shape. The numerous long runs were perfect, and the comparatively short workouts with faster running would have made you comfortable at goal race pace and a little faster. You were good at running the pace, and you were good at running the full distance and time.

I suspect that all you had to do was a few real specific workouts combining the distance and speed. A couple more MP pace efforts lasting longer than a half, as you mentioned, and a couple long runs with a fair chunk of MP late in the run or even some slightly faster running at the end. You had done the prep to be able to do workouts of the sort. Moderate 24 and 25 milers and 10-12 miles of work closer to HM pace (faster than MP, anyway) are great set-up training for very long and specific runs that combine the two. The whole training cycle may not have been perfect, but I think you were not very far off.

Better luck next time! What do think the plan will be this year? I am hoping to find a race in the reasonably near future myself and may post training and racing results in the other thread. I am in what Renato would call the Special phase now. I'm doing stuff I mentioned in that thread in preparation for the Specific work I posted there.

As I responded to a poster questioning his (or my) ability to do the workouts I laid out, I have done some more than once in past buildups and similar stuff totalling 16 or even 18 miles at MP (or 'marathon effort' if it was hilly and at high altitude), so all of them seem realistic to me. I haven't gotten to any of that yet (planning to start about 10 weeks out). Late winter 2020, right before everything shut down, would be the last time I did anything that marathon specific. Everything was really coming together then, so I'm trying to mimic some of what I did a year ago.

So, hopefully you'll see results from my own experience - or experiment - this Spring. You'll notice that I'll be doing the hardest sessions farther apart than you were if I read your training description accurately. I believe this allows one to do the type of thing I have done and will be trying this time around, which is to say, runs that require a lot of rest before and after. I suspect the scepticism with which at least one reader viewed my proposed plan is due to the notion that putting one of those long workouts including a lot at MP in a week with 1 or even 2 other significant efforts is just unrealistic.

This is true, but I view these workouts as similar in subjective difficulty for me as a Special or Specific Block would be for Rodgers Rop, Moses Mosop, or one of the others for whom Canova has posted day-to-day schedules. One very hard effort every 10 days is not uncommon for them, although sometimes 2 such days will have only 5 easy days between. I say 'only', but it seems that in many schedules including yours, there must be just 2 easy days in a row or at most 3. I'm just guessing with your schedule, but there can't be 3 or 4 easy days very regularly to fit in all you did for the first marathon or the half.

My goal is to prepare with several very hard, very specific workouts and not much else. Short hill sprints and strides will be for maintenance purposes, but that is how I train in a non-specific base phase as well: always including some all-out running. So, we'll see how I do. By the way, I think your half marathon was great. It sounds like everything went perfectly. Hopefully something great can happen this year!

Bump

You CAN do it! wrote:

Now, there is some question whether Canefis is JS himself or his buddy acting in concert with him, so it's best to ignore him. They have a thread in which someone is supposedly going to run 2;20, but I consider them to be a waste of time.

+1

Thanks for the kind words and training suggestions. Right now my my view is still, "I will never run a d*mn marathon again because marathons suck and I suck at marathons," and I was planning on a 10K focus this year. But if Boston happens and I actually get a chance to race, I'll go back to marathon prep instead. I'll update this thread when I have something to report.

Hey Sample, good to hear back.

I'm not sure how much the retroactive advice for the last marathon is worth. I'll tell you why.

Everybody seems to do at least some MP running, although some only ever go about half distance. If Canova has shown us anything, it is that marathon training is optimally more similar to that already being practiced for decades for 10k and shorter events. The 'Canova 101' article from Running Times (I think it still exists somewhere in the RW site, but maybe not) points out that a competitive 10k runner would think nothing of 10X1k. Shorter used to do 20 quarters. Nobody would think 6X a mile would be unusual.

Now, everybody knows that, but it took a new school of thought to show that more race-pace running, getting closer to the event distance, is ideal even for a very long race. I suspect the 10 easy, 8 moderate (a little slower than MP), then 6 at MP kind of thing is probably more useful than MP tempos that never get you to glycogen depletion, aka 'the Wall'. Even a 17 miler - about 2/3 race distance doesn't address the problem of running out of sugar and right into the Wall. So that's why I suggest that both of those - long MP efforts and possibly more importantly, long runs with MP or (slightly) faster running late in the run - are crucial.

By now, everyone paying attention to the latest practices knows that. I made up this handle to tell the OP on that other thread that yes, you CAN use the most important parts of Renato's theories even though you can't simulate the density of training, much less the mileage, of the elites. So why do I say that advice such as this may have questionable value for the purposes of your last marathon cycle?

The more I've thought about it, I suspect the course, and especially, the altitude, slowed you down. I do most of my training (but none of my racing) above 5000'. I've paid attention to how much it slows you down; I judge many workouts by how long it takes compared to my course record or however long that route usually takes. I only know a good time is good because I've run the same roads enough times to know. Objective minutes per mile are always disappointingly slow. It just doesn't add up when I do a loop - close to all-out - that s ends up being around 8:00 per mile and that is close to my course record but I know that I can race at 7:00 on a flat sea level course. The hills are much of that time dissimilarity, to be sure, but the altitude itself is possibility more than you were thinking it would be.

There is also the possibility that your peak or taper wasn't timed right. I have not mastered that myself, and have shown up feeling flat and lethargic even though very fit after several very race-specific workouts. I'm just not convinced that your fitness was as far off the mark as your time would suggest. I am positive the location of the race was a big factor and maybe just not being at the top of your game for other reasons was big as well. So again, it wasn't the worst race result in the world.

OK, that's it for now. I'll be waiting to see how the 10k training goes!

Thanks, those are all useful suggestions. I'll see if I can track down that article on RW. I'm still thinking about how to refine MP workouts, and I like the idea of extended easy/moderate mileage before the MP segment.

Bumping because it's one of the best threads here and with potential Fall marathons being in-person, I think most will find it useful.

I wonder what his take on EZ paces are. It's hard to get them right without running too fast (common mistake in runners).

I'll update this thread a few times this year. I have some some goal races (10k-10mi) in the fall, hopefully including Boston, too. But I'm another year older, and feeling it now in a way I wasn't two years ago. The other factor is a post-Covid recovery that's going slowly, although there have been some positive signs lately. I'll spend the next 5-6 weeks training for shorter races (1mi-5K) as a way to see what's possible for me. After that, the buildup for the fall races will start.

The thing I discovered about Canova's easy pace is that for us hobby joggers, 80% MP (using Cavona's math) is close enough to a standard daily pace that it wasn't worth worrying about the percentages. For a 3-hour marathoner, 6:50 + 20% = 410 + 82 seconds = 8:12/mile. That was a good pace for tired legs in a high mileage week. If I was feeling better, I might run faster. But the important thing is Canova's principle: "Never athletes can run very fast, if are not able to run, sometimes, very slow and easy."

Scorpion_runner wrote:

Breakitdownforme wrote:

Scorpion - If my goal is high/low 2:46 what do you suggest for my pacing at 1/4, 1/2, 3/4..etc

Thanks!

No matter what the race is( except for 800m), the goal should be to negative split or even split. 6:19 is goal pace to run 2:46. So one should train and be prepared to run about 5-15 seconds faster than that for the last 3 quarters of the race.

building into it:

( starting off 15 seconds slower than goal pace and ending 15 seconds faster than goal pace, because you've trained to run faster than goal pace in the last three quarters) )

1-4: 6:35

4-11: 6:25

12-18: 6:19

( if the body is feeling good, no wall)

19-25: 6:15-6:10

26: 6:05

or even split.

I’m no marathon expert but I don’t think this pacing strategy makes sense at all. I don’t see how varying pace by 30s per mile during a marathon can be beneficial.

Particularly, in the best marathon I ran, I tracked my 5k splits and the pace of those splits varied at most by 5s/mile (5:50 for the fastest, 5:55 For the slowest), with the last 2.2km a bit faster than that cause they were downhill.

It looks like LRC won't let me post anonymously anymore, so I'm going to have to claim this alt as my own. With my A race in the books and Boston coming up in two weeks, here's sample #50 of where my training and racing is at after hitting age 50.

Executive summary: My post-Covid training has been a mess and the periodization is a disaster, but a couple of recent races have gone well (10M under 1:02, 10K in 36 flat); what should I try to run at Boston in 2 weeks?

The problem: After last fall’s marathon, I caught Covid-19 and had off-and-on fatigue that messed up my training for months and had me wondering if my competitive running was over. Progress was slow, with a lot of setbacks. But my one chance to run the Boston marathon was this October, and there was also a (modest) age group record I wanted to beat at a local 10K in September, and another local 10 mile race I wanted to try in August. How could I get back to normal running and train for a 10K and Boston simultaneously?

The Covid recovery: For the first 6 months, from November to May, I had some good days and even an occasional good week, interspersed with days in a row of terrible running. Bad days felt like being overtrained, and my pace would drop 30-60 seconds/mile and my running form was a mess. As I started trying to regain fitness, I increased speed and volume very cautiously. If a run or workout felt off, I’d bail out after a few miles and come home. Plus the winter weather was often horrible, so I did a lot of spin biking, which I could tolerate with the fatigue.

Average MPW, November-May: 21, 27, 25, 22, 37, 31, 26

20 minute tempo run pace, December-March: 7:00 (2 miles), 7:01, 6:50, 7:00, 6:43, 6:31

Don’t get Covid, kids.

The starting point: The intermittent fatigue stopped in May, but I was a long way from where I wanted to be. Where was I, actually? I had two races in June.

Track mile: 5:24

Road 5K: around 18:10 (first mile 5:37, then just under 6:00/mile)

Both those races suggested that my problem at that point was old-fashioned lack of endurance, and I had plenty of ways to work on that. Even if I ultimately decided I had to prioritize the 10K over marathon training, I would still be working mostly on plain old aerobic endurance.

The plan: To get back to training like an athlete, I decided to focus on the basics of rebuilding endurance.

- Build up weekly mileage

- Build out the long run (this time, carrying water for more continuous segments without water stops)

- Extended MP tempo (staple workout I neglected last time)

- Combo maintenance: short tempo followed by 10K pace miles, then shorter stuff at 5K-mile pace

I also needed something more 10K specific, and a Canova staple seemed to be just what I was looking for:

- Alternating 400m at 10K pace (6:00/mile) with 1K a minute slower, which is close to my MP.

So this workout would be a twofer, I hoped.

This time around, I couldn't schedule workouts in advance. I just did whichever one was up next in the rotation after I had completely recovered from the last one. I needed to see at least one day of complete recovery (using a combination of feel, HR and pace to determine that) before I’d attempt the next workout. Most weeks, that meant one workout plus a moderate long run.

The buildup: Due to some essential travel and the necessity of tapering for any serious race, the mileage was bad.

Here’s the weekly mileage starting in June:

28, 36, 38, 41, 50, 52, 20, 28, 36, 58, 61, 31, 52, 73, 54, 31 (average 43, peak of 73)

Long run: 8.5, 11.5, 13, 15, 14 (all around 8:00/mile); 20.5 (7:44), 22.5 (7:41, last 3 around 7:05)

Alternations: 1K/400 alternations are a good workout, but I kept blowing up (HR hitting mid to high 170s at the end) before I got to 10x. In July/August/September, I did:

7x (6:58/6:03); 6x (6:54/6:06); 8x (6:53, 5:52)

Combo maintenance: I was never able to progress this one consistently. I managed:

2mi (6:35), 1mi (6:15), 800 (3:06)

2mi (6:26), 2 x 1mi (6:13), 800/400/2x200 (5:52/mile)

2mi (6:28), 1mi (6:13)

MP tempo: With Boston coming up, I started this progression in April. It went badly for a long time. When possible, I added a faster last mile.

4 MP (6:47) + 800

5 MP (6:40) +1mi (6:22)

6 MP (6:47)

7 MP (6:52) + 1mi (6:33)

9 MP (6:56)

10 MP (6:49) + 1mi (6:33)

12 MP (6:48) + 1.1mi (6:23) – this was just 3 days after the 22 mile long run, and it was my last workout 10 days out from my 10K race. I needed longer to recover than I thought I would and was worried I had overdone it.

Or in short: my training sucked until August, when it suddenly got a lot better.

The races:

My First 10 Miler. Not my goal race, but an important local race. I ran the first mile in 6:12 and had that as the overall average pace for the race, staying in control the whole time and only picking up the pace slightly the last mile (5:58). HR for miles 3-7 was right on 160, then rising to 163, 163, 166. Then four weeks later…

My A-race 10K. I needed to recover from the last big workout, so I went into this race off a 10-day taper. Judging by the 10 miler, I thought a pace under 6:00/mile would be possible. Conditions were perfect and I had runners to pace off of the whole time. Splits: 5:52, 5:53, 5:46, 5:50, 5:55, 5:40, 5:20/mile for the last .23. HR on miles 2-5 was right at 163, with 166/171 for the last mile/.23.

Assessment: This looks like a lifetime 10K PR for me, and at 85%, it’s my beset age grade score ever. It was good to go out at a slightly ambitious pace, feel okay, and then go for it at the end. Given the lousy mileage and workouts (I think I had five good workouts and two good long runs total), I was pretty happy with the result. I try to “live slow and race high.” In other words, by emphasizing aerobic development with little work at goal 10K pace or faster, my actual race pace was a pace I very rarely touched in training (3 miles total during the whole buildup, mostly as 400s). It’s exhilarating when it works, but doesn’t give you much confidence it will work.

What about Boston? I’m 2 weeks out from the Boston marathon. My 10K time says I can hit 2:46. I think that’s nonsense. Trying to break 2:50 sounds like folly. My 10mi time says I can hit a new marathon PR in 2:53 flat. That sounds unlikely to me. I’ve done very little hill running. I’ll need this week to recover, and then I have to travel internationally the week before Boston. There’s no time left for any serious work, and the periodization is a mess (drastic 4-week taper except for an all-out 10K two weeks out??). I think I’ll be lucky to break 3:00. Can you race your way to marathon fitness off a 10 miler and a 10K?

But what do you think? I’m open to suggestions. How should I play the Boston course? It might be the last time I attempt to run a marathon. I’ll update with the results after the race.

colder and wiser wrote:

My A-race 10K. I needed to recover from the last big workout, so I went into this race off a 10-day taper. Judging by the 10 miler, I thought a pace under 6:00/mile would be possible. Conditions were perfect and I had runners to pace off of the whole time. Splits: 5:52, 5:53, 5:46, 5:50, 5:55, 5:40, 5:20/mile for the last .23. HR on miles 2-5 was right at 163, with 166/171 for the last mile/.23.

At least with your target pace i can help.

You run your 10k race at 03:38 min/km.

Based on Daniels, marathon pace is between 75-84% VO2max. As better you are as higher.

So i assume the 10k race at 90% VO2max and i seee you between 80-82% VO2max.

So lets calculate together:

03:38 min/km multiplied by 90/80 gives 04:06 min/km, end time 02:52:51

03:38 min/km multiplied by 90/82 gives 04:00 min/km, end time 02:48:38

So i would start with around 04:05 min/km and see how it develops.

Let's not forget the hills. It's a major factor in Boston.

I would try for a sub-3 if I were you.

Negative split is very unlikely in Boston.

Oh, and the first half is NOT flat. It features a lot of rolling hills, more down than up, which you may feel in your quads when climbing the four hills in the second part.

“I knowa nothin’ bouta drugsa…….

Hahahahahahabahahahaha……..

lexel wrote:

At least with your target pace i can help.

You run your 10k race at 03:38 min/km.

Based on Daniels, marathon pace is between 75-84% VO2max. As better you are as higher.

So i assume the 10k race at 90% VO2max and i seee you between 80-82% VO2max.

So lets calculate together:

03:38 min/km multiplied by 90/80 gives 04:06 min/km, end time 02:52:51

03:38 min/km multiplied by 90/82 gives 04:00 min/km, end time 02:48:38

So i would start with around 04:05 min/km and see how it develops.

Thanks. That's a pretty reasonable analysis. It's not how I usually look at the problem, so I wouldn't have come up with it on my own.

I've studied the Boston course, so I have a general sense of what to expect. But I live in a shockingly flat place, and all my races this year have been pancake flat, so what the hills will do to me on race day is going to be interesting. I'll be back in 2 weeks (plus recover time as needed) with an update.

So here’s the update on Boston.

The week after my 10K, I pushed the return to running so I could get in 47 miles for the week, including some running over low hills, and one moderate workout 9 days out from Boston: 3 x 2.3 miles at MP (average pace 6:38/mile) over a mildly hilly course.

Then I had a week of international travel, 4 days straight with zero running, horrible sleep due to jet lag, and questionable food choices. I arrived in Boston Saturday and picked up my bib, checked out the last mile of the course, got in some miles, and ate lots of carbs. On Sunday I did as little as possible.

And the race went pretty well, actually. I ran 2:53, a bit slower than my PR, but a better marathon overall, with a better close than my PR marathon. And now that I’m three years older, I finally hit 80% AG at marathon distance. Too slow to be relevant in my age group, though.

Since my marathon build-up was limited and the taper was more than a little questionable, and I did nearly no training on hills (but a good amount of training faster than MP), my strategy was to treat the first few miles cautiously, but generally roll on the downhills and ease off on the uphills. The approach was kind of fun, actually. It felt good to fly down hills in the middle of a marathon. It got me to mile 25 before I really fell off pace, and I had enough left to pick up the pace at the end. As for nutrition, I took 3 Gu gels (one 30 minutes before the race, and half a gel whenever I felt like I needed it between miles 7-21 or so, plus some Gatorade early on), and I took water at most of the water stops. All things considered, it could have been worse.

Here are my splits:

Miles 1-5: 6:36, 6:28, 6:26, 6:20, 6:36. Conservative start on miles 1-2, given the downhills, then starting to roll before slowing for the uphill mile 5. HR 153-155 after mile 1.

Miles 6-16: 6:26, 6:26, 6:31, 6:29, 6:31, 6:32, 6:24, 6:29, 6:27, 6:35, 6:12. Locked into pace until the big descent into Newton Lower Falls. HR 154-158.

Miles 17-22: 6:46, 6:42, 6:24, 6:46, 7:08, 6:28. Easing off on the Newton hills, but I had enough left to get back on pace for the downhill miles in the middle and just after them. HR rose from 159 to 162.

Miles 23-26.2: 6:46, 6:45, 6:53, 7:10, then low 6 minute pace to the end. Basically the race had stopped being fun and I just wanted the damn thing to end at this point. The downhills kept me going, but I was only able to stagger through the last full mile before I picked up pace for the final straightaway. HR 162-164, then 165 on mile 26 and 170 for the final fraction. I finished with a 1:25/1:28 positive split.

It would have been nice to crack 2:50, but that would have required an easier course, a tailwind instead of a headwind, a better taper, and above all a better build-up. Given the mediocre workouts and mileage I was able to put into this effort, I’m pretty satisfied with the result.

Maybe I'll run another marathon some time, but it will be a while. I'm planning to concentrate on mile-10K races for the next year and explore different approaches.