With four months until the Boston Marathon, it's time for me to start thinking about and putting together my general training plan. I've been working on a pretty good aerobic base for most of the fall - and of course that's going to continue - but now I'm starting to put together workouts.
I've blogged about how I like being able to experiment with different workouts and training methods now that I'm running on my own, and that's still true now. I'm a huge dork and am really excited about the training method I'm going to experiment with this time around.
I'm going to be experimenting with the Canova method of marathon training, which tweaks the typical training periodization a little bit. There is a really good article on it from Running Times here, and another good one from Runner's World here (it pains me to use the latter magazine, but this seems like one of the few times it actually applies to more than the average rec runner).
If you're not really interested in reading the articles (or are just super excited to read what I have to say), here's the basic synopsis:
In countless variations, the typical training schedule follows the Lydiard plan: a period of aerobic base-building followed by longer strength-building workouts, and then increasingly faster and race-specific workouts as the target race approaches.
The basic philosophy is that you should be training at or below your goal race pace increasingly as the race approaches. This ends up looking like a training arc that starts long and slow and increasingly gets shorter and faster.
The Canova method takes the same basic philosophy (that you should be training close to race pace closest to the race), but comes up with a different training arc.
You want to be running marathon-specific workouts closest to the marathon, which means (conversely from the Lydiard method) not running short and fast close to the race.
Essentially, once you get to workouts in the training schedule, the typical training progression is flipped around. After the aerobic base-building period, you first do shorter and faster workouts, which are supposed to build up the support systems your body needs to sustain the longer marathon workouts. After about 6 weeks of these faster workouts, you transition to more marathon-specific workouts for another 6 weeks (then a short 2 week taper before the race). So it's almost counter-intuitive, but you end up training slower as you get closer to the race.
You practice running faster for shorter distances so your body can learn to sustain a slightly slower pace for a lot (a lot) longer. And that all leads to training at marathon-specificity closest to the marathon. Well, duh. Right?
So consider this my grand experiment in a Canova experiment. Since it's about 3.5 months of workouts, looks like I'll be starting those in a couple weeks around the new year. There are also some other interesting nuances in Canova's philosophy, but for the sake of space (and future blog topics) I might delve into my thoughts and experiments on those in the future.
I've blogged about how I like being able to experiment with different workouts and training methods now that I'm running on my own, and that's still true now. I'm a huge dork and am really excited about the training method I'm going to experiment with this time around.
I'm going to be experimenting with the Canova method of marathon training, which tweaks the typical training periodization a little bit. There is a really good article on it from Running Times here, and another good one from Runner's World here (it pains me to use the latter magazine, but this seems like one of the few times it actually applies to more than the average rec runner).
If you're not really interested in reading the articles (or are just super excited to read what I have to say), here's the basic synopsis:
In countless variations, the typical training schedule follows the Lydiard plan: a period of aerobic base-building followed by longer strength-building workouts, and then increasingly faster and race-specific workouts as the target race approaches.
The basic philosophy is that you should be training at or below your goal race pace increasingly as the race approaches. This ends up looking like a training arc that starts long and slow and increasingly gets shorter and faster.
The Canova method takes the same basic philosophy (that you should be training close to race pace closest to the race), but comes up with a different training arc.
You want to be running marathon-specific workouts closest to the marathon, which means (conversely from the Lydiard method) not running short and fast close to the race.
Essentially, once you get to workouts in the training schedule, the typical training progression is flipped around. After the aerobic base-building period, you first do shorter and faster workouts, which are supposed to build up the support systems your body needs to sustain the longer marathon workouts. After about 6 weeks of these faster workouts, you transition to more marathon-specific workouts for another 6 weeks (then a short 2 week taper before the race). So it's almost counter-intuitive, but you end up training slower as you get closer to the race.
You practice running faster for shorter distances so your body can learn to sustain a slightly slower pace for a lot (a lot) longer. And that all leads to training at marathon-specificity closest to the marathon. Well, duh. Right?
So consider this my grand experiment in a Canova experiment. Since it's about 3.5 months of workouts, looks like I'll be starting those in a couple weeks around the new year. There are also some other interesting nuances in Canova's philosophy, but for the sake of space (and future blog topics) I might delve into my thoughts and experiments on those in the future.
Well, are you going to tell us of the Boston experience using the Canova training method?
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