Skip to main content

1:04:33...So Now What?

So it's been about four years in the making, but I'm now going to the Olympic Marathon Trials. I ran the B-Standard qualifying time, I've registered for the Trials race (most reasonably priced marathon ever, by the way), and I've bough the plane tickets to LA. I'm all in.

Well now what? What do you do after you finally run that cathartic qualifying time?

You recover, race a 10k on Thanksgiving, and then hop into marathon training.

I've spent the past two weeks taking training pretty light. The first week was very unstructured, just lots of easy mileage to get my legs back to feeling good. This past week was a little bit of a step up, with more mileage and some more tune-up workouts. This coming week I'm racing Cincinnati's classic Thanksgiving Day Race (if you'll be there come say hi!), looking to get after it  a few weeks removed from Indy Monumental. I don't want to go into the race with too many expectations, but suffice it to say I'm excited to see how my half marathon fitness translates to 10k fitness.

And then...marathon training begins. By the time the Trials rolls around (February 13th) it will have been nearly three years since my last marathon: a 2:28 just-fine effort at Boston. But I'm a completely different runner now than I was then, so I'm going into training thinking of this as my re-debut in the marathon.

When you think about it, this is really the perfect time to go into a marathon block. The marathon, in the words of famed coach Renato Canova, is an event of extreme extension. I've spent the last weeks and months honing my speed and stamina; right now I'm in great 10k-half marathon shape (arguably the best shape of my life). Now that I have recovered, I have 10-12 weeks to work on extending that fitness closer and closer to the marathon distance. Any more time and I might be overcooked and stale going into the race. Any less time and I might not be training enough. But this time is the perfect amount to top off my current fitness without going too far.

The way I see it, there are two schools of thought when it comes to high-quality marathon training. School one is an effort-based approach: basically, do the training that makes you feel good. This includes lots of long, steady state (or aerobic threshold, whatever your preferred term is) mileage, some lactate threshold/tempo pace cruise intervals, and the occasional track interval workouts. This approach prioritizes feel over pace -- some days 5:30 pace might feel like a steady effort on a long run, some days it might be 6:00 pace. This is the basic approach that American greats of the '70s and early '80s used to dominate the world. In doing this you'll learn to listen to your body and race by feel, which is an essential skill for race-day success. If done right, I'll enter race just slightly undertrained, but fresh and in a great rhythm. Better that than just slightly overtrained, which is a death wish over the marathon distance.

The other school is a specificity approach; basically, every workout you do in the last couple months before race day should be specific to your goal pace. Workouts include long runs at 85, 90, 95% of marathon pace, 10-12 miles alternating half miles (or kilometers) at half marathon pace with half miles at marathon pace + 15-30 seconds, and block workouts consisting of two marathon-pace workouts in one day, among others. It's all very scientific, the logic being that if you're going to ask certain demands of your body on race day, then you better train specifically for those demands. This is the approach that has been pioneered in recent years by Canova and many of the world-beating Kenyan and Ethiopian marathons. On the plus side, with this training you'll know exactly what you're capable of on race day; on the minus side, it could lead to a little overtraining in non-world class athletes (read: me).

So which approach will I take? Honestly, probably a little of both. Since I haven't done a marathon block in a while, my training will probably skew a bit towards the former. It's a little bit safer, a little more cautious, and it allows me to listen to my body. I know I race best when I'm in a good training rhythm, so that's what I want to foster as the race approaches. That said, I think elements of the latter are a missing piece in many marathon puzzles. I'm particularly enthusiastic about alternation-style workouts, but that's something I might get into more in a Workout of the Week segment.

So anyway, stay tuned for more Trials training updates. I'm so excited to jump into a marathon segment...I've been focused on the half marathon so long (two years) that I can't wait to try something new in the marathon! I really do think it might be my best event, so it should be interesting.

Comments

  1. Been lurking on your site for a while now. I've picked up a lot of stuff along the way, especially workout ideas. Just wanted to say best of luck!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Base Training the Lydiard Way

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a while, but just haven't really gotten around to it. This is for anyone using the summer to gear up for a fall season of racing, whether that's a marathon, road races, or cross country. That said, this is especially for you high school and college athletes. Summer is the most important time of the season. It's when you build your base -- everything that's to come later in the fall is determined by the quality of this base. In fact, some might even say that your end-of-season peak is limited by how well you trained over the summer. Arthur Lydiard believed this. And his philosophies still form the foundation of modern-day distance training. You've probably heard (and maybe internalized) many of the common critiques of Lydiard-style training: it's old and outdated , or it's too hard, or, most common, it's just a lot of long slow distance. And low slow distance makes for long slow runners . The lat

Why I Love Running At Withrow

One of my favorite places to do workouts and strides and general fast stuff is the track at Withrow High School in Hyde Park. No, it's not because of the newly renovated surface. No, it's not because it's a perfect 10-minute warmup and cooldown jog from my house. No, it's not because I'm a nerd and it has markings for both a 1600 and a mile. No, it's not because the school building forms a perfect "L" around the homestretch and first turn, sheltering the field from any drastic wind. No, it's not because I spent four years during college running workouts there. Actually, wait, that is part of it. The reason I love Withrow's track so much can be summed up like this: it's a true public track. If you've ever been to the track, then you know how packed it can get with people using it. And it's not just Withrow High School teams and random individuals -- the track is also regularly used by many other local high schools witho

Indy Monumental HM Race Recap; Or, I'm Going to the Trials!

Hey blogosphere, sorry for the month-long hiatus. I got a little-stitious in the lead up to Indy Monumental and was worried that I was doing a little too much talking (well, writing) and not enough training. This is the race report I posted on reddit recapping the race, so I thought I'd re-post it here as well. Hey reddit! I'm mostly a lurker here, but I raced Saturday morning in Indianapolis and wanted to share. The TL;DR: I ran 1:04:33 for the half marathon, which qualifies me for the US Olympic Marathon Trials in LA this February. I also got 3rd overall, which was pretty cool, too. So anyway, here goes... But first, a shout-out to the staff at Monumental Those guys know how to put on a top-notch race. It's so refreshing to here the rhetoric coming out of the organization that says, "we're trying to be a professional event; we understand that most people want a fun event, but we also understand that some people want to come and  race  the damn thing; we