Advanced Marathonig

Triathlon Forum
1

So I searched the posts on this forum and saw that at least a few of you have read “Advanced Marathoning” by Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas. Please share your thoughts.

I just finished Week 5 of AM’s 24 week, up to 55 miles/week schedule. I feel good about my workouts, but I’m a bit concerned about the fact that I almost never run at my race goal pace. I also have some more general questions about the schedule and marathon training in general, such as…

How fast should you run a general middle of the week aerobic run? In order to stay comfortably aerobic, I need to run slower than goal pace even though the runs are only 8-9 miles.

If I can do the program’s long runs at the speeds (gradually increasing pace so that the last 5 miles are done at or faster than 90% of goal pace) and heart rates described in the book, should I assume that I will get stronger and faster and eventually run my race at goal pace?

The basic weekly schedule so far has been as follows:

Tuesday–general aerobic run with 10x100m strides (about 8 miles)

Wednesday–short slow recovery (4-5 miles)

Thurs–general aerobic run (about 9 miles)

Saturday–short slow recovery (4-5 miles)

Sunday–long run (so far no longer than 14 miles; increasing from 15 to 18 over the next 4 weeks)

As the schedule progresses, there will be more lactate threshold and VO2max workouts which will be faster than race pace and a few longer race pace efforts.

Does this sound like a smart program for someone who has run 26.2 miles in the past but has never raced a marathon? I’ve set a race goal of 3:10 (Boston qualifying time), but have no idea of how realistic that is other than the fact that so far I’ve been able to do the long runs as described above.

Thanks very much for any thoughts or experiences you can share.

2

Marty,

First, I’m slow and read AM to try and improve. Just know what I’ve read there and elsewhere (e.g. Daniels).

As you’ve mentioned, running at goal pace (and faster) comes later in his schedule. Several on this board, as well as other reviews I have seen, have said his schedules work well. I’m hoping so (NYC this year). Guess if you’re going to follow his plans, ya gotta believe that they will get you there.

His “general aerobic runs” are a bit confusing, since they could be anything from LT to recovery. In his description of these, he basically says these are for getting some extra miles into the schedule (since total miles run per week is correlated to improvements in marathon time). I’d run at whatever you feel like that day, with no faster than LT if you have no tempo run planned that week, and a several beats per minute below LT if you have a tempo workout planned (otherwise I’d think you’re really doing two tempo runs that week). The real key seems to be getting in a long run, a tempo run, and an interval session most weeks, especially in the last 12-15 weeks or so.

As for what one might be cabable of, I’ve been wondering that myself. Daniels and Glover have charts that show what you could run a marathon in (ballpark) given your abilities at other distances. If you’d like to tell me your 5k, 10k, and/or half marathon times, I could tell you what they say your marathon time would probably be with correct training (their numbers are pretty similar).

To run a 3:10, Daniels says you should be able to run a 5k in a little under 20 minutes and a 10k in just over 41 minutes. Sound familiar? He also says a 15k time would be about 1:03. Maybe a 6:47/mile pace. AM says that if your CURRENT 15k time is about 1:03, your FAST end of LT should be 6:45.

This site has a calculator that gives you recommended speeds given your goal. http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,,s6-51-58-0-1000,00.html#yasso

For a 3:10 marathon, it says you should do your long runs from 8:13-9:17/mile. Your tempo run would be about 6:49/mile. 800 meter intervals (“Yasso 800’s”) would be done at 3:09 per 800 meters, building from 4 of them to 10 of them over the next several months. This matches AM’s VO2 max workout speed for 800 meters in Appendix C. The Runner’s World site recommends doing your “easy runs”, which comprise a lot of your runs and sound like AM’s “general aerobic runs”, at 8:13 per mile. Per those recommendations, you are spending a lot of time running slower than goal pace.

Hope this makes sense. If you don’t have access to the Daniels’ or Glover’s charts and would like me to plug your numbers in, let me know.

Jeff

3

Generally speaking, many of the marathon plans and books on marathon training err on the side of being a bit too conservitive when it comes to suggestions on key components of a marathon training schedule. The Race Pace Run IS a key part of your marathon training, but you have to treat it with respect. If your goal is a 3:10 Marathon, you need to be become as effcient as possible running at about 7:05 min/mile. Guess what that means - running as many miles as you can between now and your marathon at . . . . you guessed it, 7:05 min/mile!!

Some people make this way to complicated, but it really can be that simple. Distilled down to it’s elements training for a marathon should include:

  • As many miles running at your goal race pace as possible

  • Lot’s of hills

  • A long run of up to 2 1/2 hours( with long sections of that run at goal race pace)

  • Yasso 800’s to introduce some higher quality training. The Yasso formula works out remarkably well for marathon runners in the 2:45 - 3:00’ ish time frame.

4

Fleck,
What you say seems to agree with my common sense take on it, but I guess I’m worried about drastically increasing my chances of injury by essentially doing tempo (race pace stuff) and/or speed work (hills/Yasso’s) in such large quantities. Have you approached training like this and been successful?

Thanks.

Jeff

5

Yes - I have had some success using this approach.

I would only add that:

  • You should have a few years of running under your belt.

  • You need to have the self-restraint to build recovery into the program

6

From my experience, marathon race-pace training is a lot less hard on your body than traditional LT-Threshold or faster speed work. Thus, you’re less likely to get injured. However, take Fleck’s advice…

7

I think you must be right. I’m slow, but want to be faster. I’m barely breathing hard running my long runs at +1min. over GP (which is 9min./mile – no where near you guys). It sure is comfortable, but what exactly am I getting out of this? My run this morning (4.5 miles) was a little below 9 min./mile pace, and I’m going to try to bust out a sub-24 min. 5K this Saturday. I have to believe that with a decent aerobic base and an awareness of when the body is likely to injure, running most runs at goal pace is the way to ensure you run goal pace this fall. I’m also starting to believe that a lot of my problems are psychological – some sort of deep seeded fear that if I were to run 26.2 9 min. miles in a row, I’d drop dead. The only way I see of overcoming this is the Marisol descent method of training – keep doing it until you believe you can.

8

Albany,

Thanks for your very thoughtful reply. When is the NYC Marathon? I’m curious about how far into the AM schedule you are.

It looks like the Runners’ World recommendation for long run pace (8:13-9:17) is a bit slower than AM’s (80% of 3:10 pace is 8:42; 90% is 7:59). This makes me feel better about the the “slowness” of the AM long runs. These are still a ton slower than Fleck recommends, but maybe the marathon pace and faster workouts later in the AM schedule make up for this. We can hope! We could also start doing some of the mid-week runs at race pace.

When during the week do you put in your Yassos? I’m guessing it would make the most sense to include these 800m repeats as part of a Tuesday general aerobic with speed session.

As for predictions based on earlier races, I don’t have a resume of past races to look back on, so I’m going to run a 10K tomorrow instead of the scheduled lactate threshold workout for week 18. No taper, little speed work, blah, blah, blah…but I’m thinking that if I can get around in less than 42 minutes I’m probably on schedule. We’ll see.