I was just reading Chris Carmichaels new book. Its pretty standard now to spend a huge chunk of time somewhere in the year building your aerobic base. My thought is, the winters suck here in Maine, why not spend three or four months training for a marathon. Really get my aerobic system in kick ass shape before working anaerobically. Is this overkill though with the running? I was wondering if any of you have done this. BTW, I participate is sprint tris and duathlons where a 1:30 time is a longer race.
I am not by any stretch an expert on any of this, but my personal rule of thumb is that my long runs should be somewhere in the neighborhood of double the run portion of my race. For sprint races, my training runs will be 6-8 miles, for olys, my training runs will be 10 to 12 miles. Obviously, this wouldn’t work if you’re racing the longer events.
I think training for a marathon would kill the speed you need for sprint distances- you’d have to work a long time to get it back.
Plus there’s the mental aspect. I posted about this a couple of months ago. Last winter I followed the conventional wisdom and put a lot of “base” miles in. When the weather got nice and I wanted to step up the pace a bit, I found myself lacking the mental toughness I expect of myself.
Naturally, this is only my experience, and may or may not be suited to you.
kind of an interesting thing happened after I was done with my Ironman Race last year–I entered a bunch of 5k’s, 10k’s just to do em and wound up running at PR’s–I guess my base from all the IM training had something to do with this–I didn’t do any speed work during my run training either
just kinda one of those things–suffer for hours on end and then suffer for 17 minutes or so
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When you say marathon training, are you talking about the quantity of miles or the specificity of training? Elite 5K runners run more than most people who consider themselves “marathoners” yet maintain the ability to run fast. If you think you can increase quantity and sustain some quality without injuring yourself, I say it will serve you well. Personally, the quantity required helps me from 5k on up. I would also go so far as to say that most of us on this forum would benefit from additional strength at the risk of losing a little speed.
As a matter of fact, I live in Maine and this fits my plan pretty close. I will be training for Boston from late fall this year and after the race in spring primarily focus on tri’s and du’s next year. I increase swimming in the winter and do a few session on the trainer per week to try and keep the pedal stroke smooth year round.
I’m a slow runner at any speed, but I trained for and ran a marathon earlier this year. I ended up injured probably as a result of the ramp up in volume, but it did a world of good in shifting my mental outlook on mileage and training in general. I feel like I now have some idea of what it’s like to feel really fit. Also, before that experience, 10 miles seemed like a long run. Now it’s no big deal. Even after laying off for 2 1/2 months, I improved my run split (not by a lot – but every little bit counts) in my most recent sprint tri.
If you’re already a fast runner, I can’t imagine that marathon training will make you any faster. But if you’re a turtle like me, the increase in aerobic base did translate into a sprint improvement.
You make a great point here. When I was running in college and could run sub 15 minutes for 5000m, I was running 80 to 100 miles a week. Now as a triathlete, and even when I was training for an IM, I never got over 65.
I will say that after doing IM Florida in 2001 I felt that my top end suffered significantly. I haven’t been able to race at the red line as well as I could prior to my IM.
The other factor in my case is age. I may get faster in the water and on the bike, but I don’t have an ounce of hope of getting faster in the run. In fact, I ran a 10k on Saturday in 38:46. In 1979 in the same race at 15 years of age I ran 36:20. I’m not as fast as I was, just a lot better looking!
I know a few olympic trialists in the 1500m, 5k and marathon. Minimal mileage during what we would consider their base period was about 60 for the 1500 guys 65-85 for the 5kers and up to 115 for the marathoners. They did some sort of fast paced running eveery week even if it was just 4-6 400’s and some strides. Also their med length runs, about 10 miles, tended to get fast. I got blown off the back several times as they told jokes at 5:45 pace.
as another fellow mainer, i prefer variation, some good skiing tossed into the mix. started playing pick up hockey this winter as well - must have helped a little bit.
i think it depends person to person, but it’d probably work out well to do the marathon training…just as long as you watch out for snow plows.
which races are you doing this summer? my first planned is the one in unity, then maine state - not sure passed that.