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Hard Marathon Training with Mike Gratton
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Did you do Dublin this year Annabelle? What time did you do?
Hi Hilly, I did 2:55:32 at Dublin, thanks to Mike giving me the confidence to go for sub 3 hours. I look forward to seeing you at the start at London.
I've never really trained properly for a mara, so here we go...
I'm not really ready to run a marathon yet - perhaps in a couple of years time, when I have this sort of conditioning behind me. I was running to a schedule similar to that which you propose, except that my longest run was just 16-17 miles and I was only running doubles Monday to Friday. I've had a very patchy couple of months with injury, but am gradually easing the mileage up (this week hopefully 65-70 miles) with a view to reintroducing the second daily run at the end of the month (ie in 3-4 weeks time). Does this timetable seem sensible, and is the planned workload suitable for racing 10M and 1/2Mar (subject to some race specific preparation and peaking). Also will it provide sufficient background to a marathon attempt in a couple of years time.
have a good friend who did 2:44 at FLM last year on a longest week of 50m. Not Fair! right, *will* aim for at least sub 3:30 this year, & ultra too...
Tom, without knowing your injury problems it is hard to judge if the increase is OK, but if you are at this mileage already without breaking down the timetable will probably be OK. It is important for you to be honest with yourself and back off when necessary......this is where internet coaching falls down and proper advice from an experienced person like a physio of respected coach who knows you and can give a diagnosis properly is important.
The principles of peaking are much the same for 10 miles/half mara as for the marathon, just the speed work emphasis during the last phase will change. There's plenty of evidence of runners moving up to marathon training who also improve their shorter distance times as well.
Simon
We've read enough articles by the Penguin; how about a few from someone who can show how it can be done?
Would be very interested to know what sort of 1/2 marathon time, in your opinion, I'd need to have a realistic chance of going under 2.30 at London.
Cheers RD
N.Fisher.. 2:21 (1:08)
D.Bilton.. 2:25 (1:09)
J.Mawson.. 2:33 (1:12)
N.Cayton.. 2:34 (1:12)
Hope this helps.
My V45 clubmate once ran a 2:29 at FLM. His best HM was mid 70s.
Another guy ran a 69 min HM but ran 2:31 FLM (due to poor pacing).
70 to 73 mintues I would think RD, depending on your conditioning....you would have to be very high % of slow twitch muscle to be able to run it off a PB of 73 though, but it's not impossible.
That ties in very close to this years FLM
2.33 after a half of 1.12.09.
Most of my training was based around running faster 10ks with mileage leading up to London of about 70 - 100miles/week.
Do I now do harder reps with a view to getting my times down(still about 1.12 for 1/2 marathon) or run a higher mileage or both. Currently do about 2 rep sessions + long run in a week. Don't specifically do hills as I've moved into the Chilterns and most runs are hilly anyway.
Mike, like Rundown I would like to get my times down, I have good endurance but need to improve my speed so will be very interested to hear your answer to his question.
I'm another who has to build on my speed. But I do worry about injury with the type of fast sessions needed to make improvements.
Any thoughts on the value of speedwork specifically for achieving fast marathon times? You talk of % slow twitch - would speedwork benefit some runners more than others - any would it be the naturall speedy or the naturally slow runners who feel the most benefit?
I got a 2.43 debut this Autumn which was faster than I expected. I have attributed this to focussing on plodding in training and doing no quality work. My legs were pretty weak and feeble, but this didn't seem to matter for slower than 6minmile running.
Since then I have done quality sessions and feel a whole lot faster (borne out by dramatic improvements in 5k 10k speed. But will this help my marathon?
And how do I find out if I'm naturally speedy or naturally slow twitch? I've always assumed the former, but now I have gained some fitness for marathoning I'm no longer sure.
Really enjoying the thread by the way.
However, 10km speed alone will not help if there is insufficient endurance background to maintain a fast pace throughout the marathon. It is therefore essential that you put the endurance building blocks in place then build the speed on top of this.
There is a general fear that you will lose speed by pushing the mileage up, which is true in the short term while you get used to the training load. But when you have adapted and start to run quicker your speed will return. In most cases the runners I have dealt with have all improved their 10km & half times as a result of moving up to marathon training - it was the case for me, seems to have been for Paula as well. I know Paul Evans and Richard Nerurkar ran for GB at Olympic & World level over 10,000m in the same seasons as running their best marathons.
Your genetic make up of fast twitch will determine your success at the marathon to a degree, and it may be someone with a higher % of fast twitch muscle may see a wider differential between their half mar PB and their marathon PB than a slow twitch runner. I was a lot slower than Jon Brown at 10km - 1.50 slower - but over a marathon I am 1 sec quicker than Jon.
Because of the lack of 10km speed I geared my training towards building sustainable pace - hence I went through LM only 1 min outside my half marathon PB and still held it together.
Fascinating thread, I'm learning a lot from it and seem to have been doing some of the right things over the past year. You haven't mentioned any of the other non-running key sessions that might help with training. Are there any such as weights exercises that you consider an essential part of marathon training and preparation?
Would I be right to glean from it that a lack of speedwork will ultimately limit marathon potential...
"you will need to improve pace over 10km to be able to achieve it"
but that for a natural marathoner with relatively weak 10k, like you (emphasis on RELATIVELY weak!), you reduced your focus on speedwork...
"I geared my training towards building sustainable pace "
Does this mean simply lots of miles or lots of marathon pace work, or something else?
I didn't do marathon pace work in training - the effort level is so much higher than on race day and it felt demoralising. But my current training plan (Jack Daniels) will use marathon pace in the spring. I'm really not looking forward to those runs...
I'm also particularly interested in Mike's reply about the amount of speedwork for fast and enduance based runners. Last year 75-95mpw Jan-March, 1 shortish speed session and one race or another longer type reps. Result disappointing. This year I've been including 3 longer but slightly slower/less recovery speed sessions and some of the long runs hard. Any comments, Mike ?
The big difference in emphasis for speed training for the marathon is in the middle phase, which will be through Jan & Feb., is in the quanitiy and recovery. To build sustainable speed the interval sessions should be of the 20 x 400 sort with 100m jog recovery at around 10km pace. In the final phase, through late March the number of intervals will drop and recovery lengthen with the speed at 3 to 5km pace - i.e. 10 x 400 - 200 slow jog rec at 3km pace.
I think you need to do the bulk sessions first to establish the speed endurance base, then the real pace comes later as part of the peaking process.
Incidenly I had very good leg speed, I ran 49 sec 400m in a relay as a junior and regualarly did 51 sec 400m for Invicta in Southern track league meets off marathon training. What I never managed to do was develop the ability to run 25 laps at a very high pace - so I seemed to have ability at the extreme ends of the distance spectrum - but not in the middle distance events. This may have been because of the concentration on marathon preparation and seldom resting up for races other than the marathon as I was certain that to concentrate soley on developing 10km speed would compromise my ultimate marathon ability. At the end of the day winning LM in 2.09 was worth sacrificing doing maybe a 28 min 10km.