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"Advanced Marathoning" - Pfitzinger & Douglas
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Although there are versions with differing mileage, the minimum peaks out at around 70 and the exact nature of each run is highly proscribed. While there are obviously recovery runs, there are a lot of runs that are either long, hard, or a combination of both. Almost certainly more than you're used to. If you're not used to stressful training, you will be soon.
I would approach with care. It's not for me to say P&D is beyond you at this point, but I'd have a long, hard, think about whether it's right for you. You need to have a good mileage base from the outset (comfortable running 50 plus mpw for sure) and also a lot of training time on your hands because all of the schedules are demanding. My advice would be to go sub-3.30, if not sub 3.15 before committing fully to a P&D approach.
But that's just my $0.02 worth.
d
David - I will go find those articles now.
As for the 3.46 I did at London, I am obviously fairly pleased with that being my first marathon, but I feel that I could have done better. I am doing sub 42 for 10k and sub 70 for 10 miles and sub 1.36 for half marathons. I figured that with 12 months to go, having only started running 15 months ago, I should carry on improving and maybe get close to sub 3.15 next year?
I think you need to work on your base. Whoever said Lydiard is worth reading is right. When you get to 3.15ish, flip to the Hard Training with Mike Gratton thread in the FLM section which, frankly, is just as appropriate as Pfitz.
This is exactly the point that Hadd makes in his article and the point of base training is to improve aerobic base and therebye improve the relationship between your pbs....hope this mkes some sense...it will when you read the Hadd article
I have been base training since around August last year - with around 6 weeks off in Nov due to injury and my current pbs are; 10k 43.45, Half 1.35.15, and mara 3.21.52....although these are very slow in comparison to most of the people on here who are doing P&D, they are fairly well within the predictions of the calculator...
HU...I ran Paris in the time above...I was on course for sub 3.20 until I hit very bad cramps at mile 23 and ended up on my bum ;0(......I felt very comfortable until at least mile 21 and never felt as though I was lacking energy...I also ran a negative split...
My plan is to use P&D 70+ 18week programme to get down to sub 3.10...and if possible quicker (obv sub 3 is the real long term goal). Do you feel P&D is innapropriate? What else would you recommend?
Second point I would make about P&D is -- think about it -- it demands a lot of rest because the training itself is stressful. So not only do you have to commit a fair amount of time to putting in the miles but, if you do it properly, you are going to find yourself falling asleep in the middle of Eastenders :-) In short, you need BOTH time to run AND time for recovery. If that doesn't happen, you'll need a third block of time...at the doctors. P&D drives my wife up the wall not because I'm always running, but because I'm asleep by nine in the evening when I do it.
Next point I would make -- yet again -- is that it's the intensity and not the miles that get the results. The worse thing you can do is cut the intensity corner with P&D because then you'll end up running hundreds of slow miles for minimal benefit.
So to finally stop avoiding actually answering your question, if you feel comfortable with the programme, give it a try. It's not for me to judge but I'd say your times and experience seem to be on the fringes of being able to handle P&D (and if you follow it to the letter, I don't doubt that you'll benefit.) As they say in the intro, anyway, the programme is driven by mindset...it's for people who want to run the best marathon they can so if that describes you...
As for my own experience, I'm 46 and like you (if I remember what you said earlier) have only been running for a relatively short time (three years.) My times have fairly tumbled and PBs are now 39.12 (10k), 87.00 (half) and 3.05 (full) and they are still improving. I used P&D to prepare for Boston over the past three months with the goal of trying to go under 3 hours and until I lost a big toe nail suddenly and extremely painfully at mile 16, I was comfortably on course for that (though that's not to say I would have done it in the end.) Anyway, as a result I ended up limping in in 3.06 though, frankly, you could argue that to come within a minute of a PB when running in that condition for 10 miles is testament enough to the programme.
As the last 10 miles were effectively an exercise in survival and thus took relatively little out of my legs as I couldn't push on -- rather than waste the training I'm just bridging at the moment and will have another crack at sub-3 in Edinburgh in June. However, rather than strictly follow P&Ds 8 week multiple marathon schedule for that, I've taken some input from Mike Gratton which provides an interesting and, I think for me, better approach (oddly enough, a mixture of more short races and more long runs.)
I don't pay an awful lot of attention to those distance comparison charts, personally. That's because unless the comparison is made over a long period, chances are you've trained more specifically for one distance than another so your results are inevitably skewed. In other words, if you spend most of your time preparing for marathons but run a few 10ks to sharpen, you will probably be better at the longer end of the scale than the shorter. Ditto if you focus on training for 10ks, but run a marathon (or two) for variety. The opposite will be the case. Unless you have specifically trained for all distances for which you have PBs, the comparison charts are at best a vague guide.
Remember, all of those programmes are general guides or sets of principles, but none of them takes into account your personal physiology, family situation, appetite for and ability to withstand the rigours of training, work demands, and more. So what you have to do is figure out a). what you can put into preparation for the race in terms of time and energy and then match that up against b). the key requirements of all the programmes above. Out of that will likely come the programme that will work best at keeping your times improving AND your wife happy (though I concede getting your times down is the more important goal:-)
Pfitzinger, though, is certainly an element of the right approach and suggests you're thinking in a positive and aggressive direction.
During the course of the program, I set PB's at all distances (not surprising given my lack of running history), and which are pretty much the same as Haile Unlikely's - 39:16 (10K), 1:25:24 (Half), 2:58:46 (Full).
It's been said before, but I'm sure that the most useful elements of P+D are the progressive-paced runs of between 13 and 22 miles (and there's quite a lot of them). These are run at a slow enough pace to improve muscle capillarisation/fat-burning efficiency, but not so slow as to allow running form to become loose. The increase in pace throughout each run teaches the mind and body to work harder as fatigue increases. This kind of physical and mental training helps the following become second nature:
i) holding the pace back during the first half of a marathon
ii) slowly increasing the mental and physical workload during the second half to maintain the pace
At FLM, all my mile splits (mile 1 excepted) were within a few seconds of the average, and I actually ran a slight negative split.
The speed sessions didn't really appear until a few weeks prior to the taper, and I found the first few very tough. Thereafter, I found my speed to improve quickly with a 5 mile road race being completed in 30:03 a few weeks prior to FLM.
But take the above with a very significant pinch of salt. I've no experience of alternative training philosophies, and I suspect P+D's schedules will not suit everyone - for reasons outlined Haile's last post. My priorities are to enjoy my running, strike a balance with work and family commitments, and avoid injury. For me, P+D were compatible.
Until then, my shrt term plans are to reduce my 10k and half mara times...and also set a 5k time (have never raced this). Improving htese times will help me to decide on relevant paces for P&D runs...
Mitchie and Njord...thanks for the info...Njord..your times prior to P&D were very similar to mine now...
Could you clarify why you think that:
"The thing about P&D I would stress (again) is that while it is high mileage, the tough part is that the sessions are very intense.......But pushing yourself to run almost every session at a proscribed, and often uncomfortable pace, is what makes P&D both difficult but, generally, effective. And that's not easy".
I followed P&D >70mpw 24 week schedule last time through and whilst I'd agree that some of the sessions are tough, there's also a great deal of steady aerobic running in between, with plenty of chance for recovery.
Have I misunderstood your statement?
David: I maintain that one of the hardest things in Pfitz is running the proscribed speeds, specifically pushing yourself to run at uncomfortable tempos when you're training alone. Given that we may not be miles and miles apart (in goals and geographies), if you want a training partner for the occasional long run as we head towards autumn marathons, send me an e-mail.
Marmite: I think my comment to David (above) explains what I mean. In my view the tough bit is not that there are too many miles or not enough chance to recover...it's that the programme really requires you to run hard in the hard sessions at very specific paces, and it requires a lot of self discipline to do that if you're training on your own. Any idiot (even me) can lace up their shoes and do a 5, 10, 15, or 20 miler by plod-plod-plodding. But relatively few have what it takes to do it at the sort of tempos that Pfitz prescribes...for instance, to step up the pace just when, after a number of miles, they're starting to feel the fatigue set in. Njord proves what you can achieve with Pfitz if you have self-discpline.
For anyone looking to make significant improvements using P+D, my hunch is that running the medium and long runs at the advised pace early in the schedule is too risky. My initial target marathon pace was based on 3hrs30 for the first month’s training, but then increased after about 5 weeks to 3hrs15 and then again revised to 3hrs00 after about 10 weeks, after seeing dramatic improvements in my shorter distance times.
P+D might say something similar in their book (I’ll check later), but I don’t think I would have remained injury-free back in December if I had launched straight into long-runs at 3hr + 20%/10% pace.
Njord....that is a very helpful comment...I have been wondering about how 'dynamic' the training paces should be, i.e. how much should pace and goal be revised during the schedule as fitness (and race results) improve)...thanks..think I will start with 3.15 goal...
As I said, it may be mentioned somewhere, but I was just having a quick browse at work last night.
Oh, and any of you guys on here doing the Abingdon Marathon in October?
Will try to get HM time below 1.30 at East Kilbride (25 June).
Question on HR v pace. Having followed Hadd closely over the last few months, I do almost all of my runs by HR rather than pace. This means that, when I hit a hill, my pace drops (sometimes significantly) so that HR stays within set limits.
Although P&D gives HRs for all of the key sessions, it also gives pace. So, which one should take precedent? My instinct is that I should move more towards pace based training relative to current race times.
What do you all think?
I have to admit I sometimes get confused with the mention of heart rate and pace.
I am sure I read in this book (might have been another one though), that unless you run on the same flat section of road or track when you do every training run, then heart rate is better to use as you may struggle to stay in a general aerobic heart rate when hitting hills/inclines if you are worrying about pace, you may end up in VO2 or Lactate Threshold heart rate. Does that make sense?
But I may have misunderstood this, so if I am wrong, hopefully someone can put me right so I can alter my training.
I followed this advice, and let the pace take care of itself. From memory I think it tended to deliver about MP + 10% (ie the pace achieved at the end of a P+D long run).