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"Advanced Marathoning" - Pfitzinger & Douglas
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Perhaps that is why P&D and other incorporate some near MP pace components in other runs during the week, e.g. part of the LSD run, and the mid week run. I.e. a similar weekly milage near MP but just spread out a bit more..
"P&D mentions LT pace is 2-3% slower than MP,"
hence why I related it to the effort of my mid week runs. I'm really only doing two half marathons (at most!) a week at MP, not 1/2MP pace!
So I think that is a big difference, with Hadd the LT pace runs max out at MP (i.e. don't go onto 1/2MP), but Hadd demands more volumne instead (if i've got it right this time).
DF, I think the best way to estimate a "reasonable" pace for the marathon is from your 1/2M or 10k time. Of course these sorts of extrapolations are only any good if you are marathon trained. One calculator that I find to be reasonably accurate is McMillan. However, I think McMillan's estimates are based on a more traditional marathon preparation e.g. LT, VO2, long runs etc.
Cartman, according to P&D:
LSD pace is MP +20% at the beginning of the long run, increasing the pace to MP +10% by the end of the long run i.e. if you were planning on racing the marathon at 7 min/mile (~3:03), you'd start your long run at ~8:24 min/mile and end at ~7:42 min/mile.
P&D definition of LT pace is 10M to 1/2M race pace, so significantly faster than MP e.g. 15-25 sec per mile faster than marathon pace. This is clearly much faster than the initial "threshold" pace which you describe (i.e. MP +12%) and still considerably faster than MP at the end of your schedule. Frankly, I'm not sure how MP or MP +12% could be described as "threshold" as it's nowhere near any threshold I'm aware of.
Your description of "easy" ties in with P&D definition of "steady", but is ~75% WHR for P&D. Recovery runs that you describe are also called "recovery" or alternatively "easy" by P&D and are <70% WHR.
WHR is:
((maxHR - restingHR)/100*percentage)+restingHR
e.g. for me 70% WHR = ((205-45/100)*70)+45 = 157, whereas 70% MHR = (205/100)*70 = 143.5,
so in my case (for 70%) the fudge factor would be WHR ~= MHR + 10%, but this is a dynamically sliding value.
I think 2 MP runs of 13M (i.e. 26M) per week is suicidal!!! I'd definitely fall to pieces if I tried that for very long ;-)
I have been doing doubles, following the easy/hard principles. A morning run is mainly for recovery and trying to activate my metabolism.
Core stability I don't do, though I usually have problems at the end stages of a marathon with my core muscles (who hasn't?). Weight I simply don't like and try to avoid using the gym. Only minor stretching for me, my flexibility is quite poor, can't touch the ground with my hands or lift my legs up a bar and stretch hamstrings out.
I follow P&D advise of carbo loading, he doesn't recommend the depletion approach as there are too many risks attached and there are no extra gains.
P&D has also strong feelings on hydration and maintaining iron levels. Not particular great nutrition wise, when running a lot of miles I eat everything, though I would possibly do much better if I would be more strict with nutrition. Hardly eat red meat.
Back-to-back hard days I usually do and done back-to-back tune up races which have produced many PBs.
I've been tweaking with the 18-week 70mile P+D schedule, mainly to cut out the doubles and trim some miles. I am quite prone to injury when I do biiiig miles but realise that I need more to get me sub-3 for FLM 2006.
Off of around 35-45mpw I came v. close to sub-3 at FLM 2005 but died badly in the last two miles - this lead me to evaluate that I'd not got the aerobic conditioning.
My view was that the RW schedule i followed for FLM 2005 had the correct elements of LT and long VO2 intervals but fell short on the number/ distance of long runs and woefully short on aerobic "getting in the miles" miles that P+D talk about.
So from now until Christmas (18 weeks out from FLM 2006!), I'm putting in ~40mpw of <70% WHR miles to give me a decent base to start the P+D schedule. Also, I'm doing 2xcore stability sessions/ week.
I've not managed to see the P+D book in any shops (and I live in London) so it has been good to see more detail of what they suggest written in this thread!
My one concern, like some others here, is that there are no 1/2M race slots in the schedule - what are the general views on dropping one or two into my schedule. Any suggestions as to how many and how far out from FLM race day is wise to race?
the bat
run went like this:
Splits (using HRM which measured course as 10.07m):
m1=8.41 av hr 139 av pace 8.44
m2=8.06 av hr 149 av pace 8.08
m3=8.04 av hr 149 av pace 8.06
m4=8.38 av hr 149 av pace 8.41
m5=8.04 av hr 148 av pace 8.06
m6=8.17 av hr 148 av pace 8.19
m7=8.00 av hr 149 av pace 8.02
m8=7.44 av hr 148 av pace 7.46
m9=8.11 av hr 150 av pace 8.13
m10=8.13 av hr 148 av pace 8.15
last bit=1.02 av hr 150 av pace 7.59
URR...on core work...I do some pilates for abs, and weights once a week for upper body strength...I also ensure that I do quite a lot of stretching after runs...still have quite a bit of flexibility which (for some reason) I have maintained since childhood when I did Karate regularly.
ps...have just ordered the "Pfitzinger & Douglas " book from amazon
Batfink,
One of the reasons I chose the P&D schedule (18 week <70 miles) is it agreed closely with the sort of things I've learnt over my last 3 marathons (more mileage, more aerobic running (ie less speed work) to name 2). One of the other things I learnt was that racing a half marathon during marathon training is a bad idea - it takes too much out of me. I also dont see what it achieves. There's using it as feedback on your potential marathon time, but you would have to taper to give it your best shot, and with the recovery afterwards that's a lot of training missed. I have a pretty good idea of my potential anyway, from the aerobic runs - seeing how my pace at marathon HRs is progressing, to give me a fair estimate of marathon time.
All I achieved in racing the Flora Half Marathon was a muscle strain a week later having felt c&*p all week after the HM. I recovered and did well in London, but never felt at my best after the HM.
It all resulted in 3:41 at Cardiff 2 weeks ago.
Like yourself, I completely binned any speed sessions where the efforts were <5mins or faster than 5km pace. When I run faster than that, I go up on my toes and my lower legs rebel quite spectacularly. Weekly threshold runs starting at 20 mins effort and progressing to ~50mins effort were the big help in my mind. I might have done these a bit closer to 10km pace than 1/2M but I was capable of holding on.
One of the big things in the P&D schedules I liked, was the 15-mile mid-week runs. I'd never done that sort of mileage before. My Cardiff marathon was evenly paced - I felt very strong - perhaps as a result of the extra long runs (anything 15+ is long to me - they call them medium-long)
What would be more useful for the "improving" runner is an article three months before the FLM schedules are published saying "Do this to be in decent shape for a crack at a high-ish mileage schedule".
Providing I can avoid injury, i'm rather looking forward to midweek 15milers! God knows when I'll fit in my commute back to Putney and eating!
B
I agree totally that the RW schedules are a tad 'light' but as for "possibly erring on the side of safety by hoping to minimise injury", I'd say the opposite is true - without a solid mileage base, doing the speeds they were suggesting was inviting injury.
There are people I know who are seriously thinking about starting their training when the RW schedules are published and until then, they're doing a couple of runs a week (so long as it isn't too cold or its raining). But that's OK as they were good at cross-country in school.
It might do them some good to read some P+D style advice about what effort and timescale is required to undertake the 26.2 safely!
LOL
:-)
I think doubles are a great idea and I also used the morning session to "loosen off".
I never do core stability stuff either and similarly, my flexibility is very poor.
As you point out, from a physiological standpoint, there is absolutely nothing to be gained from the carbo-depletion followed by carbo-loading regimen. The total amount of glycogen stored per unit dry muscle mass is indistinguishable from that achieved by following a straight carboloading program (I can dig out the references for this if you're interested).
I try to eat a healthy diet, plenty of green veggies, but I do eat quite a bit of meat, lots of fish too though.
Interesting to hear what you say about back-to-back hard days. Never tried it myself, but you've made amazing progress this year having used such an approach.
Batfink,
The most significant change I made to the P&D 24 week, 70+ mpw schedule was to include much more racing than suggested. I did 8 races in the final 12 weeks of the plan including a 5k, a 5M, 3 10K's, 2 1/2M's and a 30k, all of which were raced all out except for the 30k, which was just run as part of a long Sunday run. All of the races, except the 2 1/2M's and one of the 10 K's were either on Saturday or midweek, in which case I dropped either the VO2 session or the LT session in favour of the race, but still did a midweek "medium" long run as well as the long Sunday run.
I think if you can adapt to this type of approach without breaking down then it pays big dividends come marathon day. IMHO, the only reason I was able to tolerate this type of training was because I'd been consistently logging 70-90mpw for the first 12 weeks of the program.
In my case I did the 2 1/2M's, 9 weeks out and 6 weeks out. I don't think I'd do one any closer than 3-4 weeks out. Interestingly, I tapered for the one I did 9 weeks out and ran a poor race (2 mins slower than PB), whereas 3 weeks later I did the Newark 1/2M having logged 90M in the 7 days leading up to the race and took a minute off my PB, go figure!!!
WS,
I think racing during training is a personal thing, some people thrive on it, others fall to bits, so I think you just have to try it out for yourself. Judging from personal experience, it's worth re-examining whenever there has been a significant change in your training regimen.
Very well done on the 3:41 BTW, was that a PB?
"Intense speedwork", whilst less important than long runs (endurance) and tempo runs (threshold) do play a role in marathon preparation as, from a physiological standpoint, they provide a very effective stimulus to elevate lactate threshold (by increasing mitochondrial density) and they improve running efficiency.
Totally agree that the midweek long run(s) are absolutely golden - money in the bank, no doubt.
I think the 5k pace sessions in the P&D schedule were worth while, but the RW sessions were way faster, which I think is counter productive. I suspect the RW schedules were aimed at low mileage bods with poor aerobic condition whose 5k pace is way out of line with their marathon pace ie marathon pace 2 minutes or so slower. My 5k pace is only a minute quicker than marathon pace, so trying to run the RW sessions at a minute quicker than 5k pace nearly killed me.
3:41 was a PB. Lots more to come I reckon.
Not want to criticise the RW schedules at they are slightly designed for another audience. The "Advanced Marathon" schedules are more for runners who have a bit of running background and maybe have more specific marathon goals.
I guess the reason why in some of the RW schedules faster sessions are introduced is quite simply to force folks to at least try out to run a bit faster even it is just for 90 seconds. Usually runners around the 4hrs bracket are not the smoothest movers and do not lift their knees much, or have a bit of kick. The slow running develops automatically developes a shuffles and the occasional faster session is more or less a reminder that one should practice form/running economy/strides etc. Some call it neuromuscular training.
Would be interested to see the full schedule and would be suprised if the speed element in a sub 4hrs schedule goes beyond 5k in volume.
A quick glance at the schedules suggest 5k pace, thats one distance I have not really raced but have ran plenty 3ks and 10ks, I guess I could work out pace from these two distances?
Intruiged by the comments by URR and Marmite Master which state there is `absolutely nothing' to be gained from a carbo-depletion and reload programme.
P+D talk about `similar' benefits to be gained from cutting out the depletion phase. It also talks about a loading without the depletion phase storing glycogen to `almost' the same level as if you did the full regimen (p.45).
Is there a scientific difference between `absolutely' and `almost'?
Aerobic threshold is lower than anaerobic threshold. Below the aerobic threshold you are working aerobically, and above the anaerobic threshold you are working mostly anaerobically, with a grey area in between. There is a 'rigorous' definition (hah!) of these 2 levels in terms of blood lactate, but as for most of us they are impossible to determine accurately, I think Hadd tends to avoid talking in such terms, but prefers the notion of what heart rate can be sustained, without any loss of pace, for an hour or more (this is roughly equivalent to the aerobic threshold). His Lactate Threshold is the upper of the 2 and is roughly the pace you can sustain flat out for an hour.
Phew!
I hope I haven't hijacked the thread with this one.
Anaerobic threshold is your traditional 10 mile / HM effort level.
Btw, Hadd doesn't do `schedules'. Every runner is different and responds differently to the stimuli. He suggests 2 sessions in a week then leaves the runner to work out for themselves the best way of making progress during the other 5 days.
aerobic < ~2 millimoles of lactate per litre (just above resting levels)
anaerobic > ~4 millimoles of lactate per litre
these numbers can vary from individual to individual but the anaerobic threshold ~= steady state threshold, i.e. an intensity that can be maintained for about 1hr - 1hr30mins
So if you take the 3or 4 x 5km sessions I was referring to earlier, a key metric in these sessions is excessive HR drift which would indicate increasing (e.g. more than ~3 bpm to account for heat dispersion etc.) anearobic activity (which is to be avoided), hence you are not allowed to increase your HR until you are aerobic at that HR (but thats another thread thats already up and going).