Is the Long Run Overrated?
For beginning marathon training, fewer long runs may well be better
By Lorraine Moller
As featured in the September 2011 issue of Running Times Magazine
Is the long run the be-all and end-all of training for the marathon? Or are many runners, particularly those new to the marathon who are still building the infrastructure of their endurance running physiology, running too long, too hard, too close to the race?
At 43, Kristen Suvick, mother of three, became a runner. She was quickly smitten. Over the next year and a half as her fitness improved she found she could run longer, and began to entertain the idea of running a marathon. So she enlisted the director of the Lydiard Foundation, Nobuya Hashizume (known throughout running circles as Coach Nobby) to guide her through her first marathon. Coming into the race she was nervous about completing the distance as she had worked her way up to a 2-hour, 40-minute run just once, but had done none of the series of distance/over-distance runs that other coaches advocated. Nobby wasn't fazed. In his eyes, two years of base training was fully adequate, perhaps ideal, to complete a first marathon.
Nobby had another reason not to pile on the long runs. As occurs with many beginners, the resilience of Suvick's musculoskeletal system was lagging behind her cardiovascular capability and her ambition. She had been plagued with shin splints, and barely had the condition under control with a month to race day. To squeeze in any extra long runs was dicey. Nobby knew that prolonged runs (over 2 hours) in particular can cause micro-tears in both muscle and bone tissue, from which the body may not adequately recover, especially with legs not yet hardened by many years of training. His priority was that Suvick be healthy for the start line.
The result was a 3:38 first marathon, which handily surpassed her 4:00 Boston qualifying goal. Two months later, on a diet of light recovery running, Suvick followed up with a New York City Marathon PR of 3:22. After a recovery period Suvick followed an 18-week program supervised by Nobby to prepare her for Boston. This time hill, interval and sharpening segments were stacked upon her base training, while her long runs were kept to a conservative minimum. Suvick peaked beautifully with a 3:11 PR. Such a dream marathon progression was achieved by training that incorporated only a handful of long runs but a heap of aerobic running.
It's easy to dismiss Suvick as an anomaly who somehow bypassed "correct" training by running the marathon distance for the first time in her race. On the other hand, it's worth considering that perhaps many runners tend to overdo the long runs and lose the precious minutes of PR that they dreamed of and worked so hard for.
Coach Nobby advises, "One mistake I see many runners make is that they think they have to run a marathon to prepare for a marathon. Their long runs are too long and too fast, often piled on top of other quality workouts such as tempo runs and intervals. Worse yet, a lot of them don't even take recovery days in between. Next thing they know the training has overwhelmed the goal and they fall apart in the race like badly made sushi."
DISTANCE BEFORE SPEED
The first priority for any marathoner is to be able to cover the distance by developing their endurance. (I'm defining endurance as the ability to sustain adequate energy production over the time required to keep one running without having to stop or slow significantly.) Oxygen metabolism is the key factor here, as it is with any sport with continuous activity over 2 minutes or so. In the marathon the energy requirements are 99.9 percent aerobic, which is why all distance runners need to start there, as Suvick did. During base building it's important to construct a strong aerobic infrastructure through physiological and mechanical adaptations that will allow the runner to train efficiently in the years to come. The endurance base of the pyramid not only provides the bulk of energy for the distance race but also supplies the mortar that binds all the subsequent training bricks together. This process takes a few rounds of training, so for most runners it's well worth training for several years and racing shorter distances before attempting the marathon.
For the seasoned runner, base training is a time to take the aerobic capacity to another level. This is one system that will continue to build for many years so the more miles one can handle the better. According to Olympic gold medalist Peter Snell, Ph.D., runs over an hour and a half at around 70 percent of VO2 max give an optimal net gain in aerobic capacity. (See "Peter's Pacing Principles" below for a detailed discussion of this topic.)
Slower but longer runs don't achieve the same cardiovascular benefit, but according to the master himself, Arthur Lydiard, it takes only one carefully timed extra long run (2.5 to 3 hours) five to six weeks before the race to increase the capillary beds in the muscles. For multiple runs over 3 hours duration, however, the law of diminishing returns kicks in as far as any cardiovascular improvement is concerned. The mental benefit of knowing one can handle the distance must be weighed against the down-time required to recover.
ALLOW THE BODY TO ADAPT FULLY
Twice-weekly long runs in the base-training phase consisting of a medium long run (1.5 hours plus) and a long run (2 hours plus) adequately stretch the envelope of aerobic capacity. The specific adaptations being invoked here are threefold:
1) the ability of the body to continuously mobilize free fatty acids along with carbohydrates for energy consumption;
2) the enhancement of all oxygen carrying components from the cellular to the systemic level;
3) the ability of the physical structure to take the pounding.
Each time the body is subjected to a challenging workout, recovery time must be taken to allow it to fully adapt to the stress. This is how the runner improves. If this doesn't take place within a maximum of three days then the workload is too great and the training program needs to be revisited.
While there's a place for a race-distance long run in marathon training, this was designed for high-level athletes who could run aerobically at under 6:00 a mile. For many marathoners, especially first-timers, running that far would mean long runs of 4 hours or so. Prolonged runs like these, especially when done week after week, create enormous tissue damage, especially for the slower runner who hasn't yet developed their best mechanical efficiency or optimal recovery mechanisms. The body then has a big job recovering for the rest of the week and the athlete's chance of becoming chronically under-recovered from the outset is increased.
CHINESE PLATE SPINNING
Just like the art of Chinese plate spinning, effective training is a coordinated act of balance, juggling and precise timing of a number of elements. The goal of the grand finale (race) is to have a number of plates (energy systems) affected at the same time. To achieve this the performer can attend to only one plate at a time, but must be checking in and tweaking the already-spinning plates with the minimal action required to keep them in orbit. And so it is with good training. The first erected (and therefore longest-spinning) is the large endurance plate. Once it has its own momentum it can be left while the other smaller energy system plates (strength, anaerobic capacity, various paces and speed) are set in motion.
How long and how hard the long runs need be in order to keep the endurance plate spinning is very much dependant on the individual runner. Contrary to base training, where more is more, in the final month of training when the runner is gathering energy by tapering, less is more. Ideally by this stage many plates are in motion, and the runner, using precise effort, needs only to be tweaking those whose spin is slowing.
Progress calibration runs, time trials and lead-up races give vital feedback here as to which plates need help. For example, if the runner can't maintain their pace throughout the duration of a progress calibration run, time trial or race, either the pace plate (they went out too fast) or the endurance plate (they're running out of gas) needs tweaking. In the latter case a run of an hour and a half at 70 percent VO2 max with plenty of time to recover before race day will do the trick. If the runner finishes the run/race feeling fresh but unable to pick up the speed then their endurance is intact and a non-lactic acid speed session is in order.
As Coach Nobby puts it, the priority isn't an academic debate of mileage vs. speed but to determine what is necessary to deliver the runner to the start line in as healthy and fresh a condition as possible. And that will always entail keeping long runs in perspective.
Peter's Pacing Principles
Before earning his Ph.D. in exercise physiology, Peter Snell was, of course, a three-time Olympic gold medalist who also set five world records. Here is his advice on long runs:
Two primary systems are responsible for the delivery of oxygen to the muscles and its utilization for energy production: first, the heart and circulation, which deliver oxygen to the muscles. The muscles constitute the second system whereby oxygen is extracted from the blood and enters the mitochondria where the major energy-producing pathways reside.
VO2 max is a measure of the capacity for oxygen delivery more correctly known as aerobic power and depends on cardiac performance. Aerobic capacity refers to the extent to which a runner can sustain their aerobic power and this is dependent on muscle adaptation, which seems to take years to fully develop compared to VO2 max.
After VO2 max is fully developed in the first six months of endurance training, continued runs of about 70 percent VO2 max for at least 90 minutes are effective for further muscle adaptations, including capillary growth. By the process of glycogen depletion, muscle fibers initially active drop out after the first hour (roughly) and others, including fast-twitch, are called into action. Normally these fast-twitch fibers would only be recruited during high-intensity interval training. (Two roads to Rome here.) It's axiomatic that for a fiber to adapt it must be stimulated to contract; how much, how often is up in the air, which is why training is still an art.
If the distance running is too slow, it's likely that the energy can be provided largely by fat metabolism, thus sparing muscle glycogen. This means that once conditioned, the runner needs to run at close to maximal steady state pace during these longer runs.
Finally, all running presents an adaptive stimulus to the heart, the circulation and the muscle fibers. It's a question of understanding when the law of diminishing returns kicks in for a particular system.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lorraine Moller was a four-time Olympian for New Zealand who won the bronze medal in the marathon at the 1992 Games.
Showing posts with label endurance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label endurance. Show all posts
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Marathon Advantage - 18 weeks to your best marathon
http://www.runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=4432
By Pete Pfitzinger & Scott Douglas
As featured in the July August 2001 issue of Running Times Magazine
The marathon demands respect.
The physiological and psychological demands are extreme; therefore, you
must plan your preparation intelligently and thoroughly.
Unfortunately, "intelligent" and "thorough" aren’t the two words that most readily come to mind when thinking about some marathon training programs. Search the Web under "marathon training" and you’ll find thousands of well-meaning but only intermittently helpful sites. The training advice on many of these sites is based more on personal anecdotes and handed-down folk wisdom than exercise science. You’d be hard-pressed to summarize why they’re prescribing the type of preparation they present.
That’s too bad, because while running a marathon isn’t easy, training for it should be relatively simple. Running a marathon requires specific physiological attributes. The task at hand is to run 26.2 miles as fast as possible. The requirements for this feat in terms of fuel use, oxygen consumption, biomechanical requirements, and even psychological attributes are highly predictable.
By understanding the marathon’s physiological demands, such as having a high lactate threshold and the ability to store large amounts of glycogen in your muscles and liver, we can research the types of training that are most effective for improving marathon performance and explain why. Then we can investigate how to structure a training program so that it progresses logically to the desired end point.
In our book, Advanced Marathoning, we explain in detail both the physiological demands of the marathon and the reasoning behind the types of training we advise. Here, we will simply present a training plan that stems from these principles with brief explanations of each type of training.
This particular plan is for mid- to high-mileage marathoners who train 50 to 70 miles per week. The same principles can be used to devise schedules for other mileage ranges, several of which are included in Advanced Marathoning. We recommend an 18-week schedule for most situations. Eighteen weeks allows plenty of time to stimulate the necessary adaptations to improve your marathon performance, while short enough that you can focus your efforts without becoming bored with the process.
It is useful to divide your overall training schedule into phases, called mesocycles. The training schedules consist of four mesocycles, which focus on endurance, lactate threshold and endurance, race preparation, and tapering.
Before Starting the Schedule
This schedule is challenging right from the start and gets harder as your marathon approaches. So that you can progress as the training increases in quantity and quality, and to minimize your chances of injury, you should be able to complete the first week of the schedule without too much effort. A base-training program can get you to this level before beginning the marathon training program.
Be realistic in assessing whether you’re ready for the first week of the schedule. For example, if you’ve been running 30 miles per week and your longest run in the last several weeks is eight miles, now isn’t the time to jump to a 53-mile week containing a 15-mile run, as the first week of this schedule calls for. The idea behind the schedule isn’t to make you as tired as possible as soon as possible but to apply repeated training stresses that you absorb and benefit from.
As a rule, you should be running at least 40 miles a week before starting this schedule, and in the last month you should have comfortably completed a run close in length to the long run called for in the first week of the schedule.
Adjusting the Schedule
The schedule is presented in a day-by-day format. The main limitation with this approach is that it’s impossible to guess the myriad of outside factors that may influence your day-to-day nonrunning life. Work schedules, family life, relationships, school commitments, and Mother Nature all play a part in determining when you get to do your long runs and other aspects of marathon preparation. You’ll no doubt require some flexibility in your training and will need to juggle days around from time to time. That’s expected, and as long as you don’t try to make up for lost time by doing several hard days in a row, you should be able to avoid injury and overtraining. By reading more about the principles of training, you’ll be able to safely fine-tune your schedule to suit your circumstances.
Following the Schedule
Each column of the schedule represents a week’s training, counting down week by week until race day.
We have included the specific workout for each day as well as the category of training for that day. For example, on the Tuesday of the 7-weeks-to-go column, the specific workouts are a 6-mile run and a 4-mile run, and the category of training for that day is recovery. This allows you to quickly see the balance of training during each week and the progression of workouts from week to week. Look again at the schedule—it’s easy to see that with seven weeks to go to the marathon, there are four recovery days that week, along with a lactate threshold session, a long run, and a medium-long run.
Looking at the row for Sunday, you can see how the long runs progress and then taper in the last few weeks.
The workouts are divided into the following eight categories: long runs, medium-long runs, general aerobic, lactate threshold, ÝVÝO2max, speed, recovery, and marathon-specific runs. We’ll explain each of these categories briefly.
Long Runs
A long run is any run of 17 miles or longer. Obviously, the intention of long runs is to improve your endurance in preparation for the marathon’s 26.2 miles. To gain the most from your long runs, you need to do them at the correct intensity. Long runs shouldn’t be slow jogs during which you just accumulate time on your feet. The most beneficial intensity range for long runs is to gradually increase from a slow early pace as you warm up, reaching 20% slower than your goal marathon race pace at five miles and accelerating to 10% below marathon pace during the last five miles of the run. At this intensity range, a 22-mile long run will take approximately the same amount of time as your marathon.
Medium-Long Runs
A medium-long run is any run of 11 to 16 miles. Medium-long runs reinforce the physiological benefits of your long runs. To gain the greatest physiological benefits, the pace for these runs should be similar to the pace for long runs.
General Aerobic Runs
General aerobic runs include any run of ten miles or less that’s done at a steady pace. Faster runs of this length fall into the lactate threshold category, whereas slower runs are specifically for recovery. In other words, these are your standard, moderate-effort, putting-in-the-miles runs. The intention of your general aerobic runs is to enhance your overall aerobic conditioning through boosting your training volume; these runs improve your marathon readiness because many of the beneficial adaptations that improve endurance are related to the total volume of training.
Lactate Threshold
Lactate threshold runs are tempo runs in which you run for at least 20 minutes at your lactate threshold pace. This coincides closely with your current 15K to half marathon race pace. Tempo runs provide a strong stimulus to improve your lactate threshold pace, which leads to similar improvements in your marathon race pace. The lactate threshold sessions are done after a 2- to 3-mile warm-up. The tempo runs in this schedule are from four to seven miles long. Slower runners should run closer to their 15K race pace on tempo runs, whereas faster runners should run closer to their half marathon race pace.
VO2 max
VO2 max runs are intervals of 600 meters to 2,000 meters duration, which are run at 95 to 100 percent of your current VO2 max pace. This coincides closely with your current 3K to 5K race pace. These sessions provide a strong stimulus to improve your VO2 max.
Careful readers will notice that none of the VO2 max sessions calls for repeats longer than 1600 meters. The optimal duration for VO2 max intervals is two to six minutes; only elite runners will cover more than 1600 meters in a 6-minute interval. The longer your repeats are in these workouts, the more days you’ll need after the workout for recovery. Though VO2 max work is an important part of your marathon preparation, it’s not as crucial in the marathon as it is in races such as 5K and 10K. The VO2 max sessions in this schedule, then, feature repeats that strike a balance between being long enough to provide a powerful training stimulus and short enough to leave you fresh for your other important workouts of the week.
The same reasoning applies for the prescribed pace in these VO2 max workouts: whereas runners focusing on shorter races need to do some of their intervals closer to 3K race pace, marathoners gain maximum benefit from sticking to 5K race pace.
Speed
Speed runs are repetitions of 50 to 150 meters that improve leg speed and running form. These sessions are done after a thorough warm-up and often toward the end of a general aerobic run or a recovery run. Allow yourself plenty of rest between repetitions so that you can run each one with good technique.
Recovery
Recovery runs are relatively short runs done at a relaxed pace to enhance recovery for your next hard workout. These runs aren’t necessarily jogs, but they should be noticeably slower than your other workouts of the week.
Marathon-Pace Runs
Marathon-pace runs are medium-long or long runs during which you run most of the miles at your goal marathon pace. These runs provide the precise physiological benefit of allowing you to practice the pace and form of race day. They’re also a great confidence booster. Start these runs comfortably, and then run the last portion at marathon race pace. For example, if the schedule calls for 16 miles with 12 miles at marathon race pace, gradually pick up the pace during the first four miles, and then run the last 12 miles at marathon goal pace.
Doing Doubles
Sometimes marathoners benefit from running twice a day. This is obviously the case for elites cranking out 130-mile weeks, but it isn’t necessary on a regular basis if you’re running 50 to 70 miles per week. In this schedule, doubles are called for only on the occasional recovery day, with a total of 10 miles for the day. On these days, your recovery will be enhanced by doing a 6-miler and a 4-miler rather than putting in one 10-mile run. Instead of making you more tired, splitting your mileage like this on easy days will speed your recovery because each run will increase blood flow to your muscles yet take very little out of you.
A Word About "Hard" Days
Looking at this schedule, you might be wondering, "Where are all the ‘speed’ workouts?" After all, it’s normal to think that anyone preparing for a marathon should be training as hard as possible, and what better way to be sure that you’re doing so than by hitting the track at least once a week for lung-searing intervals, right?
Briefly put, we designed the schedule to provide the optimal stimuli to the physiological systems that most determine marathoning success—endurance, lactate threshold and VÝO2max, in that order. In the long run, it’s the long runs and tempo runs that have the most relevance to your performance on marathon day, not how often you’ve churned out a sterling set of half-mile repeats.
During your long buildup, understanding the components of marathon success can provide confidence that you’re training properly. Understanding marathon physiology not only will help you explain to your training buddies why you won’t be joining them for quarters next week but will also remind you why you’re doing a 15-miler in the middle of the workweek. If your running friends continue to chide you for not training hard enough, invite them to follow the schedules with you for a few weeks, then report back. We suspect they’ll have gotten the message by then.
Schedule : look up here : http://www.runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=4432&PageNum=5
By Pete Pfitzinger & Scott Douglas
As featured in the July August 2001 issue of Running Times Magazine
The marathon demands respect.
The physiological and psychological demands are extreme; therefore, you
must plan your preparation intelligently and thoroughly.
Unfortunately, "intelligent" and "thorough" aren’t the two words that most readily come to mind when thinking about some marathon training programs. Search the Web under "marathon training" and you’ll find thousands of well-meaning but only intermittently helpful sites. The training advice on many of these sites is based more on personal anecdotes and handed-down folk wisdom than exercise science. You’d be hard-pressed to summarize why they’re prescribing the type of preparation they present.
That’s too bad, because while running a marathon isn’t easy, training for it should be relatively simple. Running a marathon requires specific physiological attributes. The task at hand is to run 26.2 miles as fast as possible. The requirements for this feat in terms of fuel use, oxygen consumption, biomechanical requirements, and even psychological attributes are highly predictable.
By understanding the marathon’s physiological demands, such as having a high lactate threshold and the ability to store large amounts of glycogen in your muscles and liver, we can research the types of training that are most effective for improving marathon performance and explain why. Then we can investigate how to structure a training program so that it progresses logically to the desired end point.
In our book, Advanced Marathoning, we explain in detail both the physiological demands of the marathon and the reasoning behind the types of training we advise. Here, we will simply present a training plan that stems from these principles with brief explanations of each type of training.
This particular plan is for mid- to high-mileage marathoners who train 50 to 70 miles per week. The same principles can be used to devise schedules for other mileage ranges, several of which are included in Advanced Marathoning. We recommend an 18-week schedule for most situations. Eighteen weeks allows plenty of time to stimulate the necessary adaptations to improve your marathon performance, while short enough that you can focus your efforts without becoming bored with the process.
It is useful to divide your overall training schedule into phases, called mesocycles. The training schedules consist of four mesocycles, which focus on endurance, lactate threshold and endurance, race preparation, and tapering.
Before Starting the Schedule
This schedule is challenging right from the start and gets harder as your marathon approaches. So that you can progress as the training increases in quantity and quality, and to minimize your chances of injury, you should be able to complete the first week of the schedule without too much effort. A base-training program can get you to this level before beginning the marathon training program.
Be realistic in assessing whether you’re ready for the first week of the schedule. For example, if you’ve been running 30 miles per week and your longest run in the last several weeks is eight miles, now isn’t the time to jump to a 53-mile week containing a 15-mile run, as the first week of this schedule calls for. The idea behind the schedule isn’t to make you as tired as possible as soon as possible but to apply repeated training stresses that you absorb and benefit from.
As a rule, you should be running at least 40 miles a week before starting this schedule, and in the last month you should have comfortably completed a run close in length to the long run called for in the first week of the schedule.
Adjusting the Schedule
The schedule is presented in a day-by-day format. The main limitation with this approach is that it’s impossible to guess the myriad of outside factors that may influence your day-to-day nonrunning life. Work schedules, family life, relationships, school commitments, and Mother Nature all play a part in determining when you get to do your long runs and other aspects of marathon preparation. You’ll no doubt require some flexibility in your training and will need to juggle days around from time to time. That’s expected, and as long as you don’t try to make up for lost time by doing several hard days in a row, you should be able to avoid injury and overtraining. By reading more about the principles of training, you’ll be able to safely fine-tune your schedule to suit your circumstances.
Following the Schedule
Each column of the schedule represents a week’s training, counting down week by week until race day.
We have included the specific workout for each day as well as the category of training for that day. For example, on the Tuesday of the 7-weeks-to-go column, the specific workouts are a 6-mile run and a 4-mile run, and the category of training for that day is recovery. This allows you to quickly see the balance of training during each week and the progression of workouts from week to week. Look again at the schedule—it’s easy to see that with seven weeks to go to the marathon, there are four recovery days that week, along with a lactate threshold session, a long run, and a medium-long run.
Looking at the row for Sunday, you can see how the long runs progress and then taper in the last few weeks.
The workouts are divided into the following eight categories: long runs, medium-long runs, general aerobic, lactate threshold, ÝVÝO2max, speed, recovery, and marathon-specific runs. We’ll explain each of these categories briefly.
Long Runs
A long run is any run of 17 miles or longer. Obviously, the intention of long runs is to improve your endurance in preparation for the marathon’s 26.2 miles. To gain the most from your long runs, you need to do them at the correct intensity. Long runs shouldn’t be slow jogs during which you just accumulate time on your feet. The most beneficial intensity range for long runs is to gradually increase from a slow early pace as you warm up, reaching 20% slower than your goal marathon race pace at five miles and accelerating to 10% below marathon pace during the last five miles of the run. At this intensity range, a 22-mile long run will take approximately the same amount of time as your marathon.
Medium-Long Runs
A medium-long run is any run of 11 to 16 miles. Medium-long runs reinforce the physiological benefits of your long runs. To gain the greatest physiological benefits, the pace for these runs should be similar to the pace for long runs.
General Aerobic Runs
General aerobic runs include any run of ten miles or less that’s done at a steady pace. Faster runs of this length fall into the lactate threshold category, whereas slower runs are specifically for recovery. In other words, these are your standard, moderate-effort, putting-in-the-miles runs. The intention of your general aerobic runs is to enhance your overall aerobic conditioning through boosting your training volume; these runs improve your marathon readiness because many of the beneficial adaptations that improve endurance are related to the total volume of training.
Lactate Threshold
Lactate threshold runs are tempo runs in which you run for at least 20 minutes at your lactate threshold pace. This coincides closely with your current 15K to half marathon race pace. Tempo runs provide a strong stimulus to improve your lactate threshold pace, which leads to similar improvements in your marathon race pace. The lactate threshold sessions are done after a 2- to 3-mile warm-up. The tempo runs in this schedule are from four to seven miles long. Slower runners should run closer to their 15K race pace on tempo runs, whereas faster runners should run closer to their half marathon race pace.
VO2 max
VO2 max runs are intervals of 600 meters to 2,000 meters duration, which are run at 95 to 100 percent of your current VO2 max pace. This coincides closely with your current 3K to 5K race pace. These sessions provide a strong stimulus to improve your VO2 max.
Careful readers will notice that none of the VO2 max sessions calls for repeats longer than 1600 meters. The optimal duration for VO2 max intervals is two to six minutes; only elite runners will cover more than 1600 meters in a 6-minute interval. The longer your repeats are in these workouts, the more days you’ll need after the workout for recovery. Though VO2 max work is an important part of your marathon preparation, it’s not as crucial in the marathon as it is in races such as 5K and 10K. The VO2 max sessions in this schedule, then, feature repeats that strike a balance between being long enough to provide a powerful training stimulus and short enough to leave you fresh for your other important workouts of the week.
The same reasoning applies for the prescribed pace in these VO2 max workouts: whereas runners focusing on shorter races need to do some of their intervals closer to 3K race pace, marathoners gain maximum benefit from sticking to 5K race pace.
Speed
Speed runs are repetitions of 50 to 150 meters that improve leg speed and running form. These sessions are done after a thorough warm-up and often toward the end of a general aerobic run or a recovery run. Allow yourself plenty of rest between repetitions so that you can run each one with good technique.
Recovery
Recovery runs are relatively short runs done at a relaxed pace to enhance recovery for your next hard workout. These runs aren’t necessarily jogs, but they should be noticeably slower than your other workouts of the week.
Marathon-Pace Runs
Marathon-pace runs are medium-long or long runs during which you run most of the miles at your goal marathon pace. These runs provide the precise physiological benefit of allowing you to practice the pace and form of race day. They’re also a great confidence booster. Start these runs comfortably, and then run the last portion at marathon race pace. For example, if the schedule calls for 16 miles with 12 miles at marathon race pace, gradually pick up the pace during the first four miles, and then run the last 12 miles at marathon goal pace.
Doing Doubles
Sometimes marathoners benefit from running twice a day. This is obviously the case for elites cranking out 130-mile weeks, but it isn’t necessary on a regular basis if you’re running 50 to 70 miles per week. In this schedule, doubles are called for only on the occasional recovery day, with a total of 10 miles for the day. On these days, your recovery will be enhanced by doing a 6-miler and a 4-miler rather than putting in one 10-mile run. Instead of making you more tired, splitting your mileage like this on easy days will speed your recovery because each run will increase blood flow to your muscles yet take very little out of you.
A Word About "Hard" Days
Looking at this schedule, you might be wondering, "Where are all the ‘speed’ workouts?" After all, it’s normal to think that anyone preparing for a marathon should be training as hard as possible, and what better way to be sure that you’re doing so than by hitting the track at least once a week for lung-searing intervals, right?
Briefly put, we designed the schedule to provide the optimal stimuli to the physiological systems that most determine marathoning success—endurance, lactate threshold and VÝO2max, in that order. In the long run, it’s the long runs and tempo runs that have the most relevance to your performance on marathon day, not how often you’ve churned out a sterling set of half-mile repeats.
During your long buildup, understanding the components of marathon success can provide confidence that you’re training properly. Understanding marathon physiology not only will help you explain to your training buddies why you won’t be joining them for quarters next week but will also remind you why you’re doing a 15-miler in the middle of the workweek. If your running friends continue to chide you for not training hard enough, invite them to follow the schedules with you for a few weeks, then report back. We suspect they’ll have gotten the message by then.
Schedule : look up here : http://www.runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=4432&PageNum=5
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