2024 Advanced Training and Racing Thread (still competitive jerks) (Read 245 times)

Mikkey – thanks for your advice, it’s really appreciated and good news. I have no issue to up my weekly mileage; my issue is my resistance to do the monotonous 3 hour jogs. I will likely run Frankfurt in October this year and might not be ready for a sub 3:30h by then. But will try to include some double days this cycle. Goal is to be within 90-100km. And I hope to hit that on around 12 weeks this cycle – and add some cycling on the off days. Hope the summer won’t be too hot.

WCrunner – thanks for sharing your experience. I will need to develop a good way to improve slow-twitch muscle fibers – but since I hate slow and long easy jogs, maybe I should add some weight training? Btw my ag % is sub 60% so you are miles ahead of me. And I am way more limited in my abilities but want to get more out of it too!

DavePNW – thanks for your input. I know that those long monotonous runs of 20-22miles have worked wonders for me – bringing my marathon time down from 4:22h to 3:52h and in general helping avoid hitting the wall after 35km. But I hate them and am looking for a short cut (and maybe that’s really the answer – just suck it up). I also prefer marathon over shorter distances, I might mix things up a bit in the future.

Tyson Fury – very sorry for the L. But you will likely beat him next time.

Mmerkle – maybe a few 2 hour runs per week with a good amount of mp work in there will do the trick? I will check it out. Maybe I will revert and go longer, rather than shorter again. I would just really hate hitting the wall.

Jmac – I have only run 2 marathons so far. I know that the long runs worked really well for me but I hated them. They were a mental drag. I wanted to try something new – and am currently thinking of building out the 2 hour runs rather than one 3 hours run per week. And maybe do doubles on those days, i.e. same time on feet within 24 hours, but just split up. I will see how that goes. I will also do one 3 hour-ish slow run – this is for peace of mind. I am just starting with the marathon distance, and hence still in the trial-and-error phase….

Steve – interesting – I am a big Endorphin Pro fan and can’t wait until the 4s are discounted. I am sure you will crush it this time. Great training block once again.

Flavio – I used Hansons once, and bonked. I never had the impression that I could nail the goal pace. With JD it’s different – I feel prepared, though it’s a harder plan. The max is 20 miles I believe and 150 minutes max. I will think about time on feet – I will start incorporating the 10-14 miles workouts once I have upped my overall mileage.

RP – great work out there. Where is the report. Might be a long one 😊

71% AG is all I need to know - it is not up to potential - that's all. Means, training was not appropriate. Actually, when he said he didn't see a reason to run longer than two hours when marathon training, that was enough for me to hear.

You're still making invalid assumptions about runners being able to run to the same level at all distances when that is patently false. Ron Clarke, world record holder at 5,000m (AG 95.1) and 10,000m (AG 95.2) had only a 85.5 AG for the marathon. Note that an AG equivalent in the marathon to Clarke's 5,000m and 10,000m times would have been more than 4:30 faster than the world record at the time. Or take a more extreme scenario: take any sprinter, or even a short middle distance runner.  Would you seriously expect them to perform as well at the marathon as at their best and chosen events?

Or perhaps you think there is only one way to train for a marathon?  A two hour training run, usually over a hilly route, got me 15-16 miles during a 60-80 mile week.  It's been a while since I've read Hanson, but I seem to recall some of his training schedules called for only a 16 mile long run.  And if my training was so inappropriate why was I up and over Heartbreak Hill in my first marathon before I even realized where I was, then ran strong to the finish?  Claim all you want that my training is not appropriate for you, but you have no basis for making a sweeping claim that it is not appropriate for me or anyone else.

 

I strongly believe that weekly mileage is much more important than the long run with regards to avoiding bonking.

I do agree with this, but I also take the “why not both?” approach. And not weekly mileage over 3-4 months, but weekly mileage over 3-4 years.

Mick Jogger - if you hate the monotony of a 3 hr training run, have you ever tried running with a partner or group? I used to do 100% of my runs solo. I didn’t necessarily love the long steady ones, but I didn’t mind them too much; I just looked at it as part of the program. A few years ago I started meeting up with a group on Saturday morning for my LR. Oh man that makes things so much nicer. It’s my favorite run of the week now, I look forward to it all week long. I’ve met a ton of great people, and have enjoyed becoming more a part of the local running community. Of course it’s spoiled me—when I do need to do a long solo run for scheduling reasons, it’s such drudgery!

Calbears - Your performances are amazing and the way you deliver every time is just incredible.  I don't understand why you need to put down other good performances which are a few minutes or percent slower.  Quite often, the less gifted athlete is a better coach because they have to work harder for it.

Calbears - Your performances are amazing and the way you deliver every time is just incredible.  I don't understand why you need to put down other good performances which are a few minutes or percent slower.  Quite often, the less gifted athlete is a better coach because they have to work harder for it.

+1 to all of this

Steve - Nobody knows how your race will go. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Mentally what helped me was to line up 2 marathon races 3 months apart, so that I didn't have enough time to build up as much anxiety about it.

Cal - You've tried to establish coaching authority based on your results as a racer. I'm sure you can understand that a great programmer does not necessarily make a great manager.

I'm not saying your input is void, I'm just saying it comes with the caveat that that's what worked for you, in your experience. Will that work for everybody? Probably not. Will it work for most? Probably yes.

By the way, few questions for you:

1 - when is your next race ?

2 - Are you still on the strength training regime ?

3 - Has your biceps healed / improved ?

4 - Why do you list your PRs in that weird way, instead of time?

me - I'm officially stuck in a rut. It's a similar feeling to what happened last year around the Valencia marathon. Feeling weaker and slower than usual. This started after the trail race, I was doing fine until then. I remember I effortlessly ran 70s for 400 and now I can't break 75. I am having more stress than usual lately, so I guess it could be that.

I've never understood this debate that happens every year (every few months?) in this thread. A separate jerks thread was created, and then people get up in arms about people being jerks. Maybe I don't know what the point of the two separate threads are then.

Steve - still dealing with Plantar issues, although I'm just going through the "fuck it" phase again and trying to ramp up, but I've really enjoyed not being a slave to a running calendar at the moment. Being 20 pounds heavier than I was for my CIM PR though does suck. But I'm going to keep trying to get the mileage up.

I obviously haven't kept up as much this year - what are you doing differently this time around for your marathon? I feel like I wrote something a while back about potential changes to training and especially your taper, but I think you may have gotten a new coach since that dude who basically ran you into the ground.

Merk - I would try that. The 10M + 5K@LT is so hard you can only do it during a race, but it's such an awesome workout if you can: it pushes you to the limit at 10M, and then asks you to find a way to run even harder. It's such a great way to teach your body to enter what the end of a marathon feels like.

Flavio - if Bekele wins a medal in the marathon I'll never show my face here again.

Age Grading - have stated many times I think it's a complete scam meant to make old people feel good about themselves. So there's my jerky comment of the day - anyone who uses Age Grading to compare to times of younger people are fooling themselves (although it's fair to compare yourself at similar ages across similar distances). Yeah, I'll try to run a Moose Mug at some point when I'm older, but unless I somehow blow that number out of the water, I highly doubt I'll be a better runner than I was when I ran my PR at a lower AG. The sample bias in AG is too great to ignore when you have so many people running as professionals in their 20s and 30s and effectively none in their 50s.

Speaking of Bekele, has anyone kept up with JT Reeves? I haven't seen him post in ages and he was always a great person to talk to.

What my past coaches agreed on was that ideally one would first work on getting faster, then extend that to the longer distances. That is usually how athletes develop, so, IMHOFM (In my humble opinion as a failed marathoner), it would be more efficient for you to work towards the faster 5k, 10k and HM times first, then tackle the marathon from the better speed, because you can iterate much faster due to the shorter recoveries from those races. It's much quicker for you to identify ways to improve your training. That's the sane thing to do.

If, however, you have been bitten by the marathon zombies 🧟‍♂️ and can't help yourself, read on.

Note how Emile Cairess workouts were rarely over 2 hours. I'm fairly sure that's standard with elite athletes.

For us mere mortals, the books usually institute a hard top limit of 150 minutes and I personally agree with that. Never run more than 2h30. It's a game of diminishing returns beyond that.

I strongly believe that weekly mileage is much more important than the long run with regards to avoiding bonking.

Love this. I'd like to add (IMHOFM haha) that you don't need to do that 2.5 hour run every SINGLE week. I think it's probably enough, for most people, to get a few in between 3-6 weeks out.

JMac Sounds like a good idea. My next marathon is probably November. I'll start looking for well-placed HMs. That or I'll summon the darkwave lol. What's with you and Bekele?

flavio Last time you were in a rut, is there anything in your log; workouts, comments or both, that resembles what's happening now? Maybe hopping in a race or two can help you out of it. I know I'm guilty of this sometimes but I think a lot of training and not enough racing can lead to ruts. Even if it's good training. Doesn't even have to be an A race. Just a nice "fuck it" rust buster race.

Steve This year I have been focusing more on protein intake. I do think it makes a difference. I didn't realize how little I was getting until I started counting the grams per day. If you don't consume enough protein, you start slowly losing muscle. That's no good. I'm getting excited for your marathon. Hope you are too.