Then there is also, "Cogito, ergo sumo."  I think, therefore I wrestle.

SLO, I am sending the link to this thread to Bart and tell him you called him "this Yasso character."  The formula will work, but only if you do all the other things to run the marathon.  Number one is total miles, number two is long runs.  Incidentally, he is quick to tell everyone that he did not come up with this formula.  It was Burfoot, but Bart popularized it and it came to be known as "Yasso 800's."

Bill, let me share a story with you.  Riblet is doing a summer track program where the emphasis is on teaching the kids form, so they do more drills than just running all morning.  The coach is a former college track star.  Riblet goes down there on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I often take him there, run on the track and bring him home.  Believe me, you are getting good instruction with these short form drills, using the front of the foot to push off.  Just trust the coach.  Secondly, about running slow.  Yesterday I ran slowly on the track, 9:40 pace (2:25 every quarter, like clockwork).  I was thinking as I ran along, "No one would run this slowly on a track," but it was not my day to do interval work so that's what it was. 

Well, while I was just jogging around, the track coach was also giving workouts to this Ethiopian guy who is training for the Olympics in the long jump.  So he would give the young boys a drill to do, coach them on the drill and then give the elite guy something to do.  His workout was awesome to watch. Anyway, when the guy got done with all his drills he began to run on the track near me to cool down.  He ran in the outside lane of the track at the exact same pace I did!  Here is this elite athlete running next to me at 9:40's!

So I figure if he can run this slow, anyone can.  Don't discount the benefit to you of going very easy on days you are supposed to go easy.  I know your coach, and he is going to give you some workouts this fall that will challenge you, and you will be very grateful then for the days he lets you run slow.  Also, these slow runs allow you to go into the key workouts fresh, and you need to be fresh for the quality work he will expect you to do.  I can't tell you how excited I am to see you doing this.  You are a good runner now, but you are going to be a hugh runner in October.

I ran 5 miles, then stretched at the Y.  I am still not acclimated to the heat and it is fatiguing me, but I press on.  Spareribs

Since Ribs expanded upon the "running slow" topic., allow me to expand upon my "trepidation" to slow down.  As I said, I'll do it, but there are reasons it is worrisome for me.

During my 2 to 3 years of Pfitz training (and the 6 months or so of Low HR training) the LR's were (typically) prescribed to be run at MP plus 10%.  So for an 8:30 MP, you'd add 51 seconds (10%) and get 9:21's.  And I did them at that pace.

Later on as the Marathons approached, the plans added some MP runs - say 15 miles with 12 at MP.  I did them at that pace (MP 8:30) too, but usually they felt a bit harder than what they should have felt, but I chalked that up to my Summer H&H.

The races showed I probably wasn't able to hold 8:30's for the whole way.

Then I started the "All Quality, Low Quantity" training I did before Bayshore.  Every week 1 Tempo run, 1 Interval run and 1 Long run.  And it worked.  I got out of my rut, got faster, and all of a sudden 8:30's felt "normal" something that had never happened before.  My training log shows that virtually every run I did for months before the race were done at or near MP.  It made all the sense in the world to me to run many miles at MP.  Hoping to run 10% faster on raceday than what I had trained at hadn't worked previously ...

Fast forward to June and the H&H is back which understandably causes a slowdown.  But I decided to see if I could persist and run at MP - hopefully still feeling "normal".  And it has!  Virtually every run for June was at MP as well.  No aches and pains or tiredness either.

So you can see why I may be hesitant to back off.  But Coach is very, very good and he's the expert and I've asked for his help.  I tell people all the time to slow down.  So it's time for me to listen to Coach (and to my own advice) and slow it down to what is prescribed for the workout at hand.

Bill

ETA:  Holly, Race results are what are used to come up with the training paces.  Coach used my recent 5K (22:49).  Your race results are very inline with mine.  Not much adjustments are needed.

Yasso's........I'm not much of a marathoner but got to thinking.......Yesterday I did 8 x 800 and averaged 3:15mins for each repeat  on 90 secs rest. If I'm to believe this Yasso character then I could reasonable expect to do a marathon in 3hr 15 mins........Obvisously I've not trained speciffically to do a marathon but yesterdays interval session has got me thinking.

I always thought that Yasso's are an indicator what you can't do, not what you can.  In other words if you can't hold 3:15 for the 800's then it is very likely that you won't be able run a 3:15 marathon, but if you can hold 3:15 for the 800's that doesn't mean that you'll be able to run a 3:15 marathon.

Right or wrong?

Tramps,

Thanks for the input.  The two weeks of lesser miles....27+ and 19+ were weeks that I had races in.

Last year I averaged about 27 miles/week. I didn't do any marathons and my biking was triple of what I'm doing this year.

Simply by jacking my long runs up from my 12 and 13 milers to 16 - 18 milers with a few 20's thrown in for good measure I could be looking at 60 miles per week pretty easily.

One reason I don't do many marathons is the training.....I feel like either my sprint distance racing has to suffer because I don't want to take the off days and am left with less than a full recovery for a race or my marathon training has to suffer so I can get fully recovered for a race leaving me short on my weekly mileage.

So here it goes......I'm officially in Marathon training for Sept 27th !  We'll see what these legs can do.

Happy Canada Day, Tall.  Hope you get better fast.

Holly, you are an amazing runner.  Hey, PBJ Jr. is 7.  He loves baseball and Metallica - is he a match for your DD?

Fizzy lifting (increased the weights by 10% - hey, it's a new quarter), 25 minutes on the precor (just like, ER, you know), and sweaty spinning this morn.  One of those mornings where you keep sweating even after the shower.   I still love my gym.  They played "Paul Blart, Mall Cop" on the cardio cinema screen this morning.  Nice. 

Tomorrow I will run again.

Hey Tall! I was just thinking about you on my run last night, wondering how you were doing. I'm still betting you've got some nerve involvement in there. My PT said that piriformis syndrome is almost always precipitated by sciatica (it's frequently one of the symptoms of sciatica, not a stand alone ailment). Just a thought... but you're taking the right approach for the most part. WRFB and I were both told to stop running (too much impact) for awhile to let the nerve calm down. Good luck with yours, I hope to see you back strong this fall!

Hey PBJ!

Byll, thanks for the info. I agree 100%. I always have a hard time slowing down, and now I'm sort of forced to. Just don't have the speed anymore. I do hope to get it back, but I'm just slogging out the runs as I can. I have a mile race tomorrow, and just hoping to hit 7 minutes if possible. It'll be my worst time, but I just want to get all the races in the series done and don't care about placing this year. Like Holly, I'll be watching what you do because your paces are a lot like mine... and your race results have been similar to mine lately!

Deb, you crack me up. And yes, have a cookie.

Holly, Happy Birthday to that little pistol of a DD of yours! (Hannah Montana and Metallica? Interesting mix...) Pancakes are always a treat, my kids love breakfast for dinner! And good luck with that blister. Mine is fine today. In fact, it was fine Sunday. How can something that just about brought you to a dead stop at the end of the race be a non-issue the next day? Who knows, but that's my foot.

Aamos, Peter's surgery was Monday, he came out of it just fine but when the doc got in there they found much more damage to the meniscus and arthritic changes than suspected. Apparently a knee can still function pretty well with a third of the meniscus gone... and that's where he's at now. Lots of bone spurs and inflammation to remove. Drilled litte holes in shin bone end to stimulate new cartilage growth. So... he'll be better post-surgery, but not as good as we were hoping. But he drove himself to work today and will drive to PT... he sure is a stubborn independent cuss.

Ok, lots on the thread today but I've already forgotten most of it. I'm going to RAL today, just 5 or so. We're on tap to have a beautiful weekend and I have 4 days off!! I'll get to a race report soon, but it's most fun to hear from the first-timers and Tammy's RR is a must read thread.

 

Aamos, Peter's surgery was Monday, he came out of it just fine but when the doc got in there they found much more damage to the meniscus and arthritic changes than suspected. Apparently a knee can still function pretty well with a third of the meniscus gone... and that's where he's at now. Lots of bone spurs and inflammation to remove. Drilled litte holes in shin bone end to stimulate new cartilage growth.

 Cripes, this sounds painful!  (makes me shudder . . .)