Marathon Base Building (Read 1740 times)

Below are a lot of questions of how I should build a base. With a solid base I plan to go into a training schedule once I know which marathons I plan to run.

How should a person build their base? What mpw is a good base for marathon running? What are the general rules to build to that base without the risk of injury? If speedwork is added would more days of rest be added with longer easy runs? Or would you cut mpw? When are doubles introduced or acceptable? (I’m slow, getting in longer runs takes time. May need to run in the morning and at lunch.) Are there planned cutback weeks?

 I thought with increasing miles my speed would increase. That did not happen in 2012, so my plan to increase speed is to race shorter distances.

I am a list person. Knowing what I need to do for the week and checking it off is rewarding.

I am a list person. Knowing what I need to do for the week and checking it off is rewarding.

Have you considered a running coach -- virtual or real-life?  Sounds like one would be right up your ally given you like the list of work.

As to your base questions...most are equivalent to "what flavor of pie should I like best?"....that is, there's a lot of personal preference to the answer and you'll have to find what works for you in the end.

However...one guiding principle that seems to relentlessly hold true is "Run lots, mostly easy. Sometimes hard.".

A base to me means the following

Run lots of 40-60 minute runs at whatever speed I feel like 

one or two medium long run about 1.5 times a regular run (60-70 min for me)

A weekend long run about twice as long a the regular run (90-120 min).  

Add doubles whenever you can without over doing (1-2 per week is fine, make sure one of the runs is super easy).  

Aim to run 7-9 times a week - 6-7 hours total.  

 

I think 40 miles a week average for 6 months would be plenty to finish a marathon comfortably.  More is obviously better, without going overboard.

Pretty much this. Get up to doing several hour-long runs, a couple of 90 minute runs, and a 2 1/2 hour long run every week. I always feel best when I can run every day (my log is a disaster right now) and with a total of about 9 - 9.5 hours a week of running.

It's going to be a while before you have to think about doubles. I think a common approach is to double when you get over 70mpw. I ran some doubles at 60mpw over the summer so I could take a day off, but now I'm moving to 70mpw on one workout a day. But if that's what you need to do to make your training fit into your schedule, then do it.

It's going to be a while before you have to think about doubles. I think a common approach is to double when you get over 70mpw. I ran some doubles at 60mpw over the summer so I could take a day off, but now I'm moving to 70mpw on one workout a day. But if that's what you need to do to make your training fit into your schedule, then do it.

That you shouldn't "double" unless you are running 70MPW is a COMPLETE myth.  In fact, I believe it was created by letsrunners who don't want to run too much and hobbling around 60MPW and never want to double and they started saying that and, the more often they say it, the more true it had become.

All due respect, I don't think you'd actually "doubled" before???  Let me tell ya, if you're really getting up your mileage, you probably don't feel like doubling because then you feel like all you do during the day is to put on running clothes, go out for a run, come home, change, take a shower and, with a brief rest, you'll be putting running clothes again for the next round of your run!!  The fact is; the sooner you can start "doubling", the better off you'll be.  I very strongly encourage high school kids to start experimenting doubles.  People who say you should wait till you get up to 70MPW to double are the ones, for some reason, who had mistaken that you actually divide your daily run into 2 to double.  It is not so at all.  You ADD ONTO your daily runs.  If you're running 12-miles per day, you add on, let's say, 3 or 4 miles in the morning and THEN you do your daily 12-mile run.  You don't go 12-mile into 4 and 8.  That's the wrong approach.

From my own experience, the best way to get into shape is to run for a half an hour in the morning, regardless of how fast or how slow, and an hour in the afternoon.  I don't care how far you run; but you do that and you'll be flying in 4-6 weeks time.  If you're not quite that level, try 15-20 minutes in the morning, regardless of how fast or slow, and 30-45 minutes in the afternoon.  

Okay, this does not quite answer the original question but I've been sick the last couple of days and I need to come back and do so if I want to answer it...  Sorry!

That you shouldn't "double" unless you are running 70MPW is a COMPLETE myth.  In fact, I believe it was created by letsrunners who don't want to run too much and hobbling around 60MPW and never want to double and they started saying that and, the more often they say it, the more true it had become.

 

All due respect, I don't think you'd actually "doubled" before???  Let me tell ya, if you're really getting up your mileage, you probably don't feel like doubling because then you feel like all you do during the day is to put on running clothes, go out for a run, come home, change, take a shower and, with a brief rest, you'll be putting running clothes again for the next round of your run!!  The fact is; the sooner you can start "doubling", the better off you'll be.  I very strongly encourage high school kids to start experimenting doubles.  People who say you should wait till you get up to 70MPW to double are the ones, for some reason, who had mistaken that you actually divide your daily run into 2 to double.  It is not so at all.  You ADD ONTO your daily runs.  If you're running 12-miles per day, you add on, let's say, 3 or 4 miles in the morning and THEN you do your daily 12-mile run.  You don't go 12-mile into 4 and 8.  That's the wrong approach.

 

From my own experience, the best way to get into shape is to run for a half an hour in the morning, regardless of how fast or how slow, and an hour in the afternoon.  I don't care how far you run; but you do that and you'll be flying in 4-6 weeks time.  If you're not quite that level, try 15-20 minutes in the morning, regardless of how fast or slow, and 30-45 minutes in the afternoon.  

 

Okay, this does not quite answer the original question but I've been sick the last couple of days and I need to come back and do so if I want to answer it...  Sorry!

nobby, like I said, I was running doubles at 60mpw...usually 4 miles in the afternoon after a hard AM run. That was my plan thru last summer and fall. I did it because I still felt like I needed one rest day per week, and that's how I made the schedule work. So with all due respect, I don't know why you're coming on so heavy here.

Now I'm headed into a cycle where I'll be up to 70+ mpw, but I'm no longer taking days off. I think I have a realistic plan for getting my miles, and it doesn't require me to run doubles. 

But I still don't get why somebody running lower mileage would necessarily want to bother with doubles. I mean if they want to experiment, fine, but is it really going to translate into better results for a 30 or 40 mpw runner? I dont see the logic behind that.

I think the idea that doubles are great (an idea that I've been propagating) basically comes from the sort of Platonic form of ideal training. When we talk about ideal training, we lift training up out of the messy conditions that we always train in and try to sort of imagine "the perfect" training given a runner who has few other life stresses and a neutral running temperament and physiology.

The Platonic form of training pretty much includes two sessions of running a day. It probably also includes mileage of over 70 per week, at least in the base phase, making the question of doubles under 70 mpw moot in terms of "ideal training."

Whether two sessions of running a day is good training for any runner at X mileage level in the real world is pretty much unanswerable in the abstract. Without knowing more about the specific background of the runner, all we can do is gesture at the Platonic form of training; the regulative ideal that none of us will ever actually execute.

As a sometime coach of younger runners, I pretty much always encourage my older high school runners to play with doubles during the summer, even if they are only at 40 or 50 miles per week. That's because if they ever end up being college runners or want to pursue competitive running at the highest levels, their training will eventually include doubles, so you want to lay the groundwork for that habit early.

If you are an older runner with a job and life and kids, etc. you can run perfectly well without doubles, and you can probably accomplish just about everything you want to accomplish in running with singles. 

But the reason folks like Nobby get sorta frustrated with the question of "doubles at X mileage" is that the question of when and how to adjust the frequency of training is only tangentially related to the question of weekly mileage.

Abstract?

 

Hey Jeff, should I run a second run today?

Nope. (Great work yesterday, dude.)