Forums >General Running>Running faster on tired legs
Rhode Island Road Runners
Why is it sideways?
Was it all a dream?
A Saucy Wench
I have become Death, the destroyer of electronic gadgets
"When I got too tired to run anymore I just pretended I wasnt tired and kept running anyway" - dd, age 7
I was going to name this thread "Can somebody point me to the thread that includes suggestions on how to run faster on tired legs?" because I am sure it is addressed somewhere. My problem: maintaing my pace in the last 5 miles of the marathon. The symptoms: pacing is great for the first twenty miles and then declines, and I miss my goal time. The latest example I have is Hyannis from two days ago... plugging along cranking out 735's +/- until I got to 20... then they fell to 8's and 9's. Happily, these declines in pace are far less than the previous several, but they still exist. Does anybody have any suggestions? I was hoping to run hyannis in 3:21 and came in just under 3:29, which is exciting but when I look at the graph of my splits, it looks a lot like all the others!
Long dead ... But my stench lingers !
Thanks for the replies!! Knobby - to your questions... that pic is from the half in hyannis in 2007. Two days ago it was about 37 and overcast before the rain came in when i was on mile 23 or so. I wore two long sleeve tech shirts and tights... white knit gloves were on and off intermittently. I tend to get cold on long runs, especially as soon as I finish. I get those disgusting gross white fingers as soon as I finish. I didnt sweat much in the race - at least not much in terms of drops of sweat. In most marathons I have run, I get quad and calf cramps. this one I did not... It just seemed as if I could not turn my legs over any faster than i was and it was coming up with 8's at the end. Nutritionally, I never felt hungry during the race. I had gu at 5/10/15 and gatorade at every stop (~ 3miles). I had planned another gu at 20 but was kind of gassy by 20 so i skipped it. I felt well nourished both during and after the race (normally I am famished) - this was an area that I concentrated on after the problems I had in October. Could it be mental toughness - sure. I have a hard time convincing myself 100% that I can run a certain time until I have actally done it. Looking at the logs of the folks that have replied, they are putting in a hell of a lot more miles than me (which is making me believe the biggest gap in my training is insufficient miles)
Hold the Mayo
"You're Not Winning"
Connecticut Runners' Forum on RunningAhead
maybe I am asking the wrong question then, Nob. If i framed it like this, should the answer be clearer to me? I just did a 3:28. i am looking to drop 10 minutes off of that. Given 12 months of my log which includes the 328, a 353, and a 338, the common denominator is a good even first half (2 of the 3 decent all the way out til close to 20 miles) and then a fade... sometimes a big fade, but most recently a slight fade. Would you think the fade is the issue? or is that too narrow a focus to isolate the problem(s)?
It's sort of exciting to disagree with Nobby! Here goes. Really it's not a disagreement, but more of a matter of different emphasis. Try the super-long runs if you like. I want to encourage you to push your overall training volume a bit more. An argument could be made that you are not reaping the benefits of your regular long runs because you don't have enough volume during the week. It is one thing to run a 20 miler after having already run 40 miles that week, and another to run a 20 miler on top of 20 miles. The first 20 miler is run with some of your muscles already in a state of fatigue, so you are activating deeper fibers, developing the "deep strength" of the marathoner. Another thing I noticed looking back through your log is that you have a lot of off days built into your schedule. This may be an inescapable fact of your life, but perhaps your are recovering too much between sessions so that you are not stimulating new fibers on your long runs and teaching your tired fibers to go faster during your up-tempo sessions. Perhaps its a false dichotomy: the super-long run or the bump in overall volume. Both are strategies that may help. The choice you make will perhaps depend most on the time you have to train during the week and how you feel about slogging it out for 4+ hours. Finally, there is nothing special about slowing down in the latter part of the marathon. It's just like slowing down in a 5k: you went out too fast for your training. You didn't have the endurance to maintain the pace. This is the problem. It can be fixed simply.