2020 Marathon Training and relevant COVID 19 discussion echo chamber (Read 700 times)

Calbears, 105 miles also. Wow!

 

Not interested in adding fuel to the drama, and hopefully I'm not, but I've been meaning to ask if you typically keep high mileage with less intensity than the "normal" 20% ish often used by runners? I've tried that before, kept the mileage high and steady and did very little quality work between a fall marathon and a spring marathon. I like to try things out. I did a 2:59 in the fall, on a point to point net drop course, and the next spring I did 3:00 on a normal loop course. So I managed to pretty much keep my fitness, and one might even argue that 3:00 on a loop course is better than 2:59 on the cheater course. Overall I was pretty happy with my test at mostly volume. Did not lose fitness, might even have gained a little, through winter, with very little chance of injury.

 

Now I'm trying something else, and hopefully continue improving, but I have seen people doing well on only volume, and getting injured when joining the "intervals" train with promises of how good they could become.

In my experience, the more mileage you run (even without quality) the less you are dependent or should be worried about quality sessions. It's good to have them, but not extremely crucial. If I run 80,90,100 miles weeks, I would do one quality session and be very happy with it - obviously, staying off injuries is more beneficial than having two intense workouts a week and getting injured (even for little while) during a cycle. I ran most of my marathons within 2013-2017 without using any specific plans (and I managed to run all of them within 2:50-2:59 range) - I was adding 8, 10, 12 @MP from time to time or 2x3, 3x2 or 3x3 from time to time but my priority was always mileage - I think like in your case it helped me to have my races results pretty stable and relatively fast. For the fall of 2015 I took on Pfitzinger plan and followed his plan with all the prescribed workouts and pretty high mileage - it was 80-105 mpw plan and I think I was lucky to not have an injury - as a result I had my life time PR that cycle. But I also trued using plans other times (Daniels anyone?), got injured and got back to high mileage low intensity "plans"

 

Relative to your MP, what would you consider low intensity?  I'm currently nursing an old issue (high hammy tendon) that flares up when I add much "quality," i.e MP tempo runs. I'm hoping to nurse it through Boston training (first time for me), assuming Boston gets run, but I think nearly all my remaining miles will have to be at my qualifying MP (just under 8:00) +45-60 seconds to avoid aggravating the issue (which I did recently with some high quality MP runs).  Although I'm not really focused on time for Boston, time will become more of a priority in subsequent races that I hope to run this year. I'm thinking I may need to keep the "lower intensity" miles for the bulk of my miles in order to stay healthy but I'm not sure that will help me meet my time goals.

 

Hope this makes some sense.

That makes total sense because I had similar issues and one of them I had right at the beginning of my training cycle for CIM - I had a really bad pain at the high part of my hamstring (overdid on some stuff like 4x3 @ LT - and because of that I could not extend my leg, plus it was hurting. So, the way I approached it, I decided to run something like idiotic training (11+ miles x 7 days or 13 miles x 7 days) and run it at pace when my hamstring didn't hurt - first couple of weeks I think I did it only every other day and less than 11/13 because the thing was hurting doesn't matter what pace I ran. With time it was getting better and I continued just to run without any reference to a pace - two things I kept in mind - mileage is the king and mitochondria is what I should care about. Mitochondria develops doesn't matter what pace you run, looks like and that's a very important thing when you run at a faster pace during your goal race. Of course, I tried MP pace few times closer to a race when I felt more confident the hamstring got better. In any case, I ran just 21 seconds off from my PR at that race - so, I would consider it pretty successful (of course, that's totally anecdotal, but that's the only I have . On a regular basis, I consider low intensity run when I run below 140 bpm - my MP bpm is around 166-168.

Not sure if if it's the spring weather or I'm getting used to the mileage but last week felt really manageable.  Still going slow on the long runs.  Also because I ran my long on Sunday last week I had a 7 day stretch (Sun-Sat) with 105 miles.  I'll have to go back and look but that might be a record for me.  I've topped 100 a couple of times years ago but just barely.

 

Felt better after the 50K but my body is enjoying slackening off I'm eating too well, not running enough so Ive gained 10 pounds.

Well you were stringing those 100 mile weeks before... if I were your body I think I'd enjoy the break too.

On a regular basis, I consider low intensity run when I run below 140 bpm - my MP bpm is around 166-168.

You and I are close to twinsies - for me, "very easy" is anything below145, and my MP bpm starts in the mid to high 160s and rises to the low 170s.

Of course, I can't run well off of just tons of high slow mileage.  I've done that before, and I either break without days off, or get flat if I stay injury free.  For me, including speed and power regularly keeps me healthy.  But....we're all different.

Also, checking in belatedly with my week:

24 miles, 14 "miles" of pool-running, and 2500 yards of swimming
M: 7 "miles" pool-running.
T: 7 "miles" pool-running.
W: Yoga and 1000 yards of swimming
Th: 2 miles (9:11), upperbody weights/core
F: 2 miles (9:20), yoga, 2 miles (8:46), 1000 yards swimming.
Sa: 4.5 miles (8:37), upper body weights and core, 3.5 miles (8:50).
Su: 4 miles (9:09), 2 miles (8:40), yoga, 4 miles (8:43), drills. Later 500 yards swimming.

Took several days very easy, both because I was trying to figure out what was going on with my body, and also because if I'm going to stretch my season out, I needed to take down time now.

Went to ortho, PT, Chiro.  No sacral stress fracture (very good news).  I did have a rotated sacrum which was throwing everything out of whack - as soon as that got adjusted, my right leg started behaving better.

I'm still having a fair amount of tightness and burning pain which is likely nerve-related (S1), so I'm working through that.  My early runs this week were effectively learning how to run, if you can believe it - the first few 2 mile runs felt like I was in someone else's body - very low cadence, unnatural armswing that I couldn't change, and it felt like I wasn't in complete control when I ran.  But, things have been improving, and by the weekend I felt like I was myself again.  I did a lot of short runs, with PT exercises before and after, to rewire my running.  Really focusing on my posture has helped also - most likely in response to the painful hamstrings, I was hunching my shoulders and craning my head forward.  When I forced myself to carry my head over my spine and relax my shoulders, my hamstrings started hurting a lot less and I felt much more like myself.

As far as future plans, though I'm entered in Boston, I've decided not to try to make it happen.  It's just close enough to make me rush the recovery, and I also think a net drop hilly course combined with a long bus ride and siting around in athlete's village is not a good choice for someone recovering from sacroiliac issues.   So....I may do the BAA 5K there (I'm entered in that as well), and then will target the New Jersey Half-Marathon, followed by Grandma's full.  I'm also entered in the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in early April, so that's a possibility as well if I can return to speed work in the next two weeks.

 

I've heard a lot of people are considering New Jersey or Illinois as back-ups.  New Jersey might be a good choice for you - I think they have race morning shuttles from Manhattan.

 

I went and changed to Grandma's full now (I was in the half) in anticipation of a lot of people making that switch if there are cancellations this spring.

It seems if Boston is cancelled, there’s a good chance people’s backup marathons may be cancelled too. Just impossible to know what things are going to be like. There’s 8 weeks till mine, I guess it’s full steam ahead until I hear something.

Nothing has canceled Boston outside of World War Two. Right now might be a good time to stock up on cold running gear because everyone is apparently trying to buy toilet paper and hand sanitizer or anything else to kill an RNA virus. I hear New York makes some of the finest hand sanitizer with their labor incarcerated individuals state employees. 

You mean the people going out into crowded public places with a contagious virus with absolutely no consideration for the health of others? Tell me more about this Boston place and these spectators who don’t go out when they’re sick so as to prevent the spread of diseases and illness.  It sounds quite utopian.

 

Again, I think everyone is failing to take into account the spectators. I think that’s actually one of the bigger concerns for a race like Boston. 500,000 people come and watch the race, and they’re in much tighter quarters than anyone who is actually running the race. That’s why Boston is likely to be cancelled, while smaller races may be run.