Forums >General Running>MP training question
Joggaholic
I have been following David's sub-3 thread with great interest. I have some related questions about training at marathon pace but I don't want to hijack David's thread so here I am. I am kind of at a weird place in my "training" right now; I'm running more than I need to for fun and general fitness, but too casual and lack focus/structure to take on serious/ambitious racing goals. I am content with small gradual improvements overtime, but I can't help but think that if I put some focus in at least one of my runs maybe I will do a little better. I think I am not doing enough of my runs at MP. I guess my MP (current fitness) is around 8 min mile (for 3:30), but that's just a guess. I see that a lot of you recommended doing fast-finish long runs to get used to running at MP. I want to find out more on how I should run them, given if I am not trying to peak for a goal race, but incorporate it into my regular weekly long run? (Or am I going down the wrong path and should keep doing my long run as LSD, and try to get comfortable with MP using a different workout?) I am not ready to really revise my whole weekly routine, I'm just trying to tweak one of my workouts for now. Baby-steps......
Some background info if they're helpful: I run 7 days, around 45-55mpw, with 1 long run and 1 interval workout, occasionally I do a tempo run or a 5k race, the rest are all easy runs.
I attempted doing a fast-finish LR this past Monday, and have some specific questions
1) How far should I run these at MP? (I can normally go 13 to 18 miles as LSD comfortably)
2) How slow do I go before hitting MP?
3) Since my MP is just a guess, how do I vary my effort to hone in? If I start to feel my pace falling off, do I maintain pace and cut the run short, or lower my pace and try to complete the distance, or keep pushing hard to complete the workout? And if I felt good, do I pick up pace or increase distance?
Another option I have is to change up ~9 to 10 mile tempo run I occasionally do on Friday. That workout has been kind of a crapshoot, I run with the faster runners in my running group who are doing this as a progression run. I tag along because I am mentally weak and need to run with others in a workout. I try to stay with them in the first half when they warm up (at sub 8 min pace), and then just try to hang on on my own when they sped off in the 2nd half (I usually feel like crap in the 2nd half, I liked to blame it on the weather). Maybe I should try to run a consistent and slower MP pace here and keep the weekend LSD easy?
Thanks!
Fast finish long runs don't have to specifically be at marathon pace, sometimes they can end up faster than that. I wouldn't over think it too much--just pick up the pace a bit in the last 3-4 miles of one of your long runs. Don't worry too much about the specific pace, go by effort. Try to treat it like a mini progression run--gradually increase the pace/intensity each of the last 3-4 miles so the last mile is your fastest.
These are great workouts for pretty much any race distance and can make it much easier to transition to long, sustained MP runs later in a marathon training program.
A long tempo on Friday AND a fast finish long run on Sunday might be too much too close together, though. Those are both really big workouts--I'd personally rather have at least 2 easy days between them. In a week when you're doing a long tempo on Friday, you might be better off keeping the long run at easy pace. It's really your call, though, as to how well you think you are recovering in between.
Runners run
Feeling the growl again
First off, as you say MP is just a guess at this point. And a lot of people try to train using goal MP, which is goal, not actual on the day. So in general saying one is training at MP is kind of misleading. For me, I've had many training cycles where my MP on race day ended up nicely matching what I could reasonably hold for a 10-mile tempo run under full training load.
That's why we taper. MP during a training cycle is a lot harder than it is on race day.
I think fast-finish long runs are great, in your case I'd start with 4 miles of progression at the end and work from there. If you get fitter you'll do 5, then 6, perhaps more. You can also fartlek the workouts, running a few 2-3 mile segments at tempo pace with a mile at easy pace in between. The work doesn't have to be all at the end.
As for what pace to do these at, I'd focus on running them at tempo effort. This will be slower for the last 4 miles of a 15 mile run than it would have been for a 4 mile tempo after a 2 mile warmup, obviously. But it will probably be faster than your MP (however you want to define it). Typically I'll accelerate through the fast work, starting slow and being darn uncomfortable the last mile of the long run. YMMV.
As for how slow to go before getting up to MP, I don't even think about that. Typically whatever I normally run for a long run, which tends to be a little faster than a normal easy run. For runners less conditioned use caution as doing long runs faster than easy pace may not be wise, and you may need to ease up on the opening miles in order to handle the quality later on. I know that's a soft guideline but without good knowledge of your training that's what I have.
So in general I give little thought to MP or where I'm running relative to MP. Once in a great while I'll do 8-10 miles at goal MP just to get my legs used to what that turnover feels like. My last workout 4-5 days out from a marathon is typically 4Xmile repeats with long recovery, again more for the neuromuscular memory benefits than conditioning benefits.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
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Useful reading;
http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/articlePages/article/2
Just a dude.
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Getting back in shape... Just need it to be a skinnier shape...
Not much to add on a fast finish type run. I followed the Hansons plan for my marathon training and they had lots of work at goal MP, but it was a MP Tempo run in the middle of the week, not running MP at the end of a long run. They do have you run a little faster than easy on the long run though, for me it was about 45 seconds slower than MP when my easy runs were about 1:15 slower than MP at the time.
Based on your latest 1/2, the predictors say a 3:26 marathon or 7:53 pace. Looks like that was a fairly tough course and at altitude as well so I think you are selling yourself short a bit saying 3:30 or 8:00 pace for a goal race.
Nice job on that last 1/2. Breaking 7:30 pace for a 1/2 is one of my next goals I think. I think a 3:30 marathon would be easier than a 1:37:37 1/2.
Age: 50 Weight: 224 Height: 6'3" (Goal weight 195)
Current PR's: Mara 3:14:36* (2017); HM 1:36:13 (2017); 10K 43:59 (2014); 5K 21:12 (2016)
Mmmmm...beer
Good timing since I have 8 weeks left until I start tapering. I'll make a few of those LRs fast finish runs.
-Dave
My running blog
Goals | sub-18 5k | sub-3 marathon 2:56:46!!
Useful reading; http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/articlePages/article/2
+1 especially on the fueling (or lack thereof) strategies during training runs
Ready, go.
That's how I've done almost all of my training runs for the last year and a half, after reading similar articles talking about training your body to use glycogen and fat more efficiently. I only fuel on a run to test something out before a race.
I wish I read this article a few weeks ago.
5k - 20:56 (09/12), 7k - 28:40 (11/12), 10k trial - 43:08 (03/13), 42:05 (05/13), FM - 3:09:28 (05/13), HM - 1:28:20 (05/14), Failed 10K trial - 6:10/mi for 4mi (08/14), FM - 3:03 (09/14)
I am not good at pacing but I learned from others here that you can do a 10K race and check McMillan Calculator to estimate your MP.
Marathon paced running is most important in the 8 weeks or so before the race. It's also a useful pace for developing aerobic capacity, but when you're running at MP outside of your final preparation for a marathon, you aren't running at that pace for a particularly long time. The goal isn't to acclimate your legs to the pounding, but rather to "push" up your LT from below by spending time at paces where blood lactate is higher, but still below steady state/anaerobic threshold/whatever you want to call it. It's only one of many paces that you're using for pure aerobic development.
During the specific prep period for a marathon, your goal is to extend the time you can hold that pace. The fast finish long run is one tool, but it is far less important than whatever workout has you covering the most miles at MP. (Note that in very high level athletes, these two workouts are one and the same. A 22 mile run might start at 95% of MP, and by mile 7 or 8, the athlete will be running at 98-100% of MP for the entire run.)
An underused tool for marathon preparation, in my opinion, is MP interval training. Breaking up a hard MP workout can make it possible to accumulate more total distance at race pace, with little lost in terms of training stimulus. Unlike in 5k paced work, for example, you're not accumulating oxygen debt during each interval, so the rest doesn't have as profound an effect on the training. The main things you want to get out of MP workouts are a lot of leg pounding at the right pace, getting the pace memorized from a neuromuscular standpoint, and dealing with fuel issues (which includes both fighting deprivation and learning how to refuel while running). None of these objectives are really compromised by breaking a MP workout into intervals. In fact, MP interval training is almost a necessity if you're training in conditions that are significantly hotter than your race will be. If the temps are 20 degrees hotter than your race will be, then long MP work becomes almost infeasible. Intervals allow you to shed some heat as you go, so you can still get the same number of miles in at the proper pace.
What was the secret, they wanted to know; in a thousand different ways they wanted to know The Secret. And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heart-rending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes. The Trial of Miles, Miles of Trials. How could they be expected to understand that? -John Parker
Marathon paced running is most important in the 8 weeks or so before the race. It's also a useful pace for developing aerobic capacity, but when you're running at MP outside of your final preparation for a marathon, you aren't running at that pace for a particularly long time. The goal isn't to acclimate your legs to the pounding, but rather to "push" up your LT from below by spending time at paces where blood lactate is higher, but still below steady state/anaerobic threshold/whatever you want to call it. It's only one of many paces that you're using for pure aerobic development. During the specific prep period for a marathon, your goal is to extend the time you can hold that pace. The fast finish long run is one tool, but it is far less important than whatever workout has you covering the most miles at MP. (Note that in very high level athletes, these two workouts are one and the same. A 22 mile run might start at 95% of MP, and by mile 7 or 8, the athlete will be running at 98-100% of MP for the entire run.)
The problem with MP is that, from an aerobic development standpoint, it's a pace in no-man's land. It's not a really easy pace, but due to the length of the marathon it's also far below one's threshold pace. So in terms of trying to push up/improve LT, it's far from the most useful way to go about it. It's just too slow. You don't get the blood lactate levels up at that pace. Tempo runs close to threshold, tempo intervals which keep you challenging that threshold then getting short recovery, and similar workouts are far more effective.
The best way to train to extend distance one can run at a certain pace is not to keep trying to run longer and longer distances at that pace. I'm not sure if that's what your implying but that's quite an old training philosophy.
I would agree that the most valuable workouts for the marathon are longer runs with lots of quality...not necessarily the longest run of the week, but often mid-long runs of 12-14 miles with lots of quality in there. But I'd never recommend people focus on doing tons of this at MP (however one wants to define that....current estimated, goal, etc). It's just too slow to get ideal aerobic development and the neuromuscular memory can be developed with surprisingly little focus on that specific pace.
I agree that MP is no man's land if you're actually making workouts out of it, though in well trained runners it isn't all that far below threshold pace. But especially during early season training, when your real workouts aren't that hard yet, there's no reason that you shouldn't be hitting blood lactate levels of 2 mmol/liter for 10-20 minute stretches. This isn't hard enough to take much out of you, but it does aid aerobic development in a way that running exclusively at lower intensities does not. There's this notion that runners are wasting their time running fast but below LT. It's just not true. Obviously it's a problem if runners are pushing hard every single day and frying themselves, but a runner who only runs easy when they're not doing a workout is missing out. In particular, fast oxidative fibers simply are not recruited at lower speeds. Marathon pace is enough to activate those fibers at the end of a steady aerobic run.
As for extending race pace longer and longer, that's certainly not an outdated philosophy; it's actually rather contemporary. Old school training emphasized high total miles and workouts at paces that were significantly faster than race pace. Heck, Pfitzinger's Advanced Marathoning was considered the bible in the U.S. until fairly recently, and it has shocking little MP running in it. An approach where you extend race pace gradually is the cornerstone of Canova's training approach and it's what almost every elite marathoner in the world is now doing.
I'm certainly not suggesting people do "tons" of MP work. I'm talking about during the 8 weeks before the race (which is really 5-6 if you count the taper). These workouts are so hard that you can't do a ton of them during such a relatively short period anyway. Your goal during this period isn't to maximize aerobic development. That work is done. (Which is why elite marathoners have a higher LT 8 weeks out than they do on race day.)
Also, it most certainly takes more than a few workouts to get the neuromuscular benefits of running at a particular pace. Efficiency at particular paces increases over THOUSANDS of miles running at that pace. Neural pathways don't just change overnight.
I certainly did not imply one is "wasting their time" below LT, only that if raising LT is the primary goal that MP is not the optimal pace to focus on. It may serve other purposes. But for raising LT, and it seemed you were focusing on MP for that purpose, it's not optimal.
Regarding the rest, perhaps the audience we have in mind is crossing our signals. I'm speaking to the 3hr or greater marathoner starting the thread and which forms the near-totality reading the thread. Once you start referencing the training of Canova and what elite marathoners are doing....it's two very different animals. Elite marathoners have a MP at a far higher % of threshold than the audience here. Extrapolating from Canova's training for elites or what elites are doing to the audience at hand is dangerous. Were an elite marathoner asking me the question (ha) often I'd answer differently than for the audience here. It's apples to oranges. Elites peel off 10 miles at MP in <50min and have freakish recovery; most of those here would be in the 70-90min range for such a workout and it would take them days to recover. Elites may get thousands of miles in at MP over a couple years; most here are not running more than a couple thousand at any pace in a year. (Frankly I'd question that a runner has to spend thousands of miles at every pace they may race to be efficient at that pace)
IMHO MP miles are a great tool for building strength when used at the end of a fast finish long run. But most average runners here are not in shape to, and don't have the recovery ability, to tackle long stretches at goal MP during training without compromising other aspects of their training that would get them better bang for their buck.