St. George Training Help - please! (Read 1073 times)

I'm running the St. George marathon in 6.5 weeks. I'm from Houston...we have no hills whatsoever here. Nothing... My training has been going pretty well - one 18 mile long run down, another 18 miler and two 21 milers scheduled between now and my taper. I was feeling pretty confident in my training until Sunday...when I ran the America's Finest City Half Marathon in San Diego. The first two hills were "flat" in SD terms, but still had some inclines that even got to me there, then it was downhill for a few miles, then flat for a while, but then, a HUGE hill from 10.5 to 12.5. It killed me - absolutely killed me. I had no hope whatsoever! Looking back at the elevation, it was probably a 200-250 ft. climb over the 2 miles. Now, St. George goes from 5200 ft to 2600 ft which is awesome, except for the little clims) between mile 7 and 11. There is basically a 300+ ft climb at mile 7 and then you gain a bit more before going back down pretty much from 11 to the end. Today, 48 hours after the San Diego race, my legs are still toast (feel almost like I ran a full marathon...super stiff and still very sore). And I even ran 10 minutes slower than I had wanted!!! (ran 2:04, goal was 1:55, PR is 1:56). So, question is, what is the best way to prepare my wimpy legs for the 22 miles of downhill and the 4 miles of uphill in St. George? I'm not quite as worried about the downhill as it didn't seem to get to me too bad, but it may have killed me just as much as the up and I didn't know it. I just don't want to be done for in St. George before I even get to mile 10. I have a few options around here...we have a parking garage that is 1/2 mile up, 1/2 mile down. I have 2 or 3 runs in the garage planned between now and then, with 3 or 4 repeats each workout. We have short, steep hills on the bayou shores here too that we call "hills." We do repeats here on Tuesdays. I was going to do 1-2 Tuesdays of this before I switch back to Track workouts for the last month before the marathon. I may be able to head to Austin for 1 or 2 of my long runs, to get some decent hills in there. Besides that, is there anything else I can do? I do a strength class on Mondays and was going to head to the gym one more day a week to work on my legs if it may help. Will that help, or is it beyond the point by now? Sorry for the forever long post, and thanks in advance for any advice anyone has!

Now, St. George goes from 5200 ft to 2600 ft which is awesome

I can't claim expert here - but a small dose of interval training on a local track might help...hopefully some other runners will chime in on this and set me straight.... I would be concerned about the altitude too.......Houston Tx is pretty close to the water, while 5200 feet is not.....I recently was in colorado (vacation) and found the 5,800 elevation extremely difficult to run in.......and I had to slow down about 2 min per mile at first (I live at a low elevation in New England). And it was a full week before I felt like I was able to actually run without sucking air...... Being as your race is mostly downhill it may not be so bad, but still the altitude can be tough if you aren't used to it....I dont claim to have an answer, but this may be a second issue you face.....

Thanks for both the replies... To answer a few of the points, My marathon PR is 4:30, so I'm definitely not going for a BQ. I do have a time goal though, and certainly hope to improve on the 4:30. I'm hoping for around a 4:15 in St. George, and then hope to improve a bit on that to get closer to 4:00 in Houston in January. My 1:56 PR for the half was in the 3M 1/2 Marathon in Austin which is a course kind of similar to St. George (point-to-point, mostly downhill). As far as track, I have weekly workouts scheduled starting up again Sept 2 and lasting 4 weeks through the 23rd. I will do mostly 800-2000m repeats with the total workouts being anywhere from 5-9 miles. The altitude may be an issue as well, but there isn't much I can do to prepare for that. My thought is kind of that I'll be coming down out of it pretty fast, so maybe it won't be so bad? Is that a total "ignorance is bliss" attitude, or what? I have found a pace calculator that seems to be pretty impressive for St. George. It allows for the first few miles to be a bit slower, so maybe some of the altitude issues will be taken care of there. It is here if you are interested in looking at it: http://zimtech.org/StGeoPaceCalculator.xls .

How about doing some strength exercises to work the quads. A mostly down hill race will put your quads under a serious strain. Maybe so some single leg squat exercises, Like Bulgarian Split Squats and lunges.

I've done St. George three times, getting a PR there twice. Do as much hill work as you can. You will benefit more from practicing the downhills than the uphills, but you need both. As recommended by the Gopher, at your pace you can walk a lot of the big hill out of Veyo and make up for it later on downhills. Speed work doesn't help with hills as much as hill running, so given the choice, do the hills. Doing them on a treadmill can be adequate, if you can't find them outside. Different people react differently to altitude changes, but most people are fine at St. George. I did the AFC Half this past weekend, too. That was a pretty tough course. Good job!

I ran St George last year too. While I can't comment on the altitude (I live at about 5000 feet, and run up from there), I can comment on the hills: practice, practice, practice. Up and down. My biggest mistake in training for last year was not enough up hill work. I was expecting the downhills, but the Veyo volcano is a big hill - you're running up the side of an actual extinct volcano. I drove it after the race, and was amazed. It is a long and steady climb. Not to totally hijack this thread, but I'm insanely jealous! I didn't get into St George this year. I registered for Top of Utah instead, but I just can't get excited. I hope you have the best race - and take time to view the scenery. Its gorgeous! ETA - after the race last year, my friends and I were all very sore. The day after, we kept running into people in their marathon shirts, and we'd stop to swap stories. I remember one woman in particular who wasn't sore at all - she said it was from spending time in the gym. She'd run it several times before and always been sore, but this year she'd done lots of strength training, and it made the difference. E(again)TA - I'm not an elite runner by any stretch, but if you're interested in reading my race report, here's a link: http://mommahutch.blogspot.com/2007/10/marathon-mom.html

There is a hill near 18 miles. You'll see an overpass. Under that it turns upward, maybe half a mile. After that, there's some steep downhills, but a lot of them end with little uphills. You go steeply down a lot, then up for a hundred yards or so, then down, over and over. It's mostly downhill, but it's not just downhill. The last couple of miles in town are almost flat, but they almost feel like uphill after you've been going downhill for so long.

Did you see the elevation profile that Trent posted on the What are some Hard Marathons to run? thread: http://www.runningahead.com/forums/topic/121d55ced1df46d3b51ce8e73be14e39. It scared me.

Both Steamtown and St George look like you could take off on a hang glider and just cruise on down to the finish line.