Pfitzinger Pete - Advanced Marathoning

Most runners shouldn’t try to run dead-even splits, however, because during the marathon you’ll gradually fatigue your slow-twitch muscle fibers and will start to recruit more of your fast-twitch A fibers to maintain your pace. Unfortunately, these fast-twitch fibers tend to be less economical than your slow-twitch fibers in their use of oxygen. Therefore, your running economy will tend to decrease slightly during the race, meaning that your lactate-threshold pace will decrease slightly as well. The result is that your optimal pace will be slightly reduced during the latter stages of the marathon.

For example, if your goal is to run 2:39 for the marathon, then even splits would require you to run 1:19:30 for each half of the race. To run even splits, you would have to increase your oxygen consumption and lactate level as your fatigue level increases during the second half of the race. A more efficient pacing strategy would be to go through halfway in 1:18 to 1:19 because doing so would allow you to slow by 2 to 3 percent during the second half and still achieve your goal. If you ran negative splits for the marathon (i.e., the second half faster than the first half), chances are that you ran more slowly than optimally during the first half of the race and could have had a faster finishing time.

For world-class marathoners, whose genetics and training put them on a higher plane, the optimal pacing strategy is likely a bit different. These select few are so highly trained that they have a lower tendency to recruit less-economical muscle fibers as the race progresses. In addition, they can pick up the pace over the last several miles and gradually accumulate lactate to the finish. For the best marathoners in the world, therefore, the most effective pacing strategy is to run the second half of the marathon at the same pace as, or even slightly faster than, the first half.

Most of the recent world records have followed this model of slightly faster second halves. In setting the world best of 2:03:59 at the 2008 Berlin Marathon, Haile Gebrselassie ran the first half in 62:05 and the second half in 61:54. In setting his first world record at this distance, Gebrselassie ran 2:04:26 at the 2007 Berlin Marathon, with half times of 62:29 and 61:57. Similarly, in her first world record, at the 2002 Chicago Marathon, Paula Radcliffe ran 2:17:18 by running the first half in 69:03 and the second half in 68:15. When

Catherine Ndereba

Fastest Marathon: 2:18:47

(Kenyan record, former world record)

Marathon Highlights:

Second place, 2004 and 2008 Olympics;

First place, 2003 and 2007 World

Championships

Kenya’s Catherine Ndereba can reasonably claim to be the best female marathoner in history. In an era of ever-increasing depth in the event, she has repeatedly risen to the highest levels of competition, achieving two Olympic silver medals, two World Championship titles, wins at Boston and Chicago, and, for good measure, at one point a world record. Her sustained excellence is a testament to her consistency and her ability to focus when it counts and to ease off at other times.

Ndereba is remarkable in that her mileage is relatively low for a champion marathoner. She rarely gets above 100 miles per week. Her training is straightforward: during a marathon buildup, she does one long run and two fast sessions per week. Some of her long runs are quite long, as long as three hours – more than half an hour longer than her marathon time. She does most of her long runs at an easy pace so that she can recover quickly from them. (Two massages each week undoubtedly contribute to her recovery.) Like many Kenyans, she does form drills and calisthenics several times a week.

With this program, Ndereba has remained injury-free. Her consistent training allows her to steadily build her fitness from year to year. There’s a lesson there for marathoners whose training often gets interrupted by injury – sometimes it’s better to aim for a lower mileage goal and to progress with season after season of good work than to push for spectacular highs and wind up enduring extreme lows.

Not that Ndereba does the same training all the time. Indeed, her strengths include having the faith and discipline to take breaks after key marathons and accepting that she’s not going to be in peak form all the time. Ndereba runs shorter races frequently as tools toward her marathon goals, not ends in themselves, and she doesn’t worry when her times aren’t earth-shattering. For example, three weeks before the 2004 Olympics, she placed fifth at the Beach to Beacon 10K in 32:31. Rather than freaking she set her current world record of 2:15:25 at the 2003 London Marathon, her first half took 68:02, and then she ran the second half in 67:23.

out afterward because her average speed was not much faster than her marathon PR pace, Ndereba said afterward that she was finishing up her heaviest pre-Olympics training, and that she would feel fresh when it mattered. Her silver medal in Athens proved her right.

In races, Ndereba exhibits the same ability to stay calm in the early stages and dole out her physical and mental reserves when it matters. In the early stages of the 2008 Olympic Marathon, for example, she was always within sight of the large lead pack but never tightly within it. When the moves started, she had the strength to cover them easily and was rewarded with another silver medal. All marathoners can learn from Ndereba’s method of patience before pushing.

Incidentally, perhaps you’ll find it reassuring that even the best runners in the world pay for it when they start a marathon too quickly. At the Dubai Marathon in January 2008, Gebrselassie attempted to break his then 4-month-old world record. En route to a first half of 61:27, he tore through the first 10K in 28:39 – fast enough to win most open 10K road races. Even the great Gebrselassie succumbed to such brashness. Well, sort of. He slowed in the last few miles, and his second half of 63:26 was almost 2 minutes slower than his first half, resulting “only” in the third-best time ever, 2:04:53.

Although in most cases you should stay with your pacing plan, occasionally the weather or the tactics of other runners merit slightly altering your strategy. If you’re running into a headwind, there’s a substantial advantage to running in a group of runners and letting others block the wind. Though you may need to do your share in leading the group, you’ll still save considerable energy compared with running by yourself into the wind. On a windy day, therefore, you may need to run faster or slower than planned to stay with a group.

Even on a calm day, the best strategy may be to deviate slightly from your goal pace rather than running most of the way by yourself. In a big-city marathon such as Boston, New York, or Chicago, being stuck by yourself isn’t a problem. At almost any pace, you’ll be among a number of runners, and you can work with them to reach your goal time. In a smaller marathon, however, you have a reasonably high chance of running by yourself for many miles. In that situation, you must make a judgment call as to whether to go a few seconds per mile faster or slower than planned to stay with a group. Although drafting behind other runners will give you a small energy advantage, most of the benefit of staying with a group is psychological. You don’t have to set the pace, and you can relax and go along with the group.