Pfitzinger Pete - Advanced Marathoning

If you’ve been taking in fluid and carbohydrate throughout the race, your muscles should be in pretty good condition. Keep drinking until 25 miles (40 km). Keeping up your blood sugar level will keep you alert so that you can concentrate well to the end. When you see the finish line approaching, give a little more effort so that you run strongly over the line. Show yourself that you have mastered the marathon and are able to kick it in a bit to the finish. Then enjoy the fruits of your labor.

In these first several chapters, we’ve looked at preparing for and running the marathon from all the necessary angles. Now it is time to put theory into practice. The rest of this book contains training schedules that implement the physiological principles of marathoning. The knowledge gained from this first section of the book, combined with the marathon-specific fitness that following the schedules will bring you, should leave you well prepared for marathon success.

As we note in the preface, many readers want to get right to the training schedule of their choice and start working. That’s fine, but before getting too far into your training, you’ll want to read this chapter. In it, you’ll learn the best way to do each of the types of runs called for in the schedules. You’ll also see what to do with your schedule when the almost inevitable roadblocks pop up during your training.

The training schedules in chapters 8 through 12 include the specific workout for each day as well as the category of training for that day. The workouts are divided into the following eight categories: long runs, medium-long runs, marathon-pace runs, general aerobic runs, lactate-threshold runs, recovery runs, O 2max intervals, and speed training. Each run is explained here, including how to get the most benefit from a given workout. For an in-depth explanation of the physiological benefit and role of each type of training, see chapter 1.

In the training schedules, a long run is any run of 16 miles (26 km) or longer. The intention of long runs is (obviously) to improve your endurance in preparation for the marathon’s 26.2 miles (42.2 km).

To gain the most from your long runs, do them in the correct intensity range. Long runs shouldn’t be slow jogs during which you just accumulate time on your feet. As discussed in chapter 1, the appropriate pace for a specific long run depends on the purpose of that run within your training program. The most beneficial intensity range for most of your long runs is 10 to 20 percent slower than your goal marathon race pace. For most marathoners, this pace range coincides with about 74 to 84 percent of maximal heart rate or 65 to 78 percent of heart rate reserve. In this intensity range you find the optimal balance between running hard enough to simulate the muscle patterns and posture you will use at marathon race pace and running moderately enough that you can recover relatively quickly for your other important training sessions.

Start out at the slow end of the range. Gradually pick up the pace so you run the last 5 to 10 miles (8 to 16 km) at about 10 percent slower than your goal marathon race pace. Gradually picking up the pace during your long runs and finishing strongly will also provide positive psychological reinforcement that you’re in control of the marathon. To gain the greatest benefit, design your long-run courses to simulate the hill profile of your marathon. (See the section on hill running later in this chapter.) If your long-run course is much hillier than your marathon, then your pace will be somewhat slower.

The schedules also include marathon-specific long runs at goal marathon race pace (discussed later in the chapter) and slower long runs the day after a tune-up race. After a race or hard workout on Saturday, your Sunday long run should be at a relaxed pace because you are likely to be somewhat tired and have stiff muscles, which will increase your likelihood of injury. Start these long runs like a recovery run. If your muscles loosen up as the run progresses, increase the training stimulus by increasing your pace to about 15 to 20 percent slower than marathon race pace.

A medium-long run is any run of 11 to 15 miles (18 to 24 km). Medium-long runs reinforce the physiological benefits of your long runs. To gain the greatest physiological benefits, the pace for these runs should be similar to the pace for long runs. If you do a hard training session the day before a medium-long run, do the medium-long run toward the slower end of the intensity range.

Avoid the temptation to do your medium-long runs too hard on days when you feel fresh, because this will prolong your recovery time and reduce the quality of your other key workouts. As with long runs, design your courses for medium-long runs to simulate your marathon.

Marathon-pace runs are medium-long or long runs during which you run most of the miles at your goal marathon pace. These runs provide the precise physiological benefit of allowing you to practice the pace, form, and so on of race day. They’re also a great confidence booster.

Ryan Hall

Fastest Marathon: 2:06:17

Marathon Highlights:

First place,

2008 U.S. Olympic Trials;

fastest American debut marathon.

It’s said that marathoners are made, not born. If so, then Ryan Hall is the proverbial exception that proves the rule.

After all, how many other marathoners ran a 15-miler at altitude as the first run of their life? That was Hall’s initiation. After pleading with his father to let him join him on a run, Hall was told he could go along, but only if he made it the whole way. Oh, and no whining. When Hall made it through the run at 9,000 feet in Big Bear Lake, California, it was obvious to his father that his son was meant to run, and run long.

It took the younger Hall a little longer to figure that out. Even though in high school he regularly did 10-mile runs at a bit slower than 5:00 per mile (again, at altitude), he considered himself a miler. As a collegiate runner at Stanford, his longest serious race on the track was 5,000 meters, and when he made the U.S. team in that event for the 2005 World Championships, his belief that his destiny was in middle-distance running was reinforced. Yet over the next two summers, Hall came nowhere near meeting his expectations in world-class track races.

After a disappointing 2006 outdoor track season, Hall ran the New Haven 20K on Labor Day, winning what was at the time the longest race of his life. The following month, he set an American record of 57:54 for the distance while placing eleventh in the world championships. When he emerged from another three months of altitude training in January 2007, Hall ran a solo 59:43 to win the Houston Half Marathon, becoming the only American to break an hour for the distance and completing his transformation to an elite road racer.

That status has been more than sealed by the first four marathons of his life: an American-debut record of 2:08:24 at London in April 2007; a dominating win at the Olympic Marathon Trials in November 2007, where he ran the second half solo in 1:02:45 in hilly Central Park; a 2:06:16 at London in 2008; and a tenth-place finish at the Olympics in Beijing.