Pfitzinger Pete - Advanced Marathoning

The schedules never call for a second run on the day of your weekly long run. This is a perfect example of mileage for mileage’s sake because an evening run after your long run will only slow your recovery. As soon as you finish your long run, your objective switches to recovering as quickly as possible for your upcoming hard training days.

Looking at these schedules, you might be wondering, Where are all the “speed” workouts ? After all, it’s normal to think that anyone preparing for a marathon should be training as hard as possible, and what better way to be sure that you’re doing so than by hitting the track at least once a week for lung-searing intervals, right?

In chapter 1, we explained at length the principles underlying these schedules. Briefly put, we designed the schedules to provide the optimal stimuli to the physiological systems that most determine marathoning success – endurance, lactate threshold, and O 2max, in that order of importance. In the long run, so to speak, it’s your long runs and tempo runs that have the most relevance to your performance on marathon day, not how often you’ve churned out a sterling set of half-mile repeats.

During your long buildup, understanding the components of marathon success can provide confidence that you’re training properly. Use the explanation of marathon physiology from chapter 1 not only to explain to your training buddies why you won’t be joining them for quarters next week but also to remind yourself why you’re doing yet another 15-miler (24 km) in the middle of the workweek. If your running friends continue to chide you that you’re not training hard enough, invite them to follow the schedules with you for a few weeks, then report back. We suspect they’ll have gotten the message by then.

In the training schedules, we don’t prescribe specific hill training sessions. That’s because how much to focus on hill training depends on the topography of your marathon. For one of the pancake-flat courses designed to yield fast times, such as London, Chicago, or Berlin, you’ll need to be prepared to run for more than 2 hours over unvarying terrain. If, however, you’ll be racing on a hilly course, then the more closely you can simulate the terrain of the race in your training, both up and down, the better. (The classic course for which race simulation is essential is the Boston Marathon, which has sucked the lifeblood from many an unprepared runner.) By planning training runs to include hills of roughly the same length and steepness as your upcoming race, you’ll give yourself the best chance for an optimal performance on race day.

Any of the workouts in the training schedules can be run on hills. Once or twice per week, your tempo runs, long runs, medium-long runs, and general aerobic runs should mimic the hill profile of your upcoming marathon. Simply adjust your pace to keep the effort at the correct intensity. (Allow your heart rate to increase by 5 to 8 beats per minute on the uphills, but be sure to ease up after the hills to get back into the appropriate range.) You can even do some of your O 2max sessions up and down hills, although it’s easy to blow up by going too hard early in the workout.

If you live in the flatlands but are training for a hilly marathon, don’t despair – with a bit of creativity you can gain the benefits of hill running. Runners in Miami have been known to run the ramps of a parking garage on Sunday mornings, and you can replicate almost any hill workout on a treadmill.

Correct uphill running technique is relatively simple. The most common error running uphill is leaning forward, which is counterproductive to maintaining speed. Looking ahead and not down will help you retain a more-upright posture. Let your stride shorten and your knees lift naturally so that you feel as efficient as possible. You will tend to use your arms more as you lift your knees, but try to keep your shoulders and arms relaxed. On downhills, try not to brake. Keep your center of gravity perpendicular to the hill so that gravity can help you get down it as quickly as possible.

Part of the challenge of the marathon is that preparing for it takes so long and the training required is so demanding that roadblocks along the way to your goal are nearly inevitable. It’s important not only to organize your training and life so that as few impediments as possible crop up but also to deal with the ones that nevertheless occur. The most common roadblocks are injuries and illnesses, bad weather, and outside commitments. Let’s consider each of these intrusions into your marathon preparation to see how to adjust the schedules for them. Also, let’s look at what, if any, adjustments older marathoners, who might need more recovery than younger runners, should make to the schedules.

Injuries and illnesses are best caught early. Successful marathoners have the ability to recognize an injury or illness at an early stage before it becomes serious. Returning to training after an injury or illness requires careful analysis – too much too soon will result in additional time off. During this period, it’s important to avoid the factors that caused the injury or illness in the first place, such as worn-out shoes, running on concrete, overtraining, or a lack of sleep. Be sure to carefully read chapter 3 to learn how to stay on top of your recovery so that your chances of getting hurt or sick are lessened.

If you’re forced to miss more than a few days of training, then you need to decide whether to try to catch up or revise your marathon goal. This decision will be influenced by how much time you missed, how long you’ve been preparing, and how many weeks are left until your marathon. Missing 2 1/2 weeks of preparation when you have 16 weeks to go is no big deal, but missing that amount of time during the last 2 months of preparation will likely require you to modify your goal.

Table 7.2 provides guidelines for when you may need to revise your goals after an injury or illness. Typically, if you’ve lost less than 10 days of training, then you can safely start back where you should have been on the schedules. If you’ve missed O 2max workouts, however, you may need to slow your pace during your next few O 2max sessions to reflect the lost time. If you’ve lost 10 or more days of training in the 8 weeks before your marathon, be open to revising your goal. When you resume full training, gather information from your timed sessions to get a sense of how much fitness you’ve lost and whether your marathon goal pace needs to be slowed by at least a few seconds per mile (per 1.6 km).

Making Up for Lost Time

In general, you’ll just have to deal with bad weather. Sometimes, however, Mother Nature dishes up a blizzard or blistering-hot weather that’s counterproductive to continued healthy training. If you can, find a treadmill indoors or choose an appropriate cross-training activity for a couple of days until the weather becomes bearable.