Marathon Advice

"Dominic Shields" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I completed the London Marathon on Sunday 23rd, it was my first
Marathon but I
was somewhat disappointed in my time of 4:01, I was aiming for 3:30.
The main
reason for my disappointment is that I was on schedule after 14 miles
and felt
really good, not breathing hard but in the next 2 miles my calf
muscles began to
hurt like hell, not cramp just fatigue and my mile splits went from
7-8 minute
miles to 9-10 minute miles simply as a result of the pain.

I did carbo load and used 5 carbo gels during the race, I drank a
little at
every water and sport drink station so I don't think I hit the wall or
had a
dehydration problem, I think it was purely lack of condition in my
calf muscles.
My average HR for the entire race was 144 and this is very comfortable
for me
and I really did not feel exerted the whole race which is why I am
frustrated as
one set of muscles let me down.

The advice I have been given includes hill work, speed work, skipping,
stepper
exercise machines, calf extension weight machines. I just wanted to
canvass as
wide a range of opinions as possible. Any ideas gratefully received, I
plan to
do my next Marathon in October.

Dominic, without the specifics of how you did train it is not possible
to suggest what to do to improve and even then, we could be off the
mark. For example, how many miles per week, length, frequency and
distance of your long runs. Describe your taper. Do you have any 10k to
1/2 marathon times during that phase. A 3:30 is an 8 minute pace, what
made you think you could hold that for 26? The hell with heart rate
what was your mile pace before your calves slowed? Was it hot? Was your
stomach bloated although you were drinking and doing gels? Did you
drink enough water with the gels?

The answer is in the details and without knowing these details any reply
would be nothing but factless speculation. Be advised, we have a bunch
of trolls on this board so just ignore them.

-DougF

On Sun, 30 Apr 2006 11:23:27 GMT, "Doug Freese" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Dominic, without the specifics of how you did train it is not possible
to suggest what to do to improve

....basically because DF is the slowest (in two ways) runner we have
here. He runs 14 MPM, so he knows jackshit about speed.

On Sun, 30 Apr 2006 15:56:42 +0000 (UTC), Donovan Rebbechi <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I would actually say it's more like not enough training time. If you took your
three best weeks (all over 40 miles, long runs all over 16 miles) and repeated
those 4 times over, that would have been a much better foundation. The problem
is that three weeks in isolation is a little bit thin, you really want to go
into it with 12 weeks of fairly solid training.

I think a combination of establishing a long term base of 30 miles a week or more,
and that would put you in a position to build to a consistent 40 miles a week
(and a peak of 50 or so), and also get in several (not just 1) runs that are 18
miles or longer. That would probably bring down your 10k time by quite a bit, and
put the 3:30 goal well within reach.

So I should have been where I was in mid-March by January ?

Thanks, I have a better idea of where I need to be by the Cardiff marathon in
October now.

Dominic Shields said:

On Sun, 30 Apr 2006 15:56:42 +0000 (UTC), Donovan Rebbechi <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I would actually say it's more like not enough training time. If you took your
three best weeks (all over 40 miles, long runs all over 16 miles) and repeated
those 4 times over, that would have been a much better foundation. The problem
is that three weeks in isolation is a little bit thin, you really want to go
into it with 12 weeks of fairly solid training.

I think a combination of establishing a long term base of 30 miles a week or more,
and that would put you in a position to build to a consistent 40 miles a week
(and a peak of 50 or so), and also get in several (not just 1) runs that are 18
miles or longer. That would probably bring down your 10k time by quite a bit, and
put the 3:30 goal well within reach.

So I should have been where I was in mid-March by January ?

Yes, with the caveat that you also would have needed to be where you were in January
in November, etc. It just takes time. There's also seems to be some sort of long term
effect of training -- so having several months of training (and racing! keep working
on those 10k/half marathon times!) behind you will help for your next race. Wouldn't
worry about the performance in your first marathon -- most people struggle in
their first one, the only people who don't are both extremely well prepared,
and somewhat lucky.

Quoted message said:

Thanks, I have a better idea of where I need to be by the Cardiff marathon in
October now.

Yep.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

"Dominic Shields" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
another limiting factor would have become apparent.

Quoted message said:

I attempted no races during the taper, my time of 42.30 for a 10K race
was on
11th Feb.

Looking at my distances above and having read the FAQs I guess the
most likely
answer is going to be "Not enough mileage" - easy to see now.

The good news is your 42:30 10k suggests you have the speed to run a
3:30 marathon. I agree as you have already concluded, that your overall
mileage was too low for your expectations.To slice and dice some more -
insufficient long runs. Your longest long run of 18 miles is simply not
long enough. Your long runs were 15, 16, 17, 18 and all in consecutive
weekends. You should have some runs in the 20-22(or possibly longer if
you not injury prone ) Since these long runs tend to take a lot out of a
runner they may be best done every other week with the between week
something shorter - hard easy weeks, not just hard easy days.

You never said what you did for power(hills) or speed and any additions
will only help you more. To hold pace in the marathon you need strength.

So without dissecting much more, you trained and ran a 4+ hour
marathon. To crank a 3:30 I would suggest your mileage 55-65 mpw with
longer, long runs and maybe some more solid hill work and some speed
work, if you weren't already doing some. There are lots of marathon
schedules out there. Just for some general information take a look a at
Hal Higdon's web site and simply look over programs and note the changes
for beginner to experienced. I'm not saying use one of these but more to
get an idea of the ingredients and proportions.

Take your 4 hours thon with pride - ya dun gud! Now find a plan that
turns up the notch a little and you'll be well on your way to a 3:30 or
even better. Good luck.

-DougF

The best preparation for a marathon is to have run one previously.
(sounds circular :-)
Next time I'd get at least three long training runs at least 35 km,
preferrably 42 km.
I'd also ramp up the training week to 100 km, including the every
other weekly long run distance. Dont do this all at once,
but you can take a year or two to build up to this.
Some people in this newsgroup may brag about breaking 3 hours
on much less work, but they may have innate long distance ability.
Other people have to work at it.

rick++ said:

The best preparation for a marathon is to have run one previously.

Rick's an idiot, ignore him.

Doug Freese said:

The good news is your 42:30 10k suggests you have the speed to run a
3:30 marathon. I agree as you have already concluded, that your overall
mileage was too low for your expectations.To slice and dice some more -
insufficient long runs. Your longest long run of 18 miles is simply not
long enough. Your long runs were 15, 16, 17, 18 and all in consecutive
weekends. You should have some runs in the 20-22(or possibly longer if
you not injury prone ) Since these long runs tend to take a lot out of a
runner they may be best done every other week with the between week
something shorter - hard easy weeks, not just hard easy days.

You never said what you did for power(hills) or speed and any additions
will only help you more. To hold pace in the marathon you need strength.

So without dissecting much more, you trained and ran a 4+ hour
marathon. To crank a 3:30 I would suggest your mileage 55-65 mpw with
longer, long runs and maybe some more solid hill work and some speed
work, if you weren't already doing some. There are lots of marathon
schedules out there. Just for some general information take a look a at
Hal Higdon's web site and simply look over programs and note the changes
for beginner to experienced. I'm not saying use one of these but more to
get an idea of the ingredients and proportions.

Take your 4 hours thon with pride - ya dun gud! Now find a plan that
turns up the notch a little and you'll be well on your way to a 3:30 or
even better. Good luck.

Thanks very much Doug for taking the time to produce such a thoughtful reply, I
suppose I really overestimated how much cardiovascular fitness counts and
underestimated how much doing the hard yards counts on building up the legs.

I did hill and speed work in the weekdays but probably not enough, my speedwork
was often on a Life Fitness 9500 HR treadmill where I would try to better my
previous time on the US Army, Marine and Navy tests, I got down to 18:24 for the
US Marine 3 Mile test and 11:44 for the US Army 2 Mile test.

Out of interest I ran a 5 mile race today and was somewhat disappointed in my
time of 35:17 on a dead flat course - awfully windy though as it was on the
Cardiff Bay Barrage.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/accept.mb?senderPk.pkValue=16620&unitSystemPkValue=2&episodePk.pkValue=702537

The above as a tinyurl http://tinyurl.com/e7jfj

"Dominic Shields" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Mon, 01 May 2006 11:37:17 GMT, "Doug Freese" <[email hidden]>
wrote:
Thanks very much Doug for taking the time to produce such a thoughtful
reply, I
suppose I really overestimated how much cardiovascular fitness counts
and
underestimated how much doing the hard yards counts on building up the
legs.

Specificity is the key. Cardiovascular fitness is important but if it
comes from say weight lifting or biking , it will help for general
conditioning but minimal for running. Running begets running, biuking
begts biking.....

Quoted message said:

I did hill and speed work in the weekdays but probably not enough, my
speedwork
was often on a Life Fitness 9500 HR treadmill where I would try to
better my
previous time on the US Army, Marine and Navy tests, I got down to
18:24 for the
US Marine 3 Mile test and 11:44 for the US Army 2 Mile test.

Out of interest I ran a 5 mile race today and was somewhat
disappointed in my
time of 35:17 on a dead flat course - awfully windy though as it was
on the
Cardiff Bay Barrage.

There are others that can answer how running on a t-mill and running on
the road relate. I'm not a t-mill fan( I just prefer the roads) so when
the discussions about running outside vs. a t-mill I hit the delete
key. My instincts tell me that running with zero incline on a t-mill and
a flat road even without wind are not equal and may be misleading. Again
I yield to others for the specifics.

-DougF

Doug Freese said:

There are others that can answer how running on a t-mill and running on
the road relate. I'm not a t-mill fan( I just prefer the roads) so when
the discussions about running outside vs. a t-mill I hit the delete
key. My instincts tell me that running with zero incline on a t-mill and
a flat road even without wind are not equal and may be misleading. Again
I yield to others for the specifics.

What I am about to say is probably blasphemy but in the book : "Exercise
Physiology, Energy, Nutrition and Human Performance Fith Edition" by McArdle,
Katch and Katch they say the following on Page 213

"eight distance runners ran on a treadmill and a track under calm air conditions
at 3 submaximal speeds of 180 m/min, 210 m/min and 260 m/min" . . .

they continue

"from a practical standpoint, no measurable differences emerged in the aerobic
requirements of submaximal running (up to 286 m/min) on the treadmill or the
track, either on level or up a grade"

I have not quoted the entire page or their table of results but under their
conditions it seems pretty convincing, how this relates to roads and windy
conditions is not examined.

I don't claim that they are definitively right but they are the ones with the
qualifications, not me.

Dominic Shields said:

"from a practical standpoint,

I wonder what that means exactly?

Quoted message said:

no measurable differences emerged in the aerobic
requirements of submaximal running (up to 286 m/min) on the treadmill or the
track, either on level or up a grade"

Well running at 286m/min = 4.8m/sec on the treadmill is like running
outside with a 4.8m/sec = 17kph = 10mph following wind, as near as damn it
is to swearing.

That may not give a significant difference in O2 (for example if the test
runners were of low surface area, ie skinny and short)

More discussion here
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/treadmill.html

steve common said:

Dominic Shields said:

"from a practical standpoint,

I wonder what that means exactly?

Quoted message said:

no measurable differences emerged in the aerobic
requirements of submaximal running (up to 286 m/min) on the treadmill or the
track, either on level or up a grade"

Well running at 286m/min = 4.8m/sec on the treadmill is like running
outside with a 4.8m/sec = 17kph = 10mph following wind, as near as damn it
is to swearing.

That may not give a significant difference in O2 (for example if the test
runners were of low surface area, ie skinny and short)

More discussion here
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/treadmill.html

Good link. Thanks, Steve.

Just my $.01 since I rarely use a tm or roads, except when really
desperate. I'm not sure any difference in O2 usage is the critical issue
if trying to extrapolate tm pace to road pace, which if I'm interpreting
the OP's disappointment correctly, is the question. There's a couple
issues that haven't been addressed. One is that different tm are
different and have different shock absorption / energy return.
Calibration may be off.

But more importantly is knowing how to pace. A tm does all that for you.
But you have to either recognize the body signals or relate to speed
while passing things or something. OA's comments about the different
biomechanics may come into play here and throw off your cues.

I think my times (as an inexperienced runner) on tm are substantially
faster than trails, although I've never done short-interval trail (or
road or track) runs like I do on tm (part of machine circuit in xt
class) to have a valid comparison. If a bear were chasing me, maybe.

But, if you look at Chris Clark's tm training for the 2000 US women's
Olympic trials, which she won, her race pace on the tm was surprisingly
close to what she actually ran, iirc. This might be the article:
http://www.runningtimes.com/rt/articles/?id=5009
Perhaps coincidental. But she was an experienced racer and probably did
enough road or trail running that she was able to keep pace dialed in.

FWIW, earlier in the winter, I had played around with a tm, elliptical,
stairclimber, stepmill, trying to see if I could arrive at some settings
that would simulate some of our local hills in terms of muscle usage
when they're too icy to run. For me, I decided they were useful aerobic
or strength endurance tools, but they just didn't seem to simulate real
hills very well. The biomechanics seemed too different, somewhat like in
OA's article. They also didn't work the smaller balance muscles like
trails do. (I ended up using lunges for strength during the worst of the
icy times.)

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people"
-Bernd Heinrich in Racing the Antelope

Dominic Shields said:

Doug Freese said:

There are others that can answer how running on a t-mill and running on
the road relate. I'm not a t-mill fan( I just prefer the roads) so when
the discussions about running outside vs. a t-mill I hit the delete
key. My instincts tell me that running with zero incline on a t-mill and
a flat road even without wind are not equal and may be misleading. Again
I yield to others for the specifics.

What I am about to say is probably blasphemy but in the book : "Exercise
Physiology, Energy, Nutrition and Human Performance Fith Edition" by McArdle,
Katch and Katch they say the following on Page 213

Fine, but on a real road, you have some inclines even if not steep hills, you
have wind, you don't have anyone controlling the pace for you. None of these
items may seem huge in its own right, but they all add up and they all have an
impact on the pace you can run if it comes to an all-out effort.

And 5 miles is not the same as 2 miles. You can have fairly weak endurance and
still fake it for 2 miles. Your body won't overheat in two miles (try running a
10k time trial on the treadmill and see how that goes ... )

Also, who knows how well those treadmills were calibrated ? And for that matter,
who knows how accurately your 5 mile course was measured ?

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

Quoted message said:

You can have fairly weak endurance and still fake it for 2 miles.

_

What's this mean exactly?

Quoted message said:

Your body won't overheat in two miles

_

This is not true for everyone at all and if you talk to enough RDs
you'll learn there is a reason the first water stops commonly as policy
(a saftety requirement) are to be placed prior to the 2 mi marker. also
it's common to hear of Tmill runners take it to the road and tank
after 1 mile (running too fast and lost in translation).

The cut-off for most endurance test is the 1.5mi mark (and I don't
think you can fake that). The notion of "faking" in middle distance
running is one I am not familiar with. The weekend warrior calber
runner that does no training for a period of time and the shows up for
a 2 mile race will be exposed. They would also be exposed by a Cooper
Endurance Test.
http://www.ellis2ca.com/VO2max.htm

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

You can have fairly weak endurance and still fake it for 2 miles.

_

What's this mean exactly?

It means you can run a good 2 mile time off a relatively weak base.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Your body won't overheat in two miles

This is not true for everyone at all

Well, not an obese 75 year old, no.

Quoted message said:

and if you talk to enough RDs
you'll learn there is a reason the first water stops commonly as policy
(a saftety requirement) are to be placed prior to the 2 mi marker. also

Yes, the reason is that you have to start drinking water before you overheat.

How many water stops are there in 2 mile track races ?

Quoted message said:

it's common to hear of Tmill runners take it to the road and tank
after 1 mile (running too fast and lost in translation).

The cut-off for most endurance test is the 1.5mi mark (and I don't
think you can fake that). The notion of "faking" in middle distance
running is one I am not familiar with.

Yes, but then, you aren't terribly familiar with any distance shorter than
the typical central park road race (nearly always 4 miles or more)

FWIW, I ran fast times for 3k and 1 mile in Jan 06 (9:36 and 4:42) when I was
in pretty weak 10k shape (35:4x in Dec 05)

To be in top mile or 3k shape, you also need to be in pretty good 10k shape.
But you can be in OK mile-3k shape and be a little bit out of it in the longer
stuff. It's a different kind of fitness.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

Donovan Rebbechi said:

Fine, but on a real road, you have some inclines even if not steep hills, you
have wind, you don't have anyone controlling the pace for you. None of these
items may seem huge in its own right, but they all add up and they all have an
impact on the pace you can run if it comes to an all-out effort.

I had hoped that I had made it clear that I don't have the answers and
definitely agree that roads aren't like running tracks.

The Cooper test is interesting because that (as I understand it) is how far you
can run in 12 minutes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_test from which you
can derive a kind of VO2 Max http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vo2_max which is
flawed because you can't be sure that the victim ran to exhaustion. My best on a
treadmill in 12 mins is 3.29 KM

The treadmill calibration question is fair enough, "I don't know" is the answer,
in school physics I was taught to expect a 5% instrument error. On a 5 mile road
race course you trust that the organisers did a fair job of measuring and
innumerable people with Garmins always check how close theirs read to the race
distance irrespective of whether they took the measured route.

There seem to be more questions than definitive answers :-)

The key to it all is your weekly milage. The more miles you put in,
the easier (and faster) the actual race will be. Log log log. If you
don't know how much you've ran then how can you improve? Log however
you want to, obviously, but a good tool is useful. I found a good one
http://www.idelphia.com. It shows you your weekly milage as a graph,
which is cool. After a while I started feeling like I have to "feed
the graph" and it got me mad improvements. Another cool thing they do
is, if you go the the site with your cell phone (mobile browser), you
can do your data entry then and there right after your run so you dont
have to worry about forgetting to do it later.

Good luck!

Dominic Shields said:

I originally posted this in misc.fitness.aerobic and a helpful reply suggested
I try in this group. So I read the beginner FAQ and the 8 part main FAQ first.

I completed the London Marathon on Sunday 23rd, it was my first Marathon but I
was somewhat disappointed in my time of 4:01, I was aiming for 3:30. The main
reason for my disappointment is that I was on schedule after 14 miles and felt
really good, not breathing hard but in the next 2 miles my calf muscles began to
hurt like hell, not cramp just fatigue and my mile splits went from 7-8 minute
miles to 9-10 minute miles simply as a result of the pain.

I did carbo load and used 5 carbo gels during the race, I drank a little at
every water and sport drink station so I don't think I hit the wall or had a
dehydration problem, I think it was purely lack of condition in my calf muscles.
My average HR for the entire race was 144 and this is very comfortable for me
and I really did not feel exerted the whole race which is why I am frustrated as
one set of muscles let me down.

The advice I have been given includes hill work, speed work, skipping, stepper
exercise machines, calf extension weight machines. I just wanted to canvass as
wide a range of opinions as possible. Any ideas gratefully received, I plan to
do my next Marathon in October.

I ran 3.5 miles in a fairly leisurely 26 minutes today (Thursday 27th) and had
no calf problems at all. Did the same Friday on a more undulating course.

I'm 41, 6 foot 3, weigh 175 pounds and have been running since August, my best
10K race time is 42:30 (only run in 2 though), previously my main sport was
football (the round ball version)

"Dominic Shields" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

There seem to be more questions than definitive answers :-)

And why I posed the issue and then bailed out. 🙂

-DF

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Your body won't overheat in two miles

_

This is not true for everyone at all

Honestly lance, and I'm not being clever with you here, unless you are
taking an hour or more to do the two miles - and not the last two of a 100
miler, eh!? - it is true.

You just cannot **overheat** on an average, or even tough, two mile run
unless conditions are extreme (and I'm talking running on a treadmill in a
sauna, not in the desert or in NYC, and even then I'm not sure it's
possible) or you are in such bad physical condition that you shouldn't be
trying to stand without medical assistance, let alone running.