Peaking too early

[Floyd Wellborn]

Beginning my Boston training today.  Want to run stronger at the end of the race so I've doing more miles on the long runs and more pace work earlier in the training cycle in order to build more slowly through it.  How can I make sure I peak at the right time or at least hold the peak through the race?

[Sasha Pachev]

Floyd:

What is your weekly mileage? If it is significantly less than 90 a week I would not worry about peaking at all because the gains that you will get by simply upping the mileage in an intelligent fashion (which would involve proper sleep and diet) will outweigh any brilliant peaking strategy. You worry about peaking when you have reached the top of your aerobic and anaerobic potential and there is simply nothing else to squeeze out of your body.

I would begin by making sure that you are training 6 days a week and getting in enough mileage in each run, not just the long run. But be careful not to get too excited and overtrain. Make sure that the distance you run daily is something that you can recover from and that you are not picking up any kind of residual fatigue or structural breakdown.

[Floyd Wellborn]

Thanks Sasha.

I'm not anywhere near 90.  I'm at 40/wk over 5 days building toward 65/wk over 6 days.  I'm not sure how to do more miles than that and recover properly given my work schedule and other life commitments.  Every time I've tried to do more miles than that, I get hurt.  This time, I'm starting the cycle more fit and am building miles in smaller increments which requires starting earlier in the cycle.

It is interesting that you mentioned not overtraining.  I do tend to overcook things.  Since my mileage isn't as high as I'd like, I tend to push the intensity up on the miles I can do.