Fast Running Blog

I am surprised nobody posted here yet. I guess  everybody's training is getting reviewed naturally. Or maybe people are not particularly anxious to be told to get off their lazy rear end  ;D

I guess I'd be willing to be the 1st guinea pig. I feel like I'm at a bit of a cross-roads in my training. I've gradually built up to 60-70 miles a week and have gone 60 or more every week for a month or so now to where I'm at the point where the last couple weeks my legs feel pretty fresh every day, even after harder runs, something I've never experienced before and didn't think was possible when averaging 10 miles a day.

The next big race I'm looking forward to is the Painter 1/2 marathon in January where I'd like to break 1:30. I'm hoping this can set me up for a sub-3 hour St. George next year. Any pointers/suggestions on workouts that will help get there would be greatly appreciated.

I guess as far as the training review....is the idea that those doing the review go to my blog and look back over my last few weeks, or should I be posting more information here on the forum?

Tom:

I think September so far has been your best month. Looks like you are adapting well to the mileage. I would keep your September training to the end of the year pretty much unchanged except maybe allowing yourself to run a bit faster on all of your runs based on how you feel. Easy runs to not have to be limited to a certain pace, you just need to be sure that you could speed up by about a minute a mile and hold it for the whole marathon in a race. So, in other words, 7:30 is OK for an easy run if you feel confident you could race a marathon on the same course at 6:30 pace.

Same for tempos, although the pace on those tends to self-adjust naturally, so you  do not need to worry about it. If you feel a harder pace is sustainable on those, do not be afraid to push it, tempos is the time to push.

Painter's Half has a history of inaccurate course length, but I think it is realistic to expect to run under 1:30 provided the course is not more than 0.3 miles long.

When you have a chance, try an experiment. Warm up really well, do a few strides and mild stretches, then run 100 meters all out, time it, report the results. My theory is that for a natural distance runner (not a sprinter) 100 meters all out is a predictor of your marathon potential upper biomechanical limit, and a good formula is 100 meter time in seconds times 10 is your marathon upper limit in minutes. E.g if you can run 100 in 15.1 the formula predicts 151 minutes for the marathon, or in other words 2:31. So far I have not run into anybody who would break this formula, but I would like to gather as much data on this as possible. I am fairly certain that a natural marathoner running 150 miles  week actually hits his upper limit thus calculated, and I am also fairly certain that one cannot go above it, at least not by much. What I am not certain about is if a natural marathoner running high mileage could actually push his all out 100 meter sprint along with his marathon performance. The more data we have, the more food for thought, unfortunately the bloggers have been reluctant to supply it. Maybe they just do not know where 100 meters starts and ends on the track.

Or they are too embarrased to admit that they are slow.
I will try it early next week and give you some data.

Sasha - thank you very much for the feedback. This is pretty much in-line with what I was thinking might be the correct thing to do at this point but with your blessing it validates what I've been doing and gives me motivation to continue with the plan (BTW I'm sure glad you didn't want me to build up to 100 miles as the next step).

I've been nervous about just how I'm going to keep up the mileage/motivation during the winter months as I've been one in the past to cut down during winter. Planning the January 1/2 marathon should further keep me focused. I can see that I need to be cautious on the easy runs and probably stay above 8 min pace at this point until I see some evidence I could do 7 pace thru an entire marathon. Painters will give me a better clue on what my marathon pace realistically is, as right now I have no clue, never having done a marathon before on higher mileage, most marathons I've done on only 30-40 miles with perhaps an occasional 50.

I'll see if I can work in the 100 meter test soon. Regarding reluctance of bloggers to provide data.....I can't speak for others but in my case turning 43 in November my greatest fear in doing any kind of sprint is that I'll injure myself. But with the warmups/stretch/strides perhaps I shouldn't worry.

Thanks again.

Tom- I hope you didn't take my response as me saying you are slow.  I didn't intend that and in fact was referring to me.  I need to stop saying the "slow" word as it is too negative (it is fast becoming a swear word on the blog).  I am very interested in your time as I see you with a lot of potential (even if you are "old" ha ha ha). 

Cody - no offense taken, I knew you were referring to the blog collectively, but dang now you have given me another reason to resist providing the data. I've always felt like I was just a very average runner in terms of God-given talent and now I'm nervous that doing the 100 meter test will cement the perception a bit more. I mean what if it takes me 20 seconds to do?

Tom - that would be very unlikely. My guess you hit it around 16-17 seconds, which would predict 2:40 - 2:50 marathon potential. You do have to be thoroughly warmed up, though. It is very difficult, near impossible to hit your top speed without doing 4-5 quick strides first.

I don't mind being a test subject I'll try in the sping before my spring marathon.  You could set up runs for people to show up at to see what they can run a couple times a year, then you can be sure people are doing it right.  Just an idea.

I do not think the 100m theory will work for all individuals but it would be interesting to study. The reason I think it is not a perfect indicator is in cases such as Salazar or Rodgers where they are very high slow twitch fiber type individuals and thus their top speed is very limited but their marathon performance is superb. See article link below. Also the two events rely on a completely different muscle type to determine success. So someone who has a higher than normal amount of fast twitch fibers would indicate a much faster marathon potential than someone with a higher than normal amount of slow twitch fibers and according to what we know from scientific studies this is not the case but exactly the opposite.

http://www.geocities.com/biomorrow/sprinters.html (http://www.geocities.com/biomorrow/sprinters.html)

 A few more related articles:

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/endurance-muscles.html a lot of science talked here

http://www.slowtwitch.com/mainheadings/longrun/different.html Nenow vs. Salazar training methods

Tom, I will do it with you if you want to wait two weeks after St. George.  Having someone there with you might help you go a titch faster.

Thanks Michelle, I'll wait a couple of weeks and we can give it a try. Of course with witnesses this means I won't be able to fudge my time so I hope the 'titch faster' effect kicks in.

I did Sasha's 100 meter test earlier this year.  It was interestesing in that I had not run 100's since Jr. High.  My only word of caution is that if you are giving 100 percent efforts, you will likely be quite sore from the effort.  I was a little surprised by how sore I actually was!!

Thanks for the tip Sirenesque. I think my biggest fear still is that in my old age I'll pull something and come up lame after the 'sprint'.

Sirenesque,  how was your results for the 100 test, did it work for you?