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I think following HR can also fool you because HR measurement could be off. I think your most sure guide is run by feel. To get good at it take experience - lots of tempo runs, lots of races. Eventually you will learn your body well enough.

Hi guys,
You know trainer Dr. Jack Daniels says the effort for marathon is at 82-88%maxHR.
And I had my PB (2:46) by following this idea.
In my last marathon, started out at 85%, then 88 with one or two peaks around 90-91%, but mostly at 88%maxHR until I had a side stitch at km 14, where I had to slow down till the finish line and finished in 2:55, while aiming for 2:42 at the beginning.

But I also had done something new, agressive fueling; liquid energy gels (High5) every 20-25min, instead of GU or Roctane or other sticky gels every 40-45min with water. Also had 200mg caffeine (not from coffee) in my pre-race breakfast, 2.5h prior to my race. (I had tried the same amount of caffeine in my 2:46 marathon too)

So I think, only my starting out with high intensity caused that side stitch and bad time. If I would start at 80%, then increase it gradually, like 81-82-83, up to 85, and leave the 88-90 levels to the last km of my race, I might have achieved my goal, right?

Most of us know, following only pace may fool us, so HR focused pacing is much more safe.

How is your effort plan for marathons?
Any ideas?
Thanks.

I have been having some ankle pain over the last 3 weeks or so that I been preventing everyday training.  Today I tried running after 6 days off and had to stop after 4 miles (9:00 pace).  The pain is located on the outside of my ankle just below the shin.  There is some swelling but no bruising.  I believe the pain is isolated where the superior extensor retinaculum is located (from anatomy diagrams i have looked at).  Post run, most of the pain is felt when lifting my foot straight up.  I am seeing a sports medicine doctor on Wednesday to see how bad it is.

I believe this is an overuse injury as I rapidly ramped up my mileage prepping for Boston coming off very low mileage last year.  All (100%) of my training since January has been on a treadmill.

Wondering if anyone has had similar pain in the past and what they did to cure it and how long they were out of training.  Boston is about 5 weeks away and qualifying was quite a challenge for me.  I'm tyring not to gett too far ahead of myself here, but not sure how many oportunities I will get to run it in the future so don't really see not running Boston this year as an option. 

[Do you think I can run any sub 2:40, 1.5 month later with the most proper training?]

Age: 32 (33 in the end of May)
Sports background : 25 competitive years in different disciplines (Taekwondo, Swimming, Cycling, Running, Triathlon)
General achievements : 350k/day w a mtb (2005),
315k w an avg of 33km/h on a road bike under 104F weather (2012), vo2max 76.5 then.
Half Ironman finisher (8th overall, the world Champion was there and won it) in one of the toughest half ironman courses of the world. (North Cyprus, 2014)

Chronological Marathon background :  3:07, 3:02, 2:58, 2:57, 2:56, 2:54, 2:48, 2:46 (Oct, 2014 with a peak of 98km/week, 5C temperature)

Last marathon : 2:55 (1st of March, 2015, 3 days ago, with a peak of 119km/week, the race temperature was 20C so hot even though I perform good at hot temps) why I couldn't better my time?

Answer : I did something silly for an experienced endurance athlete and started with 88%maxHR and even reached up to 90-91% for a very short time and paid it off at the 14th km with a side stitch. Also tried a different fueling type (instead of taking traditional sticky gels every 40-45min, took High 5 fluid gels every 20min as it was suggested on its guide)
After the pain of side stitch, I had 2 options to compansate my race;

1) Switch to walk for 5min to lower my HR and then go on my race at my desired speed/intensity with no problem
2) Just keep running but at a lower speed/intensity till I feel better or at least to guarantee crossing the finish line.

Since first option might trigger cramps by having the side stitch at the 14th km, didn't want to take risk of having a huge cramp with higher lactate, so I took the 2nd option but no matter how I had slowed down, my HR was 170bpm till the HR monitor went wrong at 33rd km and I took the HR band/strap down on my abs, to feel relief on my chest. But according to how I felt, I bet my HR was still around 170bpm also after km33 until the finish line.

So, I got the lesson, okay, comfortably hard means 82 to 88% of maxHR and you can run marathons with this intensity range but you should build up to 88 as you cover the miles in the race, you can't start with directly 88% and expect yourself to keep running the entire course with that intensity.

Anyways, until here there was no question, I found my answer for this case and wanted to share a brief race report. Now here is my question;

This was not my target race, the big one is on the 19th of April in Germany. So I have 1.5 month to go.
Obviously I am currently in my recovery week, lets say "reverse taper".

Do you think I can run any sub 2:40, 1.5 month later with the most proper training? I think we shouldn't consider my last marathon as a reference since I made a tactical mistake by starting of agressively. I would finish it in 2:42 to 2:44 if I hadn't started that fast.

And what type of a schedule you would recommend me to do to achieve this goal?
Thanks a lot in advance.

If you don't know it yet, but Sasha has a large clan of fast runners.  All of his kids run far faster than most adults.  They are all high achievers in many regards.  I had the pleasure of working with his oldest son Benjamin on a project a couple years ago.  Benjamin is a genius.  He got into BYU as a young teen, and at 13 or 14 years old he was able to code an online race registration platform.  That may sound basic, but believe me it is far more complicated than it sounds.  Sasha has very specific ideas on how to run, on how to raise children, and probably most things in life.  Though he often thinks there is a very specific way everything should be done, he is often proven right with the results.  I am amazed at the running ability, and the intelligence level of his children.  He works hard with each of them, but he also expects them to figure things out.  He doesn't do the work for his kids.  He guides them.  Sort of the "teach a man how to fish" ideology.  I personally have had the pleasure of running with Sasha a few times, and he has taught me many things from those opportunities I have had with him.  I suppose my point in this post is that even if some of Sasha's recommendations don't sound like something you want to do you might want to just look at the results he produces with his strategies.

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.

Yes, it's interesting how some forums rise and fall. I'd love to interact more on this forum, but i don't really check it as much as I check racing reports.

I can think of a few forums that I no longer interact with.

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.

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?

bees. dinosaurs.

http://giphy.com/gifs/dinosaur-vrKUtJNMtB3Y4/fullscreen