Should I or shouldn't I go back to Jacksonville?

[Jennifer Schmidt]

 I have a question that I would love some feedback on.   I have run a total of 10 marathons and am thinking about the next one. I ran the last two in Jacksonville with some friends (we travel together, but not necessarily race together).  For those that are not aware, this is considered to be a fast and flat course where many have known to PR.  I have not had such luck.  When I went two years ago, I was working and going to grad school full time and was exhausted.  I completed the event in about 4:53.  I was not happy, but given the circumstances I was okay about it.  This past time, I felt great and trained well.  I had a local coach put together a schedule for me and went to his weekly track workouts.  I started well and then began feeling tired around mile 15.  Needless to say it was a very long morning.  I finished in over a 4:50 plus time again and cried at the finish.  The reason I bring this all up (I am sure you were all wondering this), is that the friend that I go to races with wants to go back.  I have recently moved from Florida to Georgia and this is one way that we can get together.  After I finished last year, I vowed never to go back.  Part of me says that I should go back and conquer this thing, but the other side of me doesn't want to train hard again and then fall apart.  My best marathon time is a 4:42:10.  I was on pace last year to finish under 4:30.  I average about 25 miles a week when not in training.  I have probably peaked at about 40 miles during the heart of my marathon training.  Any advice and/ or opinions would be greatly appreciated!  Thanks.

[Eric Day]

Jennifer, first thing that you need to do is build/increase your base mileage slowly. I was trying to find a post were Sasha mentions this with detail. You should increase (again, slowly) your mileage to do about 10 miles per day 6 days a weeks. Then you start build other parts of running: long runs, speed, etc.

See this post: http://fastrunningblog.com/forum/index.php/topic,1109.0.html

There much more on forum, try browsing through the info. Lots of good info.

[Sasha Pachev]

Jennifer:

I agree with Eric's numbers. 60-70 miles a week should be your eventual goal. If you could do 40 miles a week consistently in recent past, you probably could start with something like 6 miles a day 5 days a week and 10 on the 6th before your day of rest, and then gradually increase the length of the daily run and the long run based on how you feel.

No speed at this point other than some informal pickups when you feel like it. Up to 60 miles a week the benefits of going longer tend to greatly exceed the benefits of going faster. So we sacrifice going faster to go longer. Not that you will be going that fast for that long anyway at this point if you tried. Due to the lack of aerobic conditioning at this stage it is impossible to run your true fast pace for long enough to learn anything from it anyway.

Easy conversational pace, do not force it,  this is very important. Just get through the distance at a comfortable pace, do not try to break any records with the pace except maybe once every two weeks do a test to see how fast you can run 5 K or 10 K, or maybe even a half marathon.

Regarding going back after a bad race, I think it is a good idea. I've had a good experience with that. In 1999 after training at 90 miles a week for a while I went to the Great Potato Marathon to win and PR, and instead crashed at 15 unexpectedly, got beat by 10 minutes by Dallen Ashby (incidentally he is on the blog), and needless to say was a far cry from a PR, good 10 minutes. In 2000 I went back, ran good pace to 20 miles, then at 22 was down to a jog. No Dallen or anybody faster, so I won, but it was a win by default, my time was 2 minutes slower than Dallen's. An no PR. So in 2001 I went there again. This time competition was comparable to 2000, still no Dallen, but I felt I did not win by default this time. No crash, felt strong the whole way,  ran 2 minutes faster than Dallen's time from 2 years before in spite of furious headwind in the last 6 miles. After that I felt I had mentally conquered the course, it was not bugging me anymore.

[Jennifer Schmidt]

Thank you both for your feedback!  It was always my understanding that you shouldn't increase mileage more than 10% per week.  Since I am only running about 25 miles a week right now, should I just slowly increase my mileage by 10% per week until I get to 40?  I had also learned that for every 3 weeks you increase, you should then cut back for a week.  Do you guys agree?  I am willing to give this a shot, I just don't want to get hurt in the process.

Thanks again!

[Eric Day]

I've been increasing my mileage very slowly for the last 14 weeks. I add 1 km per day every two weeks. Haven't done any cutback's except for a little taper before a race or two.
Hope that helps.

You should follow Sasha's best advise: Listen to your body. If body is in pain, listen to it and take care of it.

[Eric Day]

Oh ! and one more thing. Also, its best to take it easy in pace terms. At the beginning I thought I should do more speed sessions, and got hurt doing it. First its base mileage, speed will come naturally later, you'll see.

Easy conversational pace, do not force it,  this is very important.

<-- this is good advise to stay injury free!!

[Eric Day]

Sasha, you have the link to the post to all the advise for running, don't you?

[Sasha Pachev]

Eric:

I need to get more organized.

Jennifer:

There is no magic about 10%. Sometimes you can increase it faster than that, other times not. E.g if your mileage is 0, applying that rule gets you nowhere, it will stay 0 if you keep increasing it by 10%. If your mileage is close to zero, increasing it by 10% every three weeks in theory will eventually result in a decent mileage, but it will take a very very long time. The range of application for the 10% rule is when you are between 50 and 100 miles a week, are running at least 6 days a week already, and are venturing into a new training territory. E.g somebody used to 100 miles a week who cut down to 20 for a few months due to the lack of time can go straight back to 70, and be at 100 in a short amount of time. Somebody who never ran more than 20 miles a week should try 30 first. If your mileage is low because you are not running 6 days a week it is usually safe to start running your current daily mileage 6 days a week at a slower pace.

In all cases rule number one is to listen to your body. No book, no magazine, no website, no training advice, no expert is smarter than your body, what your body tells you should always take precedence. It is an art, though, to learn to understand what your body is telling you. That is why I recommend running without an iPod, caffeine, feeling obligated to maintain a certain pace at any cost, or other forms of external pressure or distractions. You should learn to hear the music of senses that comes in response to your running effort, and adjust the effort accordingly.

[Dallen]

Regarding going back after a bad race, I think it is a good idea. I've had a good experience with that. In 1999 after training at 90 miles a week for a while I went to the Great Potato Marathon to win and PR, and instead crashed at 15 unexpectedly, got beat by 10 minutes by Dallen Ashby (incidentally he is on the blog), and needless to say was a far cry from a PR, good 10 minutes. In 2000 I went back, ran good pace to 20 miles, then at 22 was down to a jog. No Dallen or anybody faster, so I won, but it was a win by default, my time was 2 minutes slower than Dallen's. An no PR. So in 2001 I went there again. This time competition was comparable to 2000, still no Dallen, but I felt I did not win by default this time. No crash, felt strong the whole way,  ran 2 minutes faster than Dallen's time from 2 years before in spite of furious headwind in the last 6 miles. After that I felt I had mentally conquered the course, it was not bugging me anymore.

This race was my first try. My first Great Potato Marathon was a 3:49 after going through the half in 1:29. Try #2 was a 3:03ish while shooting for 2:40. Try #3 was a huge PR of Just under 2:40. 

You learn from each race and will eventually come back stronger. I would not shy away from the race just because of past difficulties. I say give it a 3rd try.

[Dallen]

This race was my first try. [/quote]

Oops, 3rd try. See, things don't always work out the first go around.

[Jennifer Schmidt]

I really appreciate all of the advice and words of wisdom.  I think that I am going to go for it.  I will contact my running buddy and see if she is still in for Jacksonville. 

As far as my training goes, I am a bit intimidated by the increase in mileage.  I have been thinking about it for the last couple of days.  My biggest concern is not enjoying the running anymore once I make it up to 6 days.  I don't want it to feel like a chore.  My thoughts are that if this does happen that I will either back off a day or increase the mileage on the other days.  Since I have a few weeks until my official training will begin, I am going to try and add 5 miles a week and see how I feel.  I have been currently running four days a week.  The other days I walk anywhere from 2-3 miles with my dogs.

Does anyone have any recommendations regarding training plans (if there are some out on the sight, ignore this and I will check them out)?  I have used the "Four months to a four hour training plan," as well as one of the ones on the New York City marathon website the first year I ran that marathon and have used the ones on the 'Runners World,' website.  My last training plan was put together by the coach I was using at the time.