Of Mice and Marathons

4x1 mile off 90 secs will give you your exact 5k fitness. From the 2nd half of the third rep onwards, this becomes a brutal session but you'll have an excellent idea of where your 5k fitness stands. Don't envy you...

Not quite ready for 90 second recoveries! I was thinking 3-4 minutes, but I think I will use the lap function and shoot for about 3 minutes or less if possible. I'm just trying to stoke my vo2 max a bit to keep the system guessing. Still should give me a good indication. I can usually predict fairly well off shorter repeats (this changes a good deal as you get faster I imagine).

Wait . . . active or standing rest for 90 seconds?

You don't do the full 200m jog thing. You walkabout/jog/gather yourself - you must move about to prevent pooling. If you can't do the session off 90 secs, you are doing the reps too fast - simple.

Well done Jason; great session. Right, you're in 17:40-45 shape for 5k and 2:50-52 marathon shape - you better believe it sunshine! And, you've still got a good way to go until your marathon; if you get the training right - so far you have - you'll run, if you've got the stones to go for it, 2:48-2:50:)

Forgot to mention: from here on in, I'd 'SUGGEST' that you stay well away from anything faster than HMP - you need to keep training your body to burn glycogen and fat either side (2-3%) of 6:30(PMP)! Just my thoughts. I suspect you'll do VO2 max sessions everyday now:)

Great session Jason. I've never tried the standing/walking rest thing, but I've also never run any miles that fast. You're definitely reaching new heights, keep it up. And keep listening to Bam, apparently!

Bam: "got the stones." I'm glad that one carries over culturally. It's a gem of a phrase. That's the last V-max workout for this buildup. I wanted some big mileage weeks and hard workouts leading into my tuneup half. Just strides per Mr. Murphy's (and I know your) suggestion. As for workouts, some sprinkled HMP stuff and marathon pace miles. I have two races left to let me know what goal pace should be. It's a dishonest course so I'll probably do sub-3:00ish and cheat the last 16 downhill, miles. The marathon is a beautiful and ugly beast of a distance.

Joe: Thanks. I have only down it once and that was because I was a bit too cute with my workout goal. We tend to undervalue walking as runners, but I think it has its place for workouts (and of course post-race recovery). Of course with walking the rest needs to be short. I think today I could have shuffled at 10-12 minute pace (or even slower) but I wanted the hard miles rather the the ability to claim I jogged my recoveries.

You can and will run that fast. I take the Bamster's words of advice to heart.

Boys, the reason for short recoveries is pretty standard for VO2 max, vVO2max and LT. If you are trying to improve VO2max, vVO2max and/or LT, it’s imperative that you stick to short recoveries. Lengthening recoveries drives down average oxygen-consumption rates and mean levels of lactate production, this is counterproductive in terms of VO2max and lactate-threshold.

Prefontaine suffered from taking too long on his recoveries and that was one of the reasons, apart from the obvious one, why he didn’t fulfill his potential.

Here’s what some old fella had to say about Pre:

In 1972 I watched Steve Prefontaine (USA) in the Olympic village do 3 x 1 mile in 4:08 (12:56/5K) with 15 minutes rest after each. Many onlookers thought this was a sensational session and tipped him for the gold medal. However, we do not have 15 minutes' rest after the first mile of a 5K race. It would have been better if he had done 3 x 1 mile in 4:16 with 200m jog recovery. He finished fourth in the final in a time of 13:28 (64.5/400).

But remember, and this is very important, don’t do these type of sessions close to a marathon – you do not want to be teaching the body to burn glycogen: you need to teach the body to conservve glycogen at MP, otherwise, when you get to 22 miles, you’ll crash - simple. This is a mistake that too many marathon runners make!

15 minutes is enough time to get a snack! I'm about 98% aerobic from here until the marathon (other than races, some strides, and some HMPish work so I don't get stale).