Marathon Training Plan(s)

Sahara Marathon Training Plan

Originally, I'd created a plan that had John and I start training in October. This had a gradual build up of mileage with the plan to do a full length marathon a month before race day (on my Birthday in fact) as a preparation for the race.

You can download my original Sahara Marathon Training Plan and have a look. The idea was that we could print it off and stick it on the wall and tick off and record times for each session and share our successes with each other.

My coach suggested that doing a marathon before the actual date was madness as the risk of injury was too great but that as long as there was a full month before race day, it would probably be OK. My thoughts were along the lines of "well what if we'd been training for an ultra? We'd be doing longer than marathon length as part of our training, so what's the problem with doing a marathon length as part of the training for a marathon?"

Most of the marathon training advice I read online backs up the initial opinion of my coach and I've no yet had a good answer to my thoughts. I guess it comes from the idea that many many people run marathons each year, but considerably fewer run ultras and the science behind ultra-marathon training is lagging behind the marathon training science purely because there's less/no money in it.

Delays, Injury and the 11 week marathon training plan

In late October, I hurt my foot a little and had to take a week or two off and then again in November. Now it's December and we have 11 weeks before the race!

Sadly we're no longer looking at running the race at any kind of decent pace. Now we're training just to get through it :-( I'm actually not that upset because after speaking to a previous runner, they said that while they normally run a marathon in 3:30, they took 5hrs because of the sand! So running a rocket pace isn't a priority for this charity race (a quick reminder that this is for charity and they need your donation please).

So, I created a new, gentler plan and sent it off to my coach, Louise at Run to Become, to check through. It seems that I'm generally too hard on myself because she quickly came back with an even more gentle plan and some great ideas about how to run/pace and really emphasised the importance of the long run over every other kind of running we do on our training.

The Revised Plan

So here it is. The revised plan that will (WILL!) see me through to race day.

There are some important notes that came with the plan:

Recovery Runs

Recovery runs are short-distance runs at an easy pace to accelerate recovery for your next workout.

Cross Training (CT)

Cross training refers to easy walking, cycling or swimming. On Cross Training days you can choose to take a complete rest or do some light cross training.

Aerobic Runs

A moderate-effort run is a standard element of your marathon preparation. Aerobic runs are usually done at a pace that is 20 percent slower than the marathon race pace.

Long Runs

According to the following Marathon Training tips page, the main goal of the marathon long run is to build enough endurance for your marathon race. Depending on your level, these runs usually start at 10-12 miles in length and build up to 20-22 miles. The farther you run, the more time you need for your recovery.

Marathon Pace (MP) runs

These runs are partly done at your predicted marathon pace. So, for example: "18 mi long run / 10 mi MP" means that 10 of those 18 miles should be done at marathon pace.

Lactate-Threshold (LT) runs

Lactate-threshold runs are tempo runs of at least 20-25 minutes at this so-called lactate-threshold pace. Depending on your level, these runs are usually around 15K to half marathon pace. If an aerobic run of 10 miles calls for 5 miles LT, 

I'm not sure I get some of these different run types

I'm training to run the race barefoot style, part of which means a cadence of 180 steps per minute or greater. The difficulty with this is that the difference in pace between the different run types listed above is negligible. 

If I run at Marathon Pace, I'm running really slowly with short, high cadence steps trying to keep my heart rate in the "aerobic zone" (check out the following web page on heart rate zones). The problem is that running 20% slower doesn't involve 20% less effort. 

I still have to keep the cadence high and the steps short, but at that speed I really can walk just as fast, so how do I run an aerobic run at a 20% slower speed than my marathon pace?

The only really easy ones are the LT ones as that's about where I've always run. All my running over the last year has been with a heart rate in the 160-170 range and if I just run as I feel, I generally run at a heart rate of 163, but that's well inside the anaerobic band (past the lactate threshold), so again I'm struggling to run in the aerobic zone.

That said, I've been making a real effort to find and stay inside the aerobic zone and my coaching has definitely helped me on that front and I feel like I'm getting closer.

I guess I'll just have to train and see how I adapt. 

Back on the running and Cardiac Drift

Last night I went out for the first run in over a week after resting my left foot after the dreaded TOFP (Top Of Foot Pain) and I'm delighted to report that it was a complete success!

Not only was it a good long run, but I'd aimed to run for one and a half hours and that's what I did. 8 miles, which isn't fast, but that wasn't the point. Also, running in the pitch dark along a country path beside a stinky marsh at high speed isn't the best advised course of action (though it was fun to do it on Halloween while listening to the "Zombies, Run!" game/app - which is excellent btw).

Here's the Mapmyrun.com mapped run, so you can see where I ran to (Gravesend to Chalk and back) and below is the image of my heart rate as I ran (click to enlarge)

Cardiac Drift

Interestingly, you can see how my heart rate increased towards the end of the run. Nearly all my runs have this and from what I've read it's something called cardiac drift - where for each 1% we lose in bodyweight through sweat etc. our heart rate goes up around 7 bpm. That said, I'm not sure that this would account for all of the increase so it's definitely something to watch.

Apparently, cardiac drift is caused by a thickening of the blood as we lose blood volume by water loss. It just shows how important maintaining good hydration through a run is.

In yesterday's run, I filled up my bottle of water and then... Left it by the front door as I wrestled with keys, earphones etc.

Doh!

Normally, this would have killed my run 20 mins in, but as I was taking it so easy and the fact that it was -1C outside, I actually didn't sweat very much and didn't really start thinking about water until the last 20 mins or so.

Of course, today, my hip-flexors are sore and I've given my feet a couple of massages, but it's all "sore" as opposed to "hurting", so it's all good.

It's a rest day today (part of the plan) and will be back on it tomorrow. Oh, no wait, it's Monday. That means I've got Bodypump tonight at Meopham Gym.

:-D

Can't beat a bit of cross-training to keep me fit and maximise my endurance and strength for the run. It'll also be wicked to stretch out those hip-flexors.