Coaching a Coach: Brendan Gregg CIM 2021

   This past fall I had the pleasure to start working with Brendan Gregg. Already very accomplished, Brendan was going through a transition and didn't want to be fully coaching himself but also wanted a lot more autonony than in his previous set up. My personal style is very hands off just by the nature of my life, I work full time and have a one year old and a three year old in addition to coaching. However I think the real reason Brendan contacted me was that he had done some experimenting with, and really wanted to explore, the Canova style of training more and he knew that was the school that I came from. 

  Coming into the cycle Brendan was quite fit. He had run a near PB 13:48 5000m on the track in the late spring, early summer and he finished his summer cycle with a solid 48:14 10 mile at Cherry Blossom. Prior to this cycle Brendan had already had a terrific career with a 2:11:38 marathon best from the 2019 Chicago marathon, a 28:03 10000m best from 2015. In addition he had a long line of national class performances going back to high school. This resume made Brendan far and away the most accomplished runner I had ever been asked to write a schedule for. I'm generally careful not to ask for too much info about why a runner is looking for a change. The assumption I made was that Brendan wasn't too happy with how his last two marathons had turned out. They were both solid, a 2:13:27 14th place finish at the Olympic trials and a 2:13:49 20th place at the marathon project, but my guess is that coming off a 2:11 he was probably expecting more. 

  Brendan was targeting a run at CIM on December 4. This was very much a hometown race for him and he had run there twice before. A 2:18:33 8th place in 2016 and a 2:13:28 5th place in 2018. Given that he was a local, his resume and that he already had a solid finish there before the goal for the race had to be to go for a win. Additionally I personally very much wanted him to get a personal best. I knew this might not be possible simply because the lead pack at CIM doesn't always run at a pace that gives you a real shot at sub 2:11:30 but given that the winning time does fairly regularly dip under 2:12 I was very hopeful. 

 Brendan had been following a fairly traditional Aussie system for most of 2021 up to Cherry Blossom and he had added in a couple of workout variations at my request when we first decided that I would do a training plan for him for CIM. These were an early marathon alternation session and a 30km fundamental tempo (aka easy tempo) at around 5:30 pace. 

  As I mention in the title Brendan is a coach. I used it as the title not because he does online coaching but because he thinks like a coach, talks like a coach and approaches his running like a coach. In fact he comes from a family of coaches as I believe his father was his coach in high school and perhaps it is this linage or perhaps it is just his way of approaching things but whatever the reason when I was talking to him it was sometimes hard to remember that I was talking to someone looking for help as an athlete not as a coach looking for support with his coaching. As such I ended up approaching working with him very much as I would with a coach. 

  We emailed back and forth a handful of times and then had a very good zoom conversation where we discussed exactly what he was looking for. Based on what he told me I wrote him a schedule that was very much a traditional Canova specific phase  adjusted to fit what Brendan had already found to be true for him. Namely that he was most comfortable running around 100 to 120 miles a week and that he did best with 2 days of lower intensity after each workout. 

  The only complicating factor in the schedule was the 25km Riverbank run which we agreed we would under focus on in favor of the marathon. In the end I think I over hedged the training away from speed and because of it Brendan underperformed here. That said I would much rather that outcome then missing in the other direction and have him run a burner at the 25km and then run out of glycogen at 22 when he got to CIM and have him crawl into another 2:13/14 type run. 

  Summary of Training by Week

(Sunday to Saturday)

Week September 12 to 18

Recovery week - 71 miles

Race- Sunday the 12th Cherry Blossom 10 mile 48:13

Workout- Thursday the 16th 1 hour moderate progression run average pace 5:19, starting around 5:45 and working down to sub 4:50 for the last mile plus.

Week of September 19 to 25

Back training- 102 miles

workouts

Sunday the 19th- 30km easy tempo (around 90% mp) 5:30 pace- quads still sore on downhills but controlled

Wednesday the 22nd- Deek's quarters(8x400 with eight 200m float recoveries for a total of 3 miles) 14:11 for the three miles. Recovery 200's ranged from 36 to 40 with most in the 38/39 range, "on" 400's ranged from 66 to 68 with most of them at 67. 

Saturday the 25th- Marathon alternations- scheduled as half mile on, half mile recovery but Brendan had a great 0.55 loop so he did 24 laps of that. The fast loops were at 4:35 to 4:45 pace. The "recovery" laps were at 5:15 to 5:25 pace. He averaged 4:58 for 13 and 1/4 miles.

Comments- This was the first real taste I got of what a workout monster Brendan is. Particularly the Saturday session. I would have been fine with that for the last workout before the marathon so to see that on the first go was startling. I knew he had been doing alternations via the Aussie system for his last cycle but it was still a crazy impressive session. 

September 26 to October 2

Tuesday the 28th- Moderate tempo run scheduled for 5:25 to 5:15 pace. Brendan started at 5:20 to 5:25 and worked down to the 5:05 range averaging 5:14 per mile for the whole run. He reported feeling heavy but not overly so. 

Friday the 30th- 10x1k at critical velocity, 2:50 to 2:55, Brendan reported that he felt like he could have kept doing this for quite a few more but that trying to run one in 2:45 would have been very hard. Which pretty much defines how you should feel during marathon training. 

October 3 to 9

Monday the 4th- 33km Canova marathon fartlek. 10km at 3:25 per km, 5km of 1min hard, 1min moderate averaged 3:05 (2:51/3:23), 5km moderate avg. 3:26, 5km marathon pace- avg. 3:02, 5km moderate, avg. 3:30, 3.2km(2 miles) marathon pace or max effort- 3:11 avg. You can see how Brendan was pretty cooked at the end of this. Now it was a warm day and he was very aggressive through the workout but I think this also highlights the problem with a lot marathon programs. You need a good number of these long hard marathon specific workouts to get the adaptations that you need to be able to really run a great marathon. This session shows Brendan was in great shape but not quite ready to rip a marathon, yet.

Thursday the 7th- 70min progression run starting out around 5:20 pace and working down to just under 4:50 per mile. 5:01 average for 13.95 miles.

A small thing of note. Brendan ended up with 119.94 mies this week. A big week for him. What I think is worth thinking about is that he didn't try to stretch a run or add a little jog someplace to get 120. When you are training really well the miles are just a number that happens not something that you chase or put much thought at all into. 

October 10 to 16

Sunday the 10th- 5x5k at marathon pace with 1km recoveries at around 90% marathon pace. This was scheduled as 4 to 5x5k and Brendan said after a couple of reps he was feeling like it would take all he had just to do 4 but that he felt stronger as he went on and ended up not ony doing 5 but finishing very well. This happens quite often when you start getting into marathon specific shape. splits- 15:22(3:25), 15:09(3:20), 15:12(3:22),15:15(3:21)15:08.  What matters in this session is the recoveries. If you can't hit the fast recoveries then you are not getting the specific impetus you need for the marathon work and by extension you won't be in shape to run the marathon you expect down the line. Brendan did this one perfectly!  This was the point at which I started to get very excited about this cycle. There is no where to hide in this session and he just nailed it. 

Wednesday the 13th Aussie Quarters- 8x400m with eight 200m recoveries run quickly as well so that the whole run is 3 miles. Brendan ran 14:06 which is a crazy monster session. This was very much done marathon style as he was "only" running 65 to 66 on the reps with recoveries at 37 to 40. To be clear that means he was recovering at 5:00 to 5:20 per mile. 

Saturday the 16th- marathon alternations- scheduled as 12 miles of 1/2 mile at 4:40, 1/2 mile recovery at 5:20 to 5:30. Brendan was very tired and considered dropping the workout but decided to give it a go and was able to do 10 1/2 miles, which is nearly the whole session. This is a spot where Brendan's coach like mindset really made a huge difference. Rather than feeling deflated because he didn't hit exactly what was on the schedule he was actually pretty pumped after this session because he did so much after feeling so tired on the warm up. Our point of view has a snowball effect on our emotions and that can make all the difference in getting through a heavy marathon training cycle. 

October 17 to 23

This week we took a down week to rest up for the USATF 25km championships. Brendan did a light 2 mile at race pace, 9:40, on Tuesday and then the race was Saturday. It was a disappointment. Brendan ran 1:17, 4:58 pace, at or just a bit slower than our goal marathon pace. I knew that he was unlikely to challenge for the win or run much under 1:15 because we were in deep marathon training so he wasn't going to handle lactic acid well and he was going to be fatigued going in but when I first saw this result I was really concerned. After we talked I felt much better. After an easy first 3 miles in 15:00 the pack surged and ran 14:00 for the next 3 which off normal training would be no big deal for a guy like Brendan but with little anaerobic capacity it shot his legs, and stomach. He actually ended up having to stop in a porto-potty. This made sense given how we had trained. I had hoped the Aussie quarter sessions would be enough to get him through this, and if the pace had been steady 4:50's give or take 5 seconds they may have been, but they weren't but given how it had unfolded I wasn't worried about his marathon fitness. 

October 24 to 30

The only workout this week was a light 10x1k at critical velocity, 2:50 to 2:55 per km, on Thursday which was a good indication that lactic acid was the problem at the 25km as Brendan nailed these running 2:50 for basically all of them and feeling easy. It was time to get back to work. 

October 31 to November 6

Sunday the 31st- 2 hours and 10 mins (projected race time give or take- I prescribe 2:10 for anyone looking to run 2:15 or under, 2:20 for those looking for 2:15 to 2:20) at 90 to 95% marathon pace. I prescribed 5:20's per mile which was a bit conservative and Brendan was more agressive averaging 5:14 for 24.9 miles. This is not the hardest session to do in the cycle but it is the most taxing on the body and recovery off of this one takes a while.

Wednesday the 3rd- 12 mile run with the last two miles at marathon pace. Normally this would be a super easy session but coming off Sunday I thought it might be surprisingly tough but Brendan reported it was easier than he expected which made me very happy because I worry a lot about not recovering well enough from that Sunday session. 

Saturday the 6th- Bill Squires' Tiger in the Cat long run- as you can tell from the name this session doesn't come from Canova but it is very much the same type of session as his long specific fartleks. This was a cornerstone session of many of Squires' great marathoners and also Charlie Spedding credited it with giving him the ability to race a marathon. You start with 2 miles at marathon pace then do a long fartlek of 1,2,3,4,5,5,4,3,2,1 mins hard with 5mins at a good steady pace between each for recovery and finally 2 more miles at marathon pace. This is VERY tough.  Brendan ran 20 miles in the 1:45 that this took, so 5:14 pace again. That means his fastest 46 miles for the week averaged at least 5:14 per mile. He was ready. We just needed to stay healthy.

November 7 to 13

A much lighter week coming off the two HUGE long runs last week.

Tuesday the 9th, 15 mile moderate tempo run at 5:16 pace. This looks impressive at Brendan's paces but in terms of % of race pace many people run this hard every day. It holds back their progression but it does give you an idea of the effort level on this. Really just an uptempo regular run. 

Friday the 12th- We had the Aussie Quarters session schedule but Brendan flipped it out for a Monaghetti fartlek which he covered 4.17 miles in the 20 mins. They are very similar sessions and can be interchanged almost anytime. 

November 14 to 20

Monday the 15th- Scheduled for 5 to 6 x 5k at marathon pace but slick roads and heavy legs ended the workout after only 13 miles. Dissapointing for the last marathon interval session but you can't get through a cycle like this without bombing one. It is important to remember you are in the condition indicated by your best workout in a cycle. If conditions, or fatigue knocks you down that doesn't impact your actual fitness. 

Thursday the 18th- 80min progression run 15.5 miles, 5:09 pace- Started out in the 5:30's and worked down to 4:45ish by the end. It sounds like it was a wet rainy fall day that saps your will to start the workout but actually is enjoyable as you get going and I think this effort did a good job of washing away the memory of Monday's poor session. 

November 21 to 27

Sunday the 21st- the last real workout- 13.5 miles of 1/2 mile, on/off marathon alternations. Brendan's on's ranged from 2:16 to 2:23 and his recoveries ranged from 2:31 to 2:37 and he averaged 4:53 per mile for the 13.5 miles. This is just a savage session. It gave me great confidence that he would be very tough to beat.

Thursday the 25th- AM workout was a 7 mile progression run going from about 5:25 pace down to 4:40 pace and averaging 5:03. PM workout was 5 miles steady 5:40 to 6:00 pace then 3 miles at marathon pace- 4:50's per mile. These are both pretty light but combined you get 10 miles or so of marathon paced running without killing yourself which is nice.

November 28 to December 4

Wednesday the 1st- 5k marathon dress rehearsal - 15:13 nice and easy. Just a reminder of the rhythm as we close in on race day

December 5 RACE DAY!!!

2:11:21 Run away victory, 2nd place ran 2:12:52. There was a small group through the half in 1:04:58. Based on the official splits and the video clips I have seen Brendan was either in the lead or within a step or two of it from the start. He was the official leader at every split from the half marathon on. He reported that he felt very good but that his legs did feel heavy enough in the closing miles that he wondered if he could respond if someone came up on him. My guess is that if the pack had kept rolling he could have gone 1 to 2 mins quicker before reaching his real physical limit on the day but that is just a guess. It is possible this really was right about as fast as he could go on the day. My feelings are that this was a perfect outcome. When you can't win your focus on a time goal, when winning is possible then time doesn't matter. I was glad he got a PB but obviously given the pace of many of his workouts I think in a time focused race he could have run faster.

Lessons

Every cycle has lessons, good and bad. They also set you up with questions for further consideration. I think this cycle left me with a number of questions. For the bad we underperformed at the 25km. We knew it was a risk and though I would certainly have preferred a 1:14 there if getting it had meant a 2:13 at CIM that would have been a very poor choice.  The question is did we err too much on the side of marathon prep could we have done things slightly differently and have run better at the 25km without hurting the marathon. OR was it sort of the luck of the draw with how the race unfolded and we just needed a steady pace. 

Similarly the time. It was a PB but only by 17 seconds. Based on the workouts and the fact that CIM is a very fast course I would have really liked a faster time. Knowing this was his first cycle through on the system I wouldn't have necessarily expected that he could hold the exact pace of his workouts to the tape, which would have put him in the 2:08 to 2:09 range but I really would have liked a 2:10. That said this wasn't that kind of race. Show me a guy who runs 2:10 from the front and I'll show you a 2:07 marathoner. So though I can't ask anything more from Brendan's race it does leave me wondering a bit about his real fitness. This is unusual for me because I don't get to work with too many guys like Brendan. Generally my athletes are running in the pack and there might be reasons that they run a bit slower than they are capable, course, conditions etc.. but they are easier to quantify. 

In the end I think this seems most similar in my mind to the first cycle from another athlete I coached, Dan Harper. Dan also targeted CIM and he was also coming in with a decent PB, 2:22. He also hit nearly every workout and really over achieved my expectations. Then ran really well on race day, 2:19, but not quite what I thought he could do. With Dan the next cycle really allowed the gains to be locked into his system and even though he didn't really workout much faster than he had in the first cycle he ended up running a 2:17 at Grandma's. I hope that we can see the same type of progression in Brendan's second cycle. 

If you are interested in Dan Harpers training  he wrote a book about the two cycles that I referenced and you can get on amazon, https://www.amazon.com/My-Road-Olympic-Trials-Training/dp/B08YJ2VLVL 

Canova Marathon Training VS. Pfitzinger's Advanced Marathoning

 I thought I would take some time to get very specific about how Canova's marathon training varies from the traditional American system.  The best example of that system for the marathon to my mind is Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas.  This book to my mind represents the american marathon training system done about as well as it can be done.  To be clear I think that the best individual group/system from the USA for the marathon was that of Bill Squires in the late 70's and early 80's but sadly his system is not what has inspired the training of most Americans in the last 30 years.

  Sources

  My understanding of Pfitzinger's system comes entirely from my copy of his Advanced Marathon book, the first edition.  I  have not yet bought the Second Edition so if they made any updates to the system in that edition they are not reflected here. 

  For the Canova side of things I am mostly using Marathon Training: A Scientific Approach by Renato Canova and Enrico Arcelli which they originally wrote for the Itilian Athletic Federation and which the IAAF published  in a bunch of languages.  I am also using the PDF Marathon Training Methods by Renato Canova which can be found here: Marathon Training Methods by Renato Canova  Additionally I reference a schedule Canova published in a german running magazine which I have used google translate for and you can view here: Canova 2:09 Training for the European Athlete

 It is not my intention to do a detailed analysis of both systems.  Instead I want to highlight how they are the same and how they are different.  My basic thesis is that Canova's system is a natural progression from Pfitzinger and by extension the training most serious american marathoners are doing.  Both men are scientists and approach the training from a scientific perspective.  I would say that Pfitzinger seems to me more influenced by the traditonal Lydiard model, which would make sense given his connections with New Zealand and Canova tended to take from a much wider array of sources. 

  Similarities

  The first and most striking similarity comes in the physilogy of marathon performance.  They both essentially dedicate a chapter to this, which makes sense given their shared science background.  What is striking is how similar they are.  Honestly you could swap these chapters from the two books and not have any change in either book.  Really the only difference is the quality of the writing which is much better in Advanced Marathoning.  They both say that in order to excel in the marathon you need to build on five basic areas.

1. Aerobic fitness- broken down into improved mitochondrial activity and quantity in the cells, improved blood profile, improved heart performance, improved capillarization in the running muscles. 

2. Improved use of lactate as fuel in the muscles. 

3. Improved lactate threshold speed.  

4. Improved glycogen storage and lipid consumption

5. Improved VO2 max

  The key thing I take from this agreement is that Canova has not found a new area of fitness to develop. Nor does he view the physiological needs of the event differently.  So the difference must be in either the types of workouts that he uses to improve these physiological areas or in how he combines the workouts for them in his training system and in fact we see that he has made, sometimes subtle but always important, adjustments in both areas. 

  The next similarity that I was drawn to is how they both approach mileage.  Which is that athletes should be running high mileage but to not be particularly committed to a number that represents high mileage.  Instead putting the focus on specifics elsewhere.  Essentially they are both saying you should be doing high mileage for you but that mileage is different for different people and that it should not be the major focus of your training. 

  Another similarity is the pace of long runs.   Both Pfitzinger and Canova believe that in order to get the physical adaptations you are looking for in your long runs your ideal pace range is genenrally from 80% to 90% of your marathon pace.  However they differ greatly in exactly how this is accomplished.  Pfitzinger likes to view all long runs as a very light progression where the early running is done around 80% marathon pace and the latter stages are done around 90% marathon pace.   Canova is much more structured.  In the base phase he generally starts with shorter, 10 to 12 miles, long runs at 80% of marathon pace building them up in distance over the early part ot the training cycle to being very long, 22 to 25 miles, then reducing the volume and increasing the pace to the 90% range.  To be clear both these systems are using these long runs as a means of improving fitness but Canova does not see them as or use them as specific prep for marathon racing and here we find a large difference.  Canova moves his long runs in the specific phase to being much more specific workouts involving a huge amount of running between 95% and 105% of marathon pace and additionally incorperates a lot of running in the 90 to 95% of marathon pace as recovery portions in long run workouts.   Pfitzinger does incorporate some marathon paced running in his specific phase long runs but not nearly with the same frequency as Canova and there is essentially no running in his prescribed training where the athlete runs between 91% and 99% of marathon pace.  That is a KEY difference that we'll get to in a bit. 

  The final similarity I would like to highlight is the use of periodization.  Though both use different names and have some differences in how exactly they break down the training phases they both use distinct and in the end very similar periods of training with specific physiological goals in mind as stepping stones to their final phase of training which is focused on maximizing marathon race performance. 

Key Differences 

  Often times when discussing differences in training I think people have a tendency to focus on minutia or differences that are unimportant and miss the really big differences.  I.E. Looking at two workouts of quarter mile repeats I often see a lot of focus on the quantity of the reps.  "Well group b did 10x400 at 5k pace and group B did 12x400 at 5k pace."  When in reality the number of reps is generally a flexible and somewhat inconsequential peice of information.  More importantly changing the number of reps does not change the physiological goal or effect of the workout.  However changes in the pace of the reps, or the type, pace or length of the recovery, and the difficulty training in the days leading into and following the workout can make huge differences in the physiological effect of the workout.   It is with this perspective that I am approaching these two programs.  I am not looking for differences in style, vocabulary (a tempo run by any other name is still a tempo run) or technique.  I am looking for differences in the physiological adaptation that is being targeted, the amount of focus that is put on each physiological adaptation and how each system attempts to induce those physiological adaptations. 

  Key difference number one we already talked about.  Workouts that involve running at paces ranging from 91% to 99% of marathon pace.  There is exactly none of this prescribed in Pfitzingers training which is not to say that an athlete following this program would not ever run this pace but it certainly would be limited.  In Canova's system running in this pace range shows up in a number of different ways.  It is used in long specific runs of goal race time to goal race distance, it is used as recovery between blocks of running at marathon pace during specific marathon workouts and sometimes as recovery during either VO2 max or lactate threshold paced running.  This pace range is seen by Canova as one of the key marathon training paces with two goals of physiological adaptation first and foremost this pace range increases aerobic lipidic power, the amount of fat that can be burned for energy in a minute.  If you are buring more fat then you are burning less glycogen and since in terms of marathon performance glycogen stores are a key limiting factor and fat stores are essentially inexhaustible, a 100lb runner with 4% body fat would have enough calories stored in fat to run at least 10 marathons, that is an awesome trade to make.  The second goal is increase aerobic fitness.  This pace offers no special benifits in this departement that running at 90% of marathon pace or 100% of marathon pace can't offer so this is not an advantage I see over Pfitzinger's model except that it increases the total volume of running that works on this very important adaptation. 

  The second key differences is quantity of running at marathon goal pace.  Pfitzinger's more than 70 mile a week 12 week training schedule only calls for a total of 14 miles of running at marathon pace in the whole program.  A 12 mile run at marathon pace fit in a 20 mile long run, a great specific marathon workout by anyones standards, and a 2 mile dress rehersal run at marathon pace as part of the taper.  In comparision, though Canova doesn't get into specific detail in his book about how much of this to do in the specific phase, though it is literally the ONLY workout pace he specificly references in his section ton training during the specific phase, in a schedule for athletes attempting to run a 2:09 marathon that he wrote for a German running magazine he included a 9 week training cycle that called for 174 kilometers, which is about 109 miles, of marathon paced running.  This is almost an order of magnitude greater than what Pfitzinger is calling for. 

  In fact during the Canova specific phase essentially every workout that an athlete is doing includes either marathon paced running or some running at 90% of marathon pace or faster.  This comes in many forms.  An athlete could be doing repeats that are faster than marathon pace but with recoveries that cause him or her to average marathon pace.  They may be doing a fartlek that involves many different paces including marathon pace.  They may be doing repeats at marathon pace or they may be doing a long run at 90 to 95% of marathon pace.  Other paces, lactate threshold and VO2 max most often, do show up during the specific phase but always as part of a workout that includes marathon paced running or running at 90 to 95% of marthon pace. 

  It is my personal belief that in these two differences we can boil down why athletes training this way have been able to take world class marathoning from the 2:07 to 2:10 range that it was essentially stuck in from the late 1960's until the early 2000's and suddenly blast into a realm where the new world class is the 2:04 to 2:06 range. 

  However it does leave us with an important question.  If Pfitzinger is not doing all that marathon specific work in his specific phase what is he doing?  Certianly if Canova was just having his athletes add a hundred plus miles of marathon paced running on top of what Pfitzinger was suggesting all he would be getting them would be injured.  So what is the trade off?

  First athletes attempting Canova do get hurt much more than those on a Pfitzinger plan.  Canova calls for a lot of very hard workouts and this increases the risk of injury.  To reduce this risk Canova puts much greater modulation of effort into his schedules.  So yes the hard days are much harder but the easy days and easy runs are much easier and much shorter. 

   Second Pfitzinger calls for a lot of workouts in the specific phase that are VO2 max or lactate threshold workouts, five and six respectively, in the 12 week schedule.  Many of these are in the last 8 weeks which would be the specific phase in a Canova schedule.  To my mind this almost makes the training schedule more of a 5k schedule than a marathon schedule.  I mean if you have done one real marathon workout and five 5k workouts which event do you think you'll be more adapted for?

  This is not to say that no running is done at VO2max or lactic threshold pace in during the specific phase in the Canova system but it is instead mixed into marathon focused workouts.  An example of this would be a session of 10km easy, 5km of 1min hard 1min easy (that is your VO2max pace), 5km easy, 5km marathon pace, 5km max effort.  A slightly more attainable workout from a different program would be 12 miles easy, 5km marathon pace, 6x400m at 5k pace with 100m jog recovery.

  Conclusion

 So if I have convinced you that Canova is the way to go or you were already convinced of that before you read this but you just don't know how to go about it or you have already injuried yourself in attempting Canova in the past.  Or perhaps you have had good success with Pfitzinger and you're wondering if a switch to Canova could lead to even more. What the heck are you supposed to do?  Canova schedules are not easy to find and they are almost always designed for athletes at the absolutly highest level who are training full time.  Frankly the average or even well above average athlete has no prayer of completing them even if they correctly adjust them to their own pace.   The great advantage of Pfitzinger is his schedules.  They are so well written, so balanced, so accessible.

  My suggestion would be to use the Pfitzinger schedule that fits your mileage needs and input Canova style workouts on the workout and long run days, in the specific phase, from 8 weeks until 2 weeks to go, of the schedule to change the balance of your training from 5k focused to marathon focused.  Now these marathon workouts are much longer than the lactate threshold and vo2 max workouts in the Pfitzinger schedule so you can take miles off the days after your workouts and long runs to balance this out.  I'll do an example week below to show you exactly what I mean.

Pfitzinger week 

Monday AM 6 miles PM 4 miles

Tuesday AM 6 miles PM 4 miles

Wendsday VO2 max 11 miles with 6x1k at 5k pace with 2minute jog recoveries.

Thursday Medium long run 15 miles

Friday AM 9 miles PM 4 miles

Saturday 8 miles and 6x100m strides

Sunday 20 mile long run 

87 miles for the week, zero miles at marathon pace, one VO2 max workout, runs at easy, moderate, vo2max, alactic paces

Pfitzinger adapted to Canova week

Monday AM 3 miles easy PM 3 miles easy

Tuesday AM 6 miles PM 4 miles

Wednesday 2 mile warm up, 12 miles of 800m at 105% marathon pace, 800m "recovery" at 95% marathon pace

Thursday AM 3 miles easy PM 3 miles easy

Friday medium long run 12 miles progression from 80% maratho pace to 90% marathon pace

Saturday 8 miles and 6x100m strides

Sunday 3 mile warm up, 5x3 miles at marathon pace with 1 mile recovery at 90% marathon pace (22miles)

 80 miles for the week. 27 miles at marathon pace, kept the easy, moderate, and alactic running, added some running at lactate threshold, lost the VO2 max running.  Lower volume.  Probabaly a harder week. I would be careful to make the midweek workout a bit easier the following week. 

Postscript 

Finally I was obviously very lax in my sourcing of this with no footnotes or use of AMA formatting as such I figure the least I can do is provide links to where you can buy these great books for your own use.  Advanced Marathoning

I have no idea if you can buy the Canova book anywhere.  I got mine by sending a check to the IAAF in Switzerland and it came in the mail which kinda shocked me apparently as late as December of last year you could email the IAAF your credit card info and get one see the 9th post in this letsrun thread.

Canova book thread

Canova, Sondre Moen and the lack of marathon progress in the USA

  My training is still very much the same jogging 4 miles once or twice a day so it hardly seems worthwhile to post it here so instead I figured I would talk about something else.

   At Fukuoka last weekend Sondre Moen of Norway ran a European record of 2:05:48.  This followed up a sparkling 59:48 half marathon in October.   Sondre has been a successful runner for a few years having run in the 62 minute range for the half marathons each of the last few years and he had run 2:11 before he started working with Renato Canova last fall.  I want to talk about him because of two factors.  First the jump from 62/2:11 to 59/2:05 is shocking and almost unheard of outside of the rift valley.   When I see a jump like this mid career my first thought is sadly drugs.  In this case it is certainly possible.  Despite my personal admiration for Canova I do not know him well enough to say for sure that he and his athletes are totally clean.  I am also aware that some of the released schedules from his athletes have recovery intervals are shockingly short.   That said my personal experiences of breakthroughs with his methods tell me that huge breaks are possible without chemical enhancement.

  It is also not that I think Canova has a corner on great running training, I don't.  In fact I think an argument could be made that the best training for the 1500 to 10k is currently available from coaches in the US.  When you consider the success that USA athletes have had at the Olympics and world championships in those events over the last couple of years and that many of the coaches in charge of those athletes are working with very small stables of athletes thanks to are inability to find a financially viable way of creating large well funded training groups, in comparison to Ethiopia, Kenya and Japan where literally a thousand or more post collegiate age athletes are able to give professional training a go and training groups of 30 or more are fairly common. 

  What I do think is that as a country we have massively underachieved in the marathon. Rupp and Flanagan's wins this fall notwithstanding.   There are a number of factors that I feel have a play in this.  The first is that most americans run marathons in the US and there are very few fast courses with consistently favorable conditions.  According to ARRS Houston is the fastest marathon in US based on race time bias and it is only the 16th fastest in the world and it is one of only 3 USA races considered faster than the average or break even time point.   So often we have great American marathoners who is not viewed as being as successful and fast as they would be if they were running races like Berlin, Dubai, Tokyo or Fukuoka instead of New York, Boston, Twin Cities or, with the dropping of pace setters, Chicago.  Also when Boston gets a tailwind we are quick to dismiss a fast time by an american, IE Halls 2:04:58, while we don't tend to put non-american times under the same scrutiny.  I actually read an article once that made a point in saying that Hall's real PB was 2:06:17 from London and then went on to refer to Gebre Gebremariam as a 2:04:53 man.  This is funny because that time for Gebre was run at Boston the same year as Hall ran his 2:04.
 
  This judging of americans by time when they generally run on much slower courses means that often very good americans are judged as being less than they are.  To think that calling Meb a 2:08 guy or  Rupp a 2:09 runner, or Jason Hartmann a 2:11 man is a fair assessment of their success as a marathoner is ridiculous.  These men could easily have PB's 3 to 5 minutes faster if they had focused their energies on the very fast pace set races that the africans dominate.

   That said there is little doubt that we are underachieving in the marathon as compared with the track.  I think that a parallel can be drawn between current american running and the level that the Kenyans were at in the 1990's.  At that time many, many kenyans were running under 27:30 and 13:20.  A good number were under 61, 27 and 13.   Yet almost none were running inside 2:08 for the marathon.  In fact only a fraction of the number of Kenyans were under 2:10 as are today.

   What happened.  Well to listen to many in the sports media tell it the Kenyans stopped fearing the distance and started attacking the marathon.  This is to my mind the stupidest assertion I have ever heard.  The kenyans always attacked.  They had been roaring out at fast paces at marathons from the moment they turned to the roads in the mid 1980s.  The question is why did they stop blowing up?

  My arguement is that Renato Canova, and a couple other coaches, started to do professional development with coaches in kenya.  Traveling the country working with athletes and sharing infomation like this, http://mymarathonpace.com/uploads/Renato_Canova_Marathon_Training_Methods.pdf, with coaches.  This lead to a seed change in how the Kenyans prepared for the marathon.  I think the general fitness that came with this kind of work also lead to greater performance in the half marathon but there the difference was far less.  A 61 man was now becomeing a 60 man.  In the marathon however it was stunning.

  In 1998 the 10th fastest Kenyan marathoner ran 2:08:52, this was a great year for the kenyans in the marathon at that time.  By 2008 the 10th best was 2:07:21.  A solid improvement but the bigger difference at that point was up front as the world lead had gone from high 2:06's to 2:03's.  This meant that big improvements were needed to win and so more and more athletes and coaches adjusted their training accordingly.  In 2015 the 10th fastest Kenyan ran 2:06:19.  A startling time that is under 3:00 per kilometer pace and that no man had ever run faster than prior to 1998.

  My personal experience is what makes me believe so fully in this system.  In the fall of 2005 I had never run under 24:30 for 8k.  I had a 1:07:28 half marathon best.  I began training in the most rudimentary way with Canova workouts and systems and by the end of spring in 2006 I had run 23:26, 1:03:44 and 2:15:28.   Later on after the Olympic trials I was able to get Canova to send me a training schedule.  You should be able to view the schedule here, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m0aEpBDKhfjEmKKzGvWPBkxVZKx1qfYyxPqRLFiT0mw/edit?usp=sharing

  I was already struggling with my coordination issues and as such I never ended up racing off of this training.  I did however find myself in the best shape of my life by far at the end of a month of this training.  I cannot say for sure how fast I would have run I can say I felt confident I would be able to run under 1:03 for the half and in the 2:10 range for a marathon in reasonable conditions, not tailwind, at Boston. 

  So what are the Africans, and a guy like Moen doing that I believe that we Americans are not.  I think the four major things are, one, truly specific marathon workouts in numbers.  So not doing one 16 mile long run at marathon pace and otherwise training like you are getting ready for a half marathon or 10k.   In this type of marathon training the athlete runs a lot of marathon paced work every week, sometimes in multiple workouts per week throughout the training cycle with 15 to 30 miles of marathon paced work run each week during the specific phase.
  Second long hard runs of around marathon distance run at 90 to 95% of marathon pace.  These workouts start much shorter, around 20k, in the base phase but build up to around 40 to 45k during the specific phase.
  Third alternation style workouts where the athlete averages marathon pace for 10 to 15 miles but does so by alternating between running slightly faster than and recovering slightly slower than marathon pace.
  Fourth moderate medium length, 10 to 18 mile, light tempo runs at an effort slower than marathon pace but faster than a reasonable training pace.

  Many top american groups are implementing some of these strategies.  The fourth one is very much like Schumachers' rhythm runs for example.  Meb did a marathon paced tempo run pretty much every week during his marathon build ups.  I think in the marathon the big one most americans tend to fall short on is the specific work.

  Finally I think that one area that the Africans excel at and that much of the rest of the distance running world fails at, myself very much included, is the balance between training very hard generally but not fearing to take complete rest or to half ass workouts. 

  I read an article where a 2:05 Kenyan marathoner was asked why he felt the Japanese could not compete in the marathon with the Kenyans.  He said he thought that if the Japanese trained like the Africans  they would be the best in the world.  When asked what he thought the Japanese were doing wrong he said they were training too hard.

  Similarly when I followed the linked Canova plan, which was the first time I didn't have to figure out my own paces for the workouts, I was shocked how EASY most of the workouts were.  In a two week block there were 6 or 7 "workouts" but 5 of them would be barely harder to do than a basic training run.  Then one or two of them would be savagely hard.

  This is not to say that I think we should make a return to the under training that plagued the 1990's.  I think the tricky key is that the athlete needs to train extraordinarily hard in the macro sense but that they need to be able and willing to reduce the effort in the micro sense.  Doing more workouts, and very high volume, but realizing that those workouts might be quite easy and that is ok.

  I watched a documentary following an athlete who eventually finished 4th at the NYC marathon and the thing I found most different about him compared with myself was that when faced with hardship he opted to half ass his training for a while as a sort of compromise.  He skipped the harder workouts, mixed in days off and then when his body came around he got serious again.  My coordination issue has defied all my attempts to solve it so I doubt that a similar attitude would have saved me from it but I do wonder if I had been a bit more like this if I could have run more consistently well both during my short time of being on the national level and fully healthy, 2006/2007 and in the shorter distances over the years that followed.

  Finally I think that the very top americans are making some changes.  Schumacher's ladies have run better in the marathon this year, though sometimes what is effective training for women in the marathon does not carry over to men because we are less efficient with glycogen, and Salazar has obviously had more success with the marathon of late, seen both in Rupp's very effective running but also in Suguru Osako's 2:07:19.   However I think that there is still an opportunity for one of the second tier groups to stun the US distance world and dominate the top of the USA marathon rankings and perhaps take the majority of the spots on the U.S. Olympic team.

  I think that if you are running more than 5% slower than your half marathon best on similar terrain in the marathon you are under achieving and if you have shown a predilection towards the longer events than that conversion should be closer to 3%.  So for a mid 1:01 half marathon athlete, of which there are now a fair number in the USA that means running in the 2:06 mid to 2:08 mid range.  Obviously in good conditions this would likely fall short of what it would take to beat a guy like Rupp but certainly you could take a spot on the team.  Furthermore a group that was slowing like this would expect mid 1:02 half marathoners to run in the 2:09 to just under 2:11 range.  Think of the impact on american marathoning if one of these groups with 3 to 5 sub 1:03 guys got each of them to run in the 2:09 to 2:10 range in the next year.  I also believe that Moen shows that if they make these changes it is likely that athletes will not only race the marathon closer to the equivalent of their existing pb's in the other events but it is quite likely that they will see a jump in general fitness as well.   In which case perhaps some of our consistent 62 minute half men could find themselves running 59:42 and 2:05:48 in a year or two like Moen has.

Training Blog March 16 to 22 to continue or to regroup that is the question.

Monday 

PM Dale 5 with Uta, 32:10, All I had time for after getting stuck at work late and having to get to dog training after the run total 5 miles

XT whartons, rubberbands, thoracic bridge

Tuesday

PM road 11 solo, 1:06:55, super windy 30mph plus, very cold very miserable total 11 miles

XT Bikram yoga right after run, 90mins, rubber bands and thoracic bridge

Wednesday

PM regular 20k, 1:15:02, single digit wind chill winds 20 to 30mph, struggled with coordination. very hard not to lean forward at all in winds like this very unpleasant run total 12.4 miles

XT whartons, rubberbands, thoracic bridge

Thursday

PM bear hill 4.2 with Uta for warm up, 25:56, very windy and cold again bit better than last night but only a bit. winds 15 to 20mph, dropped off Uta, light drills and strides, Moneghetti fartlek, covered a total of 4.101 miles, that is 4:52.6 per mile, 3:01.8 per k.  This is the fastest Mona I have ever done.  I was fairly shocked given the wind.  I was only into the wind for 500m per 1500m loop but it was rough! 16min cool down.  total 10 plus miles

XT whartons, rubberbands, thoracic bridge

Friday

PM went to acupuncture right after school and she really went after it so I was zonked coming out of there and considered not running but given how little I had done I manned up and got my ass out the door.

dale 4 with Melissa and Uta, 30mins, once again coldish and very windy, then 7 miles in 42mins total 11+ miles in 1:12 pretty quick considering wind. total 11 plus miles

Saturday

AM 4.5 miles on woodway curve trying to work on holding shoulders back,31:40- decent effort on curve- then ran home from gym on back roads, about 8 miles in 48:33, was warmer 40 and the wind was much calmer, of course it had snowed an inch or two overnight so it wasn't a great day but still better. total around 12 and a half miles 

XT 4pm bikram yoga, rubberbands, whartons, thoracic bridge

Sunday

Noon 19minute warm up, cold and super windy 30mph or more. skipping warm up, light drills, strides. goal was 4x4k with 1k recovery around merrimack college 5k loop.  The first k was tailwind. the 2nd and 3rd k were pretty much into the wind, the 4th k was side wind, the 5th k was about half side wind and half tail wind but it is a very tough slow k.   

  This is where I screwed up.  I felt great the first k, in 3:00, with a roaring tail wind and I didn't properly respect the wind for the rest of the loop.  The idea of this type of workout is to run around 102% of mp and try to average mp for 20k with rest built in.  Given the wind I should have aimed for mp on the reps and averaging 98% mp overall.  Instead I just pushed on like It was no thing.

 12:32 for the first 4k, and after a 3:25 recovery k I was at 15:58 flat.  I kept it under control on the first k of the second loop in 3:04 but could tell I was struggling to keep fighting the wind particularly while working very hard to hold my shoulders back.  The 2nd k wasn't bad but after that I was fighting pretty good, 12:45 for 4k- for comparison last weekend I was 12:33 than 12:27 and felt easy, of course last week I was losing coordination so at least I was better off there.  I ran the recovery k in 3:26 which was faster  than either recovery last week which gives you an idea how much the wind was impacting as the 5th k was half tail wind. So I'm through 10k in 32:10 but feeling ragged.  The first k of the 3rd lap was fine at 3:05 with the wind at my back but I was in a bad way going into the wind after that and I struggled to a 12:52 for the full 4k and after a 3:35 recovery k I knew I was done.  48:33 for 15k. which is 5:12 per mile.  

  I was done.  Frankly I just went out too fast for the conditions.  On the plus side the coordination held for the 15k and though I can't be 100% sure as I could feel it threatening a bit I think it would have held for 20k which would be really good given the wind.  Still not what I was hoping for.  Light drills and then 18 min cool down total around 15 or 16 miles.

Summary

 So to run or not.  Honestly this run wasn't long enough to really be specific so that leaves a few weeks to try and cram in some specific work.  It is a shit situation.  The foot feels like 99% and I was able to hold the coordination. Honestly if I had run 20k today I would be in for sure.  If I had lost coordination I would be out instead I ran like a rube and I'm left in a confusing spot.

  Looking at my options my plan is to go ahead with Boston but ratchet back my expectations a bit.  I will see how the next few weeks go but if I can keep improving and stop screwing up I'll run.  I'm also hoping that the worst winter in Massachusetts history will finally quit and I can just fight my own physical demons and not have to battle conditions as well.  

The Importance of Running Specific Musculoskeletal Strength

  I was doing a bit of running 'research' this morning, ok I was wasting time reading about running on the internet because the wind chill is once again in the @#$%ing miserable level and I'm supposed to be starting a workout.  Anyway I came across a quote from Rob De Castella in an interview back in 1983 talking about how to that point in his running career he had only missed 10 total days of running due to injury.

Deek said, "You've got two levels- skeletal strength and physiological fitness.  If the latter surpasses the former it means you can push the body further than it is really able to sustain.  I think that's when you get injured." * This is something I have thought about through my long injury history and never been able to sum up nearly so concisely but it really drives home a simple point that I believe is largely missing from our current conversation about training.

  It is no secret I have had a long and extensive injury history.  I think that some of this can be simply attributed to my habit of always wanting to push harder and not listening to my body.  Still I think there is more to it than that.

  Separately I have long felt that my limiting factors in performance had become muscular more than aerobic.  This is part of why I felt I didn't have success in my short stint at altitude.  In fact I had the opposite. I think most americans, most first world runners, are undertrained aerobically and go to altitude where the stress on the aerobic system is inherently increased greatly and  they see a jump in performance as a result of this redistribution of effort.  Where as I went up there and put even more stress on the aerobic system and even less on the muscular system and saw a loss of fitness.  Now this isn't to say I or someone else like me couldn't find great success training at altitude just that it would take a well thought out plan to address this balance but that is for another blog.

   I think that most of your good training schedules have a good balance between muscular and aerobic development but I don't think that most coaches put enough specific thought and focus into creating this balance.  Most often I think the balance that is being thought about is aerobic and anaerobic work.  Further more I think too often we think of muscular and anaerobic work as the same thing.  I know when I started out I did.

  The problem with hard intervals lead to severe fatigue and under fatigue our form falls apart so instead of taxing our muscular system in a nice balanced way and teaching good strong muscular pathway our form falls apart and we build bad habits and imbalances.   Anaerobic workouts can be great muscular sessions but only for a very developed athlete who has spent years building great muscular strength so their form doesn't break down under stress.  For the rest of us the solution is to do work that is specifically targeting fast dynamic motion while maintaining relaxed control so that we are teaching good form and balanced muscular development.

  From the beginning of our running we should be doing daily work to build our muscular skeletal system to excel at the specific demands of running and running fast.  How?  Mostly with fast relaxed running.  This can be in the form of strides or short hills.  It can be fast relaxed tempo running.  This can be repeats at all sorts of distances AS LONG AS THE EFFORT IS CONTROLLED!  This is what is always missed.  Also you can do running specific drills, skipping, lunge walking and other dynamic running and core exercises to build a muscular skeletal system that can stay healthy and deliver on all the aerobic power you can build.

  I honestly believe that my biggest failure as an athlete was a failure to develop a strong dynamic muscular skeletal system from the beginning.  I believe if I had done more aerobic work sooner I could have been more successful at a younger age but that it would not have improved my overall development.  However if I had started out doing strides daily, controlling my effort in 99% of my workouts to maintain form and doing dynamic general strength work, like the type of stuff you see from  John Cook or Jay Johnson, I honestly believe I would never have had the injury problems I had in college nor do I think I would have developed my coordination problem.  I honestly believe my failure to do this work from the beginning of my running cost me a career as a at least high level national class marathoner.

  I do much more now to try and develop the muscular strength.  I do the yoga for general strength and when I'm not banged up I do strides daily or close to it.  I have also developed a lot of strength over the last couple decades so my workouts are now a means of building strength as well.  Still if there is one area that I need to do more for it is specific muscular strength and endurance.  So often in my training I am strong.  I can run miles on top of miles and feel fine I can run quickly, say 5:20 per mile or even faster and have it feel like walking but as soon as I need to get just a little bit more muscular sub 5:00 at time, sub 4:40 per mile most of the time, I struggle, sometimes to hold these paces for even a few hundred meters.  It may sound crazy but it is not uncommon for me to find myself in a place where I can run for an hour or more feeling relaxed at 5:20 per mile but I struggle to run even a kilometer at 4:40 mile pace.  In the stretches where I have been able to do all the muscular work I start to see huge improvements in my middle distance racing.  So often I find myself very fit but racing fairly slowly.  Where as if I was maintaining my muscular training better I could be running much much faster, if not quite national class certainly much closer.  Specifically I should often be running in the 23's for 8k instead of 24's and 29's for 10k instead of 30's. sub 14:40 for road 5k instead of sub 15:10.  Now you can sharpen up and run faster with anaerobic work but that isn't what I'm talking about in this instance.  I have run sub 30 for 10, sub 24 for 8k and sub 14:40 for a road 5k without doing much if any real anaerobic work.  I can run those times off good balanced aerobic and muscular training.  Too often I fail to do the muscular work to make running relaxed enough at those paces to hold them without good anaerobic fitness.  This slowed my overall development and means I have a lot of decent races in my history but few very good ones.

   I cannot encourage you enough to plan for muscular development as specifically as you do aerobic development.  These two things are the foundations of all running success.  You can always do race specific and anaerobic work later but if you don't build a great foundation of muscular strength and aerobic endurance all the race work in the world won't be worth a bucket of piss.






* P.S. a bit of an aside but the article the quote comes from is in the August of 1983 Runners World.  It is mind blowing to me that they would run an article like this complete with discussion of his racing career, a sample training week and intelligent conversation about his thoughts on his current training and where he would like to take it in the future.  I just can't imagine coming across the same type of article with one of the Geoff Mutia's in this August's Runners World. link to article http://www.juanjosemartinez.com.mx/files/deek_training_log.pdf

Tempo Tuesday; Moderate Progression Runs

  This week Tempo Tuesday is about moderate progression runs.  I have been using these more this cycle but historically I haven't done a ton of these.  I tend to like to hammer my progression runs but that said these sessions are a awesome way to build great relaxation at a quick pace and great aerobic strength.

  These are not a killer session, it is right in the name, moderate.  You might even do this session the day before or after a harder track session if you are a very quick recover and have a long history of heavy training.

  I think for most people however it is a great stand alone workout.  I see a lot of folks who go hard once or twice a week because they are trying to build their miles and they can't go more than that.  This is fine but why just do all regular pace runs?  If you do and run 10 times a week with 2 hard efforts that means 80% of your runs are the same. That simply doesn't bode well for a well balanced training cycle.  Instead mix in some moderate efforts that don't take much more out of you than a regular training run but do target systems a bit differently.  The two big things I would suggest are a session for speed, i.e. diagonals, 100's session or short hill reps and second a session for aerobic endurance.

  The moderate progression is a perfect run for aerobic endurance.  Basically this should be a run that is as long or slightly longer than your normal training run, should start at about the fast end of your normal training pace and should progress steadily over the run to about 20 to 30 seconds per mile faster than you started.  For me this means a 10 to 15 mile run starting at 5:50 to 6:00 per mile.  I generally average 6:00 to 6:20 per mile for a regular training run and finish with my last few miles in the 5:50 to 6:00 range.   In order to start my run at this pace I need to do a mile or two warm up and some drills but I have a lot of miles under my belt so you may not need that warm up.   Over the course of the run I work down to about 5:20 pace.  In a marathon phase I will often run the last mile at goal marathon pace which is a bit faster but this is pushing the envelope on keeping the session moderate and I wouldn't suggest doing it most of the time as you really don't want this session to get to hard and have them take away from more important sessions.

  What it does.  This will build your aerobic endurance and your muscular endurance.  The first few times you do this you may be pretty sore or heavy the day after and your stomach may be upset in the hours after the session but with time you will soon find that you feel fine the next day and your going to find yourself running along on this session feeling VERY easy and you will find your other endurance workouts improving greatly and when you fall apart in races and workouts you will find you can salvage better and stay much closer to pace.

  Where in your training to do it?  This is a session that can be fit in throughout your training cycles.  As a complimentary session it works great in the earliest training to start dipping your toes into faster running.  Then in the early base it is a great workout to supplement the heavier tempo work you are doing in the special and specific phase it is a great light session that can be used to maintain aerobic fitness while not taking too much out of you.

  Hope you enjoy it!

Weekly Training March 9 to 15 Limbo

Monday

Off

XT Bikram Yoga, 90mins, whartons, rubberbands

Tuesday

PM bear hill 4.2 miles 27:53 with Uta, tot. 4.2 miles

XT whartons, rubber bands

Wednesday

PM 9 miles, first 4 with Melissa and Uta next 5 solo total 9 miles

XT Bikram Yoga, 90mins, whartons, rubberbands

Thursday

PM road 11, first 4 with Uta and Melissa, last 7 solo at 6:00 pace, 1:10:21 total 11

XT whartons, rubberbands

Friday

PM I had noticed the local HS had plowed their track and my heart jumped.  I was so pumped so I decided to do Aussie Quarters instead of the Mona fartlek I was planning.  I did a 5k warm up to the track with Uta and Melissa in 21:34. Then I did drills and strides.  There were some icy patches so I decided to jog a lap of the track to make sure it was ok and there were no crazy ice ponds.  Now there is still A LOT of snow up here so the snow banks on the inside of the track and in the outside lanes were well above my head.  As I ran down the back stretch I noticed ahead of me something looked odd.  Then there it was.  for some reason they had plowed 390meters of the track leaving an 8 foot wall of snow 10 meters thick around the 200m start. There was a zig zag single lane shoveled around to the outside but it would be nearly impossible to run it at much under 6min pace never mind in a workout. CRAP.  So now I needed to invent a loop/route to do a Mona fartlek.  I actually have a loop around the high school but they are building a new fire station and eliminated part of the road so that was a no go.  I settled on an out and back sort of set up that if it turned out to not be long enough I could loop around the parking lot to head back out.  It was a bit more rolling than I would have liked and it had a few icy turns greater than 90 degrees.  From the gun I just didn't feel great.  

  For me on a mona I always have a goal of covering 4 miles in the 20 minutes.  To do this if I'm running 4:40 pace on the efforts I need to be running 5:20 pace on the rests.  I felt like crap.  I was afraid I wasn't running under 5 on the efforts and on top of that I couldn't seem to get a great effort out. Normally by the end of the mona I'm in a world of hurt.  To be honest I was hurting but not to bad at the end of this one.   It wasn't until I measured it afterwards and found I had run 3.98 miles and averaged 5:00.9 per mile/3:07 per k that I realized it was actually a decent effort.

  3 mile cool down. total 10 miles

  Oh if you are new to the blog and don't know what a Mona Fartlek is check it out here http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/monaghetti-fartlek.html

XT whartons, rubberbands

Saturday

AM 10 miles, 66mins, first 3 miles with Uta at a bit over 8minute pace because she was not happy that Melissa was home in bed and we were out running in the rain. last 7 miles solo at 6:00 pace total 10 miles

XT Bikram yoga 90mins, whartons, rubber bands

Sunday

2PM 3 warm up, skipping warm up, light drills, light strides. on merrimack college loop. Goal 4x4k at mp with 1k recoveries at 90%mp (total of 20k)  I started to lose coordination about half way and called it.  It was a cold rain and rather miserable all around. splits-4k-12:33.3( with a 2:59 first K- oops!) 1k recovery in 3:28 (5k-16:01.6) 4k- 12:27.9, 1k recovery in 3:29 (10k-31:59.1, 2nd 5k-15:57.5) stopped. I hadn't lost coordination yet but I could feel it going and I wanted to avoid that as in the cold rain/snow mix that was going on hobbling along for a long fight home would have sucked! did some light drills to get coordination firing 100% again and did 3 cool down total about 12 and half miles.

XT ankle drills, light drills, skipping warm up, whartons, rubber bands, YTI

Summary

So I was scheduled to race the New Bedford half marathon today. To any of my teammates at CMS please don't hate me for missing again.  After last weekend my thought process was if I did a workout and it went south, it did, I could stop and go home fairly easily.  However if I was running New Bedford and I lost coordination again I'd have to either hobble to the finish or try and find my way through town. Neither sounded like much fun.  

  Sunday's workout. This session is a canova session. For those who know Fernando Cabada he posted a video of him doing the same session last week, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rs_H46f_Kg , He ran the 20k in 62:21- that is 2:11 pace for the whole thing. I think he averaged 4:55 for his on's- so 2:09 pace.  Now he has a 2:11 PR.  I don't know what his goal for Boston is but I would guess he would be happy with 2:11.  Basically for good workout people with the shorter reps you tend to run a bit quicker than mp and average around marathon pace.  As you do sessions with longer reps you tend to run marathon pace on the reps and be a little slower than mp over the full session.  Now I have never been able to run much faster than mp on any long rep session, but I also used to do much bigger miles when I was doing these workouts.  For me my on's were on 2:11 to 2:12 pace and my overall average was 2:15:00 pace.   I felt very controlled at half way so I have no doubt I could have finished the workout in terms of fitness.

  What does this mean?  I haven't fallen apart fitness wise.  The foot is about 90% I can train full volume this week.  If I can't get the coordination on track by next weekend however I will pull out of Boston.  

  So moving forward.  I will be doing this same session again next Sunday.  This week was the trial ballon. Next weekend is the real test.  If it goes well GREAT we are on.  If not well those are the breaks and I'll regroup and figure out a new plan.  I'm fit and the foot is getting better.  I just got to remember it isn't supposed to be easy and nobody owes me anything. 

  Hope you are well and it isn't snowing where you are.  It is here and I'm not happy about it.

Fartlek Friday the 6/1

 The 6/1 fartlek is a moderate effort.  Really it can be a 5/1, 6/1, 7/1, 8/1 whatever.  The idea is that you run 1minute hard every mile or so.  In order to make things easier, i.e. you don't need to keep track of mile marks etc.. you simply do a hard minute on every 6th minute, or whatever whole number is nearest to your regular pace.

  So on a half hour or so run you would go hard starting at the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th, 30th minute marks.  In between you run at the fast end of your normal training pace.  This is a GREAT way to mix in faster running when you don't have a lot of time or motivation for regular workouts.  It is great for early in a season or when coming back from injury and your not quite ready for full workouts.  To be honest you can do this run every day if you want and just get a touch of speed all the time.

  So often we get in a rut of just running and not getting some faster running in.  This workout is a great  way of sneaking in a little speed when you aren't physically or emotionally up for a bigger effort.  I use this sometimes after a crazy day at work when I am whimping out on a scheduled workout but rather than just slogging along at normal pace I can do one of these and the effort isn't that much different from a regular run but at the end of my regular 20k run I have done 12minutes of fast running so between 2 and 3 miles of quality work.  Doing it once isn't a big deal but over time it can make a big difference.

  I also love this one when I am traveling because you don't need to know how long the loop your doing is or how far you are going, or even where you are going.  Just set the timer on your watch and start running.

  The last great thing about this session is that if you are having a good day you can start hammering the  rest minutes and it becomes a tempo with hammer intervals.  Often I set out doing this because I'm lacking motivation and before you know it I'm running 5:20 to 5:30 pace on the recovery stretches and a salvage day becomes a great day.

  So the next time you find yourself heading out for a run instead of the workout you should be doing try the 6/1 and you will at worst be a bit better off and at best save the day!

Threshold Run

  The threshold run is what is most commonly thought of when you talk about tempo runs.  The name refers to the idea that you are running very close to or right at your anaerobic threshold.  That is the point at which your body begins to produce more lactic acid than it can use as fuel and the PH of the blood begins to rise sharply.  It is a bit of a false hood in that the exact pace will change as you tire but essentially the idea is to run at this pace.

  There are a number of ways to determine this pace for yourself ranging from blood tests during activity and VO2max testing to calculators and charts based on workouts and race performances.  The best guideline I have found is that it is roughly the pace you would expect to RACE for a 1 hour race.  For me I use half marathon pace, All my halves have been in the 1:04 to 1:08 range.  For someone else this might be 10mile race pace or 10k.  The thing to remember is the pace varies a good bit with level of exhaustion as well as changes in weather or terrain so always trust feel over the watch.

  These runs should be run steady or with a slightly negative split, but if your last mile is more than 5 or 10 second faster than your first mile than you are doing a progression run and that is fine but it is a slightly different stimulus.  The threshold tempo is about the steady pressure on the cardiovascular system.  These runs can vary in distance greatly.  It largely depends on what kind of an effort you can get out of yourself in a non-racing situation.  I myself can almost never go more than half an hour like this.  In contrast a few years back Ritz ran a 10 mile tempo run at his half marathon pace a few weeks out from running 3rd at the World half marathon championships in 1:00:00.  So he was doing 45mins.  That is about the max you see and most people cannot produce an effort like that in a workout without a taper, race day adrenalin etc..

  The most important thing with these workouts is that you are better off going too easy than too hard.  If you push too hard and go into anaerobic running your body does not receive the message that the aerobic threshold failed.  The idea is to lock in at a steady effort just below the threshold and exhaust that system.  As to 'embarrass' it so your body will make growths there to address the problem.  If you are a bit too slow this will mean you run a bit longer in the workout to accomplish this but it will be accomplished.  If you are too fast than you simply won't see much improvement.

  Like all tempo runs I suggest you improve the workout by increase the volume before the pace.  I would suggest starting with about a 20minute effort and building up by 5 to 10 minutes each time until you are running 30 to 40 minutes.  Than return to the original distance and increase the pace by 5 seconds per mile or so.  You should find the effort is the same.

   These tempos are most specific to 10 mile to half marathon racing for most athletes but the anaerobic threshold is the single most important marker of fitness for all distances from 3k to the marathon.  In all those events your race specific fitness can be thought of as being built off of the anaerobic threshold.  These workouts should be done throughout the training cycle and they should be a main focus of the pre- specific phase, or early season period of your training.

  This workout builds the ability to run on the edge of disaster, pain, acid, oxygen debt while maintaining control.  Effective distance running boils down to the ability to run fast without falling into those things so it doesn't take much imagination to see how key a session like this can be to your reaching your full potential.

Weekly Training Log February 23 to March 8 Soul Crush

  I'm not one for believing much in jinxing yourself by saying something out loud or in a public way but if I was….

  Anyway I have mentioned a few times on this blog that I feel relatively confident that I'm not getting hurt because since I have been going to yoga consistently I haven't been hurt.  I even pointed out that I haven't missed a day of running do to injury since early 2013.  What I haven't mentioned but I have been personally concerned about and you may have noticed is that in the time I have been posting this blog I have not been going to yoga every week.  I have found that if I go at least once a week it is enough to maintain but I might get a light niggle here or there and if I go at least 2 to 3 times a week.  Over the last two months I have been going every two weeks at best.

  I know this seems basic. You have something that works just go out and do it.  On some levels it is. Reality is I have a lot going on with work, running and the basics of trying to cook, eat and sleep.  Melissa and I joke that no one is allowed in our house until after Boston because it is such a disaster.

  At the finish of my last heavy week of training, which is posted here, http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/02/weekly-training-blog-february-16-to-22_22.html , I was certainly feeling banged up overall but I just hadn't got into yoga.  Monday I took a light day because I had meeting at work and it was a scheduled lighter/recovery week.  Tuesday I was doing my regular 10 and my right foot was painful.  I could tell it was hurt.  I took the next day off, first in two years off due to injury.  I went to yoga, it helped but the foot was still pretty sore.  I ran the next day and ran did yoga the next.  I did a mona on friday and it was ok but after the foot was quite sore so I decided not to do the much longer workout I had scheduled for Sunday.   A couple more trips to yoga and some regular running.  This past week Monday through I did either 11.1 or 11.2 each night, no morning runs.  I did yoga on Tuesday and Thursday.  I went to acupuncture on Wednesday and Thursday.  Saturday I did 20k in 1:16 after going to yoga in the AM.
 
  Today I raced the Old Fashion Ten Miler in Foxboro, MA. It was like having a nightmare while I was awake.  The foot was sore but not too bad, much as it had been the last few days. However not long after 3 miles my right leg started to get the old familiar feeling of fighting the coordination wanting to go.  By 4 miles I was having a few bad steps here or there.  By 5 miles, 25:22, I was pretty much done. The coordination doesn't go as completely now but I had little control and my leg kept buckling.  My last 4 miles were pretty much at 5:30 pace, walking in my current fitness.  There was a right turn in the last 100 meters.  I basically had to stop and pivot to avoid falling.  It sucked.

  I'm not 100% sure what the problem with the coordination was. I had the harness on and I felt I was doing a good if not perfect job of keeping my shoulders back and my back pretty upright.  Now the foot problem is tendonitis in my Flexor Hallucis Longus which means I'm not toeing off fully which may have meant I wasn't getting much range of motion in the ankle.  I don't really know.  There are some other possibilities but that is my best guess.

  This is bad news.  First off I'm at the point where I should be doing the meat and potatoes of the marathon prep.  Second the foot hurts.  I can run on it but it isn't great for workouts and what not.  Third if it means I can't do marathon work or long races that is a major wrench in my plans.

   If I get the foot cleared up in a couple of days and that is what caused the set back in coordination today than this has just been a big hurdle.  If not than I'm probably out for a spring marathon.  I mean perhaps I could sort stuff and get after it again for Grandma's but that is unlikely.  So I'm not in a great mood right now.

  Of course I could have trained less. That isn't going to happen.  One a tiger doesn't change it stripes.  I believe in training hard I've succeeded and failed by doing it.  I'll continue to do that.  However I know I needed to be going to yoga more. My schedule is full but the fact is I needed to make it happen and I didn't and now I pay a price, perhaps a heavy price.

I was going to post the day to day details here but that seems a bit repetitive. So I'll just add that on the Mona the roads were a bit icy which slowed things a bit but I did 3.9 miles in the 20mins.  For the 10 mile I ran 52:49.

  Hope your training is going better than mine!  Have a great week.

Sunday Long Run "The Kenny Moore"

  Kenny Moore is largely remembered for as a writer but just how great he was as a marathoner is often forgotten.  He had a lifetime best of 2:11:36, set in 1970, held the American Record in the event before a fella named Frank Shorter came along to break it.  He finished 4th in the 1972 Olympic Marathon, one of two he competed in.  Kenny had some of the more interesting marathon training I have seen.  Coached by Bill Bowerman who made each athlete an experiment of one rather than fitting guys to his program.  Kenny was not nearly as exceptional at the shorter distances though he was an effective runner he was truly world class in the marathon.

  This long run was one that Kenny would do in his marathon build ups.  It is super hard and should not be attempted unless you are very fit.  It is a great session for both the aerobic system and for teaching the body to burn more fat while running marathon pace.

  Kenny would run 30 miles, not a typo, at about 7min pace as a consistent 2:11 to 2:13 marathoner this can only be described as a very easy pace.  After 30 miles of very easy running he would run 6 miles at 5:00 pace, his marathon pace.   This workout is not the most intensive you will ever find but it is one of the toughest extensive type workouts you can do.  You will completely run your tank dry on this one for sure.

  Most people will not be able to just go from regular long runs and traditional workouts to completing this session.  I would suggest that in building up to this session you should do at least one 30 mile long run in advance of this session.  Also you should do a "Rothlin" long run, http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/sunday-long-run-rothlin.html

  Finally you may have to do the 6 miles as a 10x1k or 6x1mile at marathon pace the first time you do this session.  Frankly you have to be quite close to ready to run your marathon at goal pace before you can succeed at this session so it isn't worrisome if it takes you a few workouts to build up to completing this session.

  Why do this workout?  The 30 miles of easy running burns the vast majority of your glycogen stores and tires you out muscularly, mentally and emotionally.  In short it simulates the kind of exhaustion you can expect late in the marathon.  When you shirt gears and start trying to run marathon pace your body is very aware that its glycogen stores are very low so it will automatically try to run the pace as efficiently as possible, meaning burning as much fat as it can.  Once your body learns it can run a pace on more fat it will likely run that pace that way in the future.  This will enable you to avoid the dreaded "wall" where you run out of glycogen and are reduced to training pace in the final miles of the marathon.

  So if you are getting ready for a marathon and you are really fit why not give the Kenny Moore a try.  Just be sure you have plenty of time to recover.  You don't want to be doing a hard 36 mile workout a couple weeks out from your marathon.  That would be a recipe for disaster.  However 3 to 6 weeks out this may just be your secret weapon to fly by "the wall" to the finish.

Tempo Tuesday Marathon Pace Tempo Run

  This week we look at the marathon paced tempo.  This is one of the staples of so many programs and it is a great workout to increase your aerobic fitness not just for marathon racing but also for events all the way down to the mile.  Though this is for many runners the focal point of their marathon specific work I don't like it as much for that purpose because though it is a great session for the aerobic demands of the marathon it falls short for most runners in terms of teaching the body to burn fat over glycogen and specific muscular endurance.  Still it is a great workout that should be part of the marathoners program for sure and can be a secret weapon for athletes who focus on the shorter distances.

  The marathon paced tempo run is exactly what it sounds like a tempo run at your goal marathon pace. Depending on what point in your program you are at this run can be 8 to 16 miles long.  Some runners who are very good at getting big efforts out in workouts might even push it out to 18 or 20 miles.

  As I mentioned in the build up this type of run is a staple of many marathoners.  Particularly american marathoners.  The Hansons group very famously does a 26.2, right around 16miles, kilometer marathon paced tempo run as part of their marathon prep.  I would say the most zealous and successful practitioner of this workout is Meb who does one pretty much every week during his marathon prep.  He starts them at about 8 miles long and builds the distance over the cycle and has run them as long as 18 miles.  It should be noted though that he has had very successful marathons off build ups that only reached shorter distances.  Most notably his longest marathon paced tempo before the 2012 Olympics where he finished 4th was only 12 miles.

  Why this workout works.  It is a great aerobic session that teaches the athlete to stay smooth for a long time. It builds great muscular as well as aerobic strength.  By going slower than threshold pace it allows you to run at what is still a very quick pace for upwards of an hour, maybe even approaching two hours.  This type of work also does great things for building mental endurance and strength.  For any runner regardless of goal race this session is a great way to massively increase aerobic endurance, mental fortitude and practice staying relaxed at a quick pace.

  How to progress this workout.  Like all tempo runs I encourage you to increase the distance before dropping the pace.  So set your goal marathon pace, be realistic.  It is not your current 5k or 10k race pace! Remember if your training goes well you can always adjust the pace later.  At the start you should try to run about 8 miles.  Focus on being as even paced as you can, the exception to that being if you are preparing for a hilly marathon in which case you should do your tempos on a comparably hilly course and your effort should be even but your pace will obviously fluctuate.  Also remember it is always better to start a bit slow and finish strong than to go out to fast and slow down.

  The drawbacks on this session.  To often this is the only marathon specific workout in a schedule and for most runners it simply will not fully prepare them for the demands of the marathon. Don't get me wrong there are athletes for whom this is exactly enough. Meb is probably the greatest marathon in American history.  Athletes like Brian Sell and Desiree Linden are no slouches.  BUT there are as many stories of athletes who have done a great marathon paced tempo in training or multiple marathon paced tempos in training and have not come close to that performance on race day.  Ask the Hanson guys for every guy that ran 5:10 pace at their 26.2 dress rehearsal and ran that pace on race day as well there was another one who ran with them on the training run and crashed on race day.  Prior to the 2008 Olympic Trials Josh Rohatinsky reportedly ran 5:02 pace for 20 miles on the trials course itself.  I was limping next to him at 22 miles in the Olympic trials when he ran out of glycogen.  There is no question in my mind he was in better aerobic fitness than I was.  But he ended up behind me in the results because he had not trained his body to burn less glycogen and more fat at race pace.

  So for sure get out there and start getting after these runs but I would advise that you do need to do some other types of more extensive workouts as part of your marathon specific prep.