Friday, May 30, 2014

Marathon training. Sort of.

I've been asked how I train for marathons, specifically in the 3months before a race. In summary - mostly I don't. Well, not in a way that could really be considered as "traditional" training.

Anyway, this is for someone who doesn't know me, so I'll begin with a bit about me. My first marathon was Paris, 2005 and my most recent was the Six Foot Track in March this year. I've covered the marathon distance 20 times. Eight on-road marathons, 7 off-road and 5 times in training. My longest duration is 4hrs 58 minutes and the furthest I've run is a little over 50km. My highest monthly total is 733km and last year I ran a total of just over 2500km, most of them to or from work. My commute is between 10 and 13km depending on the day. So I run quite a lot. I started running in 2004. I've clocked up about a decade.

To training; Old guys need to train smart, not harder.

For me the most important thing is base, that is having a shit-load of miles in my legs. I believe that if you run a lot then you'll be able to run a marathon. Simple as that. I've had no significant lay-off from running in a decade, other than post-race recovery (which doesn't take long these days.) I have a lot of miles in my legs. I believe that if I'm running the marathon distance (in total) week-after-week then I'm  I can complete the marathon distance pretty much any time I like. After all, it's just all of the week's miles in one run. A couple of years ago I got an email about the M7 Cities Marathon about a week out from the run. The run coincided with a weekend when I had some time to myself, so I turned up and ran it in a reasonably decent time of a bit over three and a quarter hours. That was on the back of no significant training - just my normal routine. My point is that for me the most important part of training is simply to run 10ish km regularly. If I do that I will be able to complete a marathon and walk like a human the next day. When that's my goal I don't consider diet beyond maintaining my weight at around 67kg. If I hit the cakes and beers at the weekend I'll adjust my diet to drop the weight through the week. I can easily go a day without food. I find it pretty easy to drop any extra comfort-food-kilos I've picked up. Stop drinking beer for a fortnight; that will do it.

I have set myself performance goals and therefore have been stricter at times. I am a little obsessed with my weight because any extra weight is weight I have to carry and when I'm running for 3 or more hours the last thing I want is to carry unnecessary weight. More weight means a slower time. I've become less concerned about what I eat, but if I'm running high-miles I won't restrict my carb intake. If I'm not running high (or fast) miles I may cut down on carbs a bit (and replace with animal fat.) I find it far too difficult to stick to a strict diet. If I'm hungry I eat calories. My day-to-day diet is reasonably balanced so it's not a concern. For my first couple of marathons I did calorie-count (a bit) and eat "properly" but over time I have found that I don't need to do that to achieve my (modest-ish) goals.

For a race my base miles remain the same and I try to build in weekly big runs (21km plus.) I make sure I do at least one run that gets me within 10km of the marathon distance, usually as my last long run, two or three weeks before race day. For a road marathon I'll not run the full distance in training. For an off-road marathon I may do a long-long on-road run if I can't get on the trails; that's why I did my 50km run this year. It was a goal in its own right and it was my final long training run for the Six Foot Track. That race is "only" 45km. This part is mostly mental training. My thought process goes like this: I can run 10km any time, no matter how I feel. So I need to train to cover 32km. On the day I do that and then I knock out a 10k. To me it makes sense, it does't have to make sense to anyone else. Mental trainaing is at least as important as physical.

I will throw in a some quicker runs and try to engineer some properly-fast runs by racing the bus to work or refusing to be overtaken on the Harbour Bridge. If I'm lucky someone will "bite" on the bridge and we'll have a race, or I pick someone ahead and resolve to make it off the bridge before them. But nothing ultra-formal. I'm lucky to have some hills and a couple of decent climbs on my commute. Road marathons are typically far flatter than my commute. I get my hill training without having to think about it and hill training is great. I also try to run to work, at lunch time and home from work. The goal here is not the high total for the day (about 35km) but to make sure I am running near-to-empty. I think this is important preparation for the later stages of a road race. I also have a a love-hate relationship with the months of Jan and Feb. Those are the dehydration months. Horrible, but excellent training for how you will feel at the end of a race.

As I realise I'm now rambling a bit…the final piece of training is to make sure my cruising speed goes up as I approach a race. On race day I don't want to be a hero. I'll have a goal in mind and my aim is to achieve my goal after running every km at an even pace. There is an adjustment to be made. I expect to fade in the second half, so want to get to half way with a bit of time in the bank. So I'll try to increase my to-work commute pace to better-than-marathon pace.

So to sort-of summarise: In the three months before a marathon I'll cut down on the alcohol and probably cut it out completely for at least the final fortnight. I'll increase my mileage from my already-decent base. My calorie intake compensates while making sure my weight is no more than 67kg. I've done weekly long runs building to a run of at least 32km somewhere between two and three weeks before race day. In the final week I may not run at all, just to make sure I'm niggle-and-ache free. I'd love to get more sleep, but I've got 2 young kids, so I've given up on that.

I will carb-load the day before on pasta and make sure I am properly hydrated. On the day I've taken to using the pacers, if provided. Those guys are great; they take all of the thinking out of it. And so far that seems to have worked.

I think that covers it.


1 comment:

Hempy said...

Impressive - I tip my hat!

Ya gotta do the Kokoda Race!!!!

I'll be your support crew.