I have always believed in the simplicity of running; it's one of the things that makes it such an amazing sport. The marathon is the epitome of this; run many many miles at a very easy effort, run a few hard and you'll be successful. Anyone can go all around to different teams and training groups to chat about workouts during a marathon buildup. Unfortunately; much of this talk revolves around things that are not specific to racing 26.2 miles. Many marathoners think the answer to running a great race lay in a new breakthrough piece of training, nutrition or equipment. Others are just looking for an easier way to get what they want.
A few times every month; our team runs on a local track and many weeks we share it with another training group. This group is led by a few runners; one of them is a local high school teacher named Christine. Christine and I have always had a good relationship and chatted a few minutes each week; however the first week last June our conversation went a different route. She informed me that her goal for the year was to finish the Berlin marathon (which is in Sept) and asked for my help. The catch was at this time (due to a very serious non-running related injury) her runs maxed out around 4 miles. We had our work cut out for us.
My job is very similar to Google Maps; an athlete tells me where they are at, where they wanna go and my job is to find the best way to get there; Christine was no different. Due to her injury, I knew she would have certain limitations with her body that were not going to change; so rather than try to spend priceless hours each week trying to change her body, I wanted to concentrate her training on the most important thing: being able to cover the race distance healthy. According to Runner's World; the average runner who trains for a marathon puts in 38 miles a week which at around 10 min a mile; comes out to around 6 hours of training a week. Christine, like 99.9% of marathoners, has a job, a family and friends; time is precious. Having her even do an hour a week to work on weights or flexibility would be taking up 17% of her training time; for an event that is 99% aerobic, it's not worth it. She is about as flexible as a steel rod; so wanted to design a plan that suited Christine's body vs waste precious time on things that were not nearly as important. Specificity and overload was our plan.
Since she could not run much at this point; I wanted to be sure her body got used to moving for 4-5 hrs. So we started out with her running 30 minutes then hopping on a bike directly after for 3.5+ hours. My idea was as time went on to have things flip; meaning to increase her run volume on her long day and decrease her bike volume so 2 weeks out she'd be able to run for 4 hours with very little biking. This is not an easy day for a triathlete; let alone a marathon runner. As each week went by we built Christine's engine with 2 runs and all else in the pool or on the bike with ending each week with a 4-5 hour run/bike. Christine did not complain once. She trusted my running brain 100% and knew this is the road she had to take if she was to hit her goal. Those who refuse to do something in training and look for an easier way just don't want it bad enough.
Months past and Christine completed the training. My goal for her was to finish healthy in 5 hours. One of the highlights of my coaching career to this point was getting a text from Christine after she finished the Berlin Marathon in 3:59. The more talent you have or strong you are physically the weaker your mind can afford to be; going through injuries may weaken the body but it can strengthen the mind if you let it.
In 1943, a psychologist named Abraham Maslow came up with his now renown theory of the "Hierarchy of Human Needs". Maslow's hierarchy of needs is often portrayed in the shape of a pyramid with the most fundamental levels of needs at the base (deemed most important to sustain life) and the need for self-actualization at the top. If I were to make a pyramid of needs to run your best marathon; developing the aerobic system through weekly volume and long run would be at the bottom, deemed most important to success. 99% of the energy required to run the marathon comes from the aerobic system so it makes sense that this is the meat and potatoes of a well planned out program. The ability to squat twice your body weight or toss down a very fast 400 workout looks great for your Strava account; but has no relevance to running a great aerobic race.
Two weeks before the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials; I had two of our 5 athletes that hit the trial standard do a 30 minute warm up followed by a 2 hour tempo run. To be sure they did not run too hard; I told them to keep it at a medium effort (we do 99% of our work based off effort not pace) and even gave Kris instructions not to go over 160 heart rate (for her the point where she is still burning mostly fat for fuel; a sign of still running aerobically). This was one of the few times I wanted to know their average pace; Kevin came in averaging 5:24 and Kris 6:09. Two weeks later Kevin finished in the top 100 in the country (a year before he had no goal of going to the trials, not because he didn't want to but because it was not feasible based off his 1:08 half marathon PR) and Kris had the race of her life coming in 27th (after being ranked 184th). I'd be willing to bet Kevin can not break 60 in the 400 (a debate we often have at practice) and Kris struggles to do 10 push ups; but both are aerobic monsters which is why they have developed into two of the top marathoners in the U.S.
I just started coaching a few new athletes; one of which came from a coaching system that had him doing intervals each week almost 2 minutes faster than race pace and long runs that topped out between 16-18 miles for the marathon. This is a portion of our first conversation:
Runner: "How far will you have me max out in a day; I struggle with the longer stuff."
Me: "26 miles" (a few times in a build up I have marathoners do a few Bill Rodger days where they have to run 26 miles broken up into either 2 or 3 runs
Runner: "But I'm not an elite. What about my speed?"
Me: "Is your marathon shorter than an elites? You have to race 26 just like them."
Runner: "I guess I've never thought of it that way."