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RE: Marathon Post #5 #runforsteem
Everything sounds reasonable. The advice on shoes is right on. I usually would have two or three pairs that I trained in when doing marathons. My only advice is to just pay attention to your body and take days off when you know it’s what you need. Too often people show up to their first marathon totally exhausted, or worse, already injured. I’m happy to follow along as you get into the meat of your plan. Don’t hesitate to ping me in your posts. One thought for now is that I really believe in speed work for distance runners. It helps with strength, flexibility, and motivation. Now and then, I would replace a 5k run with 6-8 400s with a 400 jog rest. 600s and 800s can feel good too.
Thanks for that advice, that really helps a lot.
I have slight difficulty understanding what you mean by '6-8 400s with a 400 jog rest. 600s and 800s can feel good too.' What are the 6-8 and what do you mean with 400/600/800?
6 to 8 repetitions of 400 meters with a 400 meter jog rest between each rep. What I meant by 600 or 800 is just that you can do longer distance reps too, depending on the goal of the workout. The shorter reps (400) are good for working toward a future goal race pace, but also just good for strength and flexibility as I said. As you move up to 600, 800, 1000 meter repeats they obviously get harder to maintain a pace that you haven’t built up to yet. As you do longer reps it becomes more about nailing down your current race pace. So, to be more concrete, here’s a simple workout:
1 mile/1600m warmup
Etc
Or
Etc.
the second one can be a good way to see what you can get down to. Just start slow and keep dropping five seconds per 400 until you can’t drop.
Obviously paces are totally up to you and where you’re currently at.
On that note, what kind of pace are you running? Do you have a time goal for the race?
I think I get it, I need to see if I can find an ideal stretch somewhere to do this and measure this.
I am currently on my own at approx. 5,15min per km on longer distances and 5 min per km on 5km runs. I think it's slower than what you're suggesting, but pace has never been a target for me. Stamina and actually finishing a marathon is a real achievement for me.
Do you reckon I should focus on stamina or pace? I want to focus on stamina, but you and @toofasteddie are both saying to work on time as well, which has never been a focus. For me to finish this is more important than to injure myself by setting a good time.
Definitely focus on stamina first, especially for your first marathon. Perhaps your biggest training goal, aside from actually being able to cover the race distance, is finding your pace — what you are comfortable running at on the big day. Lock that pace in so you don’t get overly excited and go out much faster and then bonk. My wife nailed her first marathon by just sticking to 9:00/mile or 5:35/km through the second half of her training. Alright, with that clear, the advice toofasteddie and I are giving is primarily about your overall health through the training program. Running one speed for that many weeks will be mentally taxing and can lead to overuse injury in some muscles/joints and weakness in others (the two are often related). So doing faster intervals now and then is for maintaining physical strength. It gets you to open up your stride, using wider range of muscles, and also keeps you a little more flexible. And, it’s just a change to the routine which is important for your morale. Someday, you might want to try going faster, and then those intervals workouts, which you will have good experience with by then, become your tool for pushing your pace goal. Make sense? We still recommend speedwork even if you aren’t trying to run faster at this point. So if you’re pace now is 5:00 (which is great!) then just drop it to, say, 4:45 for some 400s. See how that feels. Then the next time try a little faster if it feels good. Feels good is the key at this point in your training and your race goal.
I get what you're saying, thanks a lot! I'll try to work those intervals in when my colleague is not running with me, it's difficult to do something like that when we're together. Thanks a lot!
My pleasure.
Important statement: "try to find your pace" This is the most important, you will finish for sure if you do the suggested volume but the point is How 😜