London Week #1 (77 days and counting)
Despite the return of the rains (have a look at this), my first week of London training has been sound. I left behind the mental baggage from a disappointing Mill Bay performance and took to the roads where frustration is best put down. My body has adapted well to the increase in speedplay, and undoubtedly, this will be followed by a return to volume.
During eight sessions, I cranked out 8h09’30” of running over approximately 115 km (72 mi.) of blacktop and trails.
Monday: day off
Tuesday: 1:10:55, 6:55 mi/pace, my achilles is feeling markedly better, 89%
Wednesday: 1:30:58, 4x (1600, 90”, 800, 3')
Thursday: A.M. 30:02, 6:59 mi/pace, P.M. 28:11, 6:33mi/pace
Friday: 1:27:30, with 7 miles of progressive tempo
Saturday: A.M. 29:09, P.M. a slightly more directed 28:03
Sunday: 2:04:42, 6:51 mi/pace
On a different note, something I read a couples days ago has be thinking, “how fast should I do my long runs?” If understood correctly, apparently, Lydiard believed marathon training had as much to do with pace (91%-97% of your goal time) as it did with the length of the run (20 plus miles).
With my goal time for London corresponding to a 5:55 mi/pace, that would make my long runs between 6:30 mi/pace (91%) and 6:06 mi/pace (97%), please correct me if my math is wrong.
Flipping open Daniels’, and with a 61 VDOT, he’d suggest my long run should be around 7:01 mi/pace… hence my quandary.
Where does this leave me?
Well, after having trained for a few ultras I have seen first hand the benefit/efficiency gained from many miles at a slower pace. That said, I felt quite comfortable two weeks ago when I banged out a 2h run at 6:46 mi/pace, and I am considering knocking my next long run down a bit further. So, (1) how fast do you run your steady state long runs (% of marathon goal time), and (2) do you tend toward distance or speed?
6 comments:
and you are telling me i should slow down!?!? you are the speedy one.
let's run!
I think if you're going with the 91-97% of marathon pace you should keep in mind that Lydiard's boys were moving quite fast. They could get their 22 milers done in not much over two hours. You could try doing some faster ones at 6-6:30 pace but keep them around two hours, then do some (every other or every third week) for a longer duration but at a more relaxed pace. I felt this worked well in my case. this article by Greg McMillan offers his take on the alternating pattern.
I don't purport to be a Lydiard expert, but I did follow Daniels' training programs quite closely for some time. Though I found improvement with Daniels' running formula, it wasn't until I broke out of, what I think are the conservative training paces, that larger improvements were obtained.
Of course I wasn't running nearly the volume you are......
cheers,
L
I'm of a similar mind to Mike. You'll need to do some faster ones to get where you want to be, but mind the time spent training. Daniels also had a points system (as opposed to just counting miles) that you should consider as well.
I like the article Mike, thanks for the link. I’m going to talk with my coach, but either way I’m considering a) picking up the pace toward the end of some of the longer runs or b) alternating pace depending on the length.
Cheers!
Also, don't forget that the 91-97% are in relation to your present MP, not in relation to your hoped-for MP 11 weeks from now.
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