Marathoning Matters

How to Improve Performance with Threshold or Tempo Runs

If you've never included a spot in your training regiment for threshold pace or tempo runs, you should try it.  It's the single most effective technique for getting more improvement in fewer miles. Every elite marathon runner uses them.  Ordinary marathon runners who try them find themselves inching towards elite status.  Tempo/threshold runs are a key part of the triad of runs with a purpose that make up the Furman Less is More marathon training program, which manages to improve times even while you do less running (and more cross training). Anyone trying to run marathons faster (as opposed to just finishing) should give threshold-pace running a try.

Essentially, threshold running requires you to run 3 miles or more as fast as you can without going into oxygen debt. The result: the pace at which your body moves from sustainable aerobic running (your cardiovascular system keeps up with your muscles' demand for oxygen) into feel-the-burn anaerobic running (oxygen debt and lactic acid build-up soon slow you down) keeps getting faster.

There are a number of gauges of what your threshold pace should

• Conversation method: Run at the fastest pace that allows you (just barely) to carry on a conversation
• Based on race time:  Run at your 10K pace + 5 seconds a mile for each mile you run beyond 3 (presuming you raced and felt the burn)
• Heart-rate monitor: Run at 80% of your maximum heart rate

Threshold runs can build from 3 to 10 miles in a marathon training schedule and should be done once a week.

Mark Allen cites his own personal example of the power of threshold runs on his site, and it's so amazing I almost hesitate to mention it for fear of raising expectations too high. Interestingly, he doesn't use the term threshold as he aptly describes the technique of using a heart-rate monitor to run at the threshold between aerobic and anaerobic performance. 

The results? When he first began running at threshold (155 beats per minute for him rather than the all-out 190 he often worked out at ) he had to run at 8:15 pace.  Gradually his pace at that heart rate increased until he was running 5:20 miles!  Now, clearly, doing threshold runs will not get everyone to the point of repeating 5:20s. But an improvement of a minute per mile is not out of the question if you've never done runs designed to push your anaerobic threshold higher, and that's a remarkable gain for anyone.

A Marathon Resolution to Run More Than So Many Miles a Year. Resolve to Run the Rest of Our Lives.

Run to have a long run. It seems that the New Year’s Resolutions of non-runners are rarely observed for a month, much less the whole year. Witness the January fitness center attendance surge and decline. 

Marathoners do better. We have the resolve to complete marathon training, after all.

But our plans rarely extend more than a year.  We resolve to run so many miles in the coming year, or train for the following marathons in the spring, summer, fall and winter.

I believe the best set of marathon resolutions has to be scoped for a lifetime.  Sure, it’s fine to include a few marathon sign-ups for the present and near future, and maybe a mileage goal too, but the ultimate reference point should be on why you started running in the first place. Doesn't that mostly boil down to leading a better and, you would hope, a longer life.

Thus I hope the following resolutions make sense, or make the rest of my blog make a little more sense, even if they don’t inspire you to make a similar set of resolutions yourself.

I also hope it makes you think of the larger meaning when you see one of those “runners do it longer” bumper stickers.

I resolve to run marathons for as long as I live.   Running keeps me fit, keeps my weight closer to a healthy ideal, relieves my stress, sharpens me mentally, revs my metabolism higher, all of which combines to make me happy.  Okay, and I also like the runner’s high. 

My goal time used to be 3 hours, but now I resolve to maintain my age grade. My previous resolution can be difficult because of the aging process in any case, and one has to take the typical one minute a year slowdown in stride.  Thus I’ve abandoned my goal of a PR for an age graded PR.  I need to keep why I run in perspective.

To keep running longer, I resolve to run less.  This one might seem a bit counterintuitive for someone who loves to run, particularly given that more mileage tracks to better performance and the ultimate pleasure of running long and well, but I think it’s inevitable. Coping with the wear and tear of running requires more recuperation time as I age.  Getting out there with enthusiasm EVERY day can also get old, particularly with the other demands of my life. And I enjoy runs more if I do them a little less often. 

The fact that the Furman plan of running only 3 days a week with cross training on two other days resulted in my highest placement at the LA Marathon makes this resolution easier to take. 

I resolve to always ramp mileage back up slowly.  I know that every time I’ve ramped up mileage too fast, I’ve suffered the same injury: a calf strain, once in combination with shin splits. It’s a great pleasure to go back out for your favorite mid-length run after a post-marathon recovery layoff, but as you grow older you may pay the price with an unwanted layoff. 

I remember reading that calf strains are “commonplace among older runners.”  (Sigh.) I’ve also read that repeating the same action while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. (Insane sigh.) In my case, I think it’s more like foolishness than insanity. (Foolish sigh).

If you’re thinking you need to make a similar resolution because you’ve suffered a recurring injury, figure out what caused it and stop.  Ramping up too quickly, pushing too hard, recovering too little, recuperating for too short a time ... resist the urge to overdo it and you'll be more likely to make your longer term goals.

I resolve to connect again with a running club and regular running partner.  No better way to make sure you show up than having someone expect you to (Woody Allen's maxim that showing up is 80 percent of success applies to marathons too).  My 3:13 at LA came when I trained with an Irvine City recreation department running group, and found one partner for weekly long runs. And my 3:06 PR came after I ran tempo runs once a week with the Palo Alto running group and ran long runs with my buddy Zack.

I resolve to run a few benchmark races every year. I admire the people who've run the LA Marathon every year since it's inception, although many find their streak is in jeopardy because of the date change to a potentially hot Monday. My goal is settle on one big city spring marathon to run every year, one hilly half marathon (my favorite being the Mulholland Fire Trail run that's run on my favorite long-run route), and any old flat 5K. 

I resolve to help try to save the LA Marathon. This resolution fits in with my overall goal of running to run longer because the LA Marathon has become my annual ritual run and benchmark of what kind of shape I'm in. It's a tough resolution, especially since the LA Marathon doesn’t seem to realize it needs saving. 

Maybe I’m an alarmist, but the announcement of a second date change of the 2009 LA Marathon by about 12 weeks to Memorial Day on Monday, May 25^th could be the LA Marathon’s death knell. The city seems unlikely to accept a further decline in attendance during a deep recession given the high cost of putting the race on. You can catch up on the background here. Disrupting the training plans and flight bookings of thousands, ignoring how many people don’t have that Monday off, failing to recognize that the LA Marathon lacks the allure that allows the Boston Marathon to be a favorite even through it’s run on a Monday, and scheduling LA opposite the far more popular and relatively nearby San Diego Rock ’n’ Roll marathon are sure to make many people decide not to sign up. 

The organizers seem to realize there's a problem, but not the extent of it.  They announced on Dec 31 that they're working on an earlier start time, which will mean the race is a bit cooler. While the race organizers seemingly were satisfied that average LA temperature for May 25^th is 74, they've recognized that's about 25 degrees higher than optimal temperature for a marathon.  Averages are always misleading. In both 2003 and 2005, LA experienced heat waves during that week in May.  High temperature in LA on May 23, 2003 was 101!  High temperature on May 22, 2005 was 102! 

I don’t want the LA Marathon to die: it’s my local marathon, my yearly ritual run, my annual benchmark.  And I certainly don’t want people to die running LA.  Or even to be hospitalized, or to have to stop midway ala’ Chicago 2008.  I don’t think LA is strong enough to survive those kinds of shocks, given how easily churches were able to force the event from a Sunday date. 

An earlier start helps. Better yet would be a change in course to the cooler clime near the Pacific (instead of sticking to the hot and far less scenic interior of LA). And absolutely they need to change the date going forward back to President's Day in February if they have to stick to holiday Mondays. 

You can resolve to help save the LA Marathon by commenting below.  I'll be forwarding comments to the LA City Council and LA Marathon LLC.

 

Read "The True Secret of Carbo Loading" and Never Hit the Wall Again

I used to think I knew everything about tapering and carbo loading to avoid hitting the wall.  All I had to do was eat lots of pasta and bagels on the three days before a marathon and halve my running miles the week prior, and I'd feel pretty good in the last five or six miles of the race. 

Sometimes, I did feel good. More often, though, I'd slow to a jog and smile while silently cursing the spectators encouraging me to pick it up because "I was almost there" at mile 22.  Didn't they know that my legs felt like the Scarecrow's and my hips like the Tin Man's before he got oil?  But I always had a reason why I had suffered a slam into the wall.

For example, I figured I hit the wall at the 1997 San Francisco Marathon right when I turned off the Great Highway into the headwinds on the upgrade towards the Golden Gate Park pan handle because I had only eaten pasta one night.

I figured I hit the wall at the 1998 Paris Marathon because a week of rich, fat-laden, wonderful cuisine had driven all the glycogen the out of my body.

But when I hit the wall at the 2007 LA Marathon, well, I wasn't sure.  Maybe I was just getting too old.  The rule of thumb for the impact of age on marathon times is that you slow down a minute a year once you're past your prime.  And it must have been that I suffered all 20 years of age-related slowdown at once in the 20 minutes of time lost against my planned pace between mile 19 and the finish that year. Talk about your age catching up to you!

I now realize that I just didn't know squat about carbo loading all those years, because the real secret wasn't discovered until 2002 and I didn't hear about it until last year.

This study by the University of Western Australia, which reads more like a science experiment than a running how-to article, proved you can increase the impact of carbo loading on glycogen levels as much as 90 percent. Then I validated the experiment at the last LA Marathon.

Here's what you do.

1. Eat lightly and normally the week before the marathon.
2. The day before your marathon, do a 3 minute, very-high-intensity speed workout in the morning.  For me, that meant running two-plus all-out laps at the track, leaving me gasping for breath and really feeling the burn.
3. Consume 12 grams of carbs for every kilo of lean body mass spread over the next 24 hours.  That's a HUGE amount of carbs. For my 150 pound body, that meant buying four 18-ounce cans of ABB Carboforce at 24 Hour Fitness and nursing them down during the course of the day (ten 12-ounce bottles of new Gatorade Carbohydrate Energy Formula would work as well).

If you wade through the study, you'll find the science of it is that your body responds to the all-out workout by getting ready to handle this stress again, i.e., it loads a ton of glycogen into your muscles.  Yet the short duration of the workout means it has no impact on your readiness for the race the next day. And Carboforce isn't bad: it tastes like a really syrupy version of Gatorade.

While I must admit to feeling a little bit bloated at the starting line, I breezed past the free cellphone call area coming into downtown LA, where I had hit the wall in 2007, and felt strong all the way to the finish. My time was 23 minutes faster overall, and most of the improvement was in the last 5 miles, thanks to not hitting the wall.