Simple Marathon Training Archives

Marathon Recovery Guide

One of the most common mistake runners make in the days and weeks after their marathon is simply running too soon after the race. Racing on Sunday and then going for a run later that week isn’t the best way to recover from the race or to set up the next training cycle. This is what most runners don’t understand: if you want to be able to train injury free in the next training cycle, you need to properly recover from your marathon.

This does not mean that you are sedentary. You’ll be in the pool, you’ll cross train, you’ll do core strength, hip strength and hip mobility, as well as doing rope stretching daily. Your desire to be active will be meet, just not in the form of your daily run.

The recovery phase that I use with my clients is a full 28 days. By the end of the 28 days you’ll be ready for a 10-mile run. At the end of the first week you’ll go for a run, with more running each week between the first week and fourth week.

You have to trust that 28 days of proper recovery is going to set you up for a great training cycle for your next race. The flip side is, many runners get back to training a week after the marathon. They are able to run for a few weeks, yet when they increase their mileage or intensity, they get a “niggle,” for the simple reason that they didn’t recover properly. This runner will often ignore the niggle and keep training… and end up with a full blow injury in the ensuing days. There is no need for this to be your story. Take 28 days to recover rather than a week or two.

Be smart, be patient and trust that a 28-day recovery is simply part of smart marathon training.

You can also listen to a podcast on Marathon Recovery on the Run Faster Podcast (episode #10)!

(To learn about Lunge Matrix/Leg Swings (LMLS), Strength and Mobility (SAM), and Active Isolated Flexibility (AIF) visit: http://bit.ly/2gAr31V)

You can purchase the Simple Marathon Book on Amazon by clicking here.

By Jay Johnson

Finish Your Marathon Strong: Part 2

In Finish Your Marathon Strong: Part 1 I discussed how runners should execute race plans for distances from the 5k up to the marathon. What I didn’t talk about was the training needed to execute those race plans. Now, I’ll share what you need to do in training to run to your potential.

The original question asked was “How do I keep from bonking from 18-26.2 miles in the marathon?” Great question.

The first thing a marathoner needs to do is be honest about the race distance. It’s a long, difficult race. If you think that running long runs of just 16 miles is going to prepare you to run to your potential for 26.2 miles, you’re wrong. Yes, you can run a solid marathon with just a 16 mile long run, but you won’t run to your potential in the race.

I firmly believe that in a marathon cycle you need to run 18, 20 and at least one 22 mile long run. If you follow my 20 week plan, you will have ample time to build from an 8 or 10 mile long run to the 22 mile run (with several 18s and a couple of 20s as well). A staple workout for Kenyan marathoners is 38k, ending very fast. That’s 23.6 miles…ending very fast….

The long run teaches your body to utilize fat as a fuel source and the more efficient you become at this process, the better you can run those last 6-8 miles, just as the original runner asked.

But what about the role of the long run for shorter distances? What follows are the minimum distances needed to run well, followed by the ideal distances.

For the half marathon you need to be able to run at least a 10 mile long run in your preparation. But to be honest, that’s not nearly enough if you want to run a great race. If you really want to run a great half marathon, 13, 14, 15 and even 16 mile long runs should be your goal.

10k runners need to run at least 8 miles on their long run to race the distance well. But again, the serious 10k runner will shoot for a two hour long run, trying to get in several of those long runs in a training cycle.

The nice thing about training for a 5k is that you don’t need to commit to more than 90 minutes for your long run. …but you do need to commit 90 minutes to your long run. Anything less and you will fail to run to your potential.

If it makes you feel better, I ran the 5k in college (14:20 PR) and ran 20 miles every Sunday morning that I was healthy. The mentality on the run was easy for a mile, then I ran as hard as I could for the next 19. I have little patience for the 5k runner who says they want to PR, but can’t find time for a 90 minute run.

After you get in the long run each week, you need a solid aerobic workout. Fartleks are versatile and one of my favorite workouts. Threshold runs are obviously great. Aerobic repeats are just as they sound – repeats that don’t have you producing much lactate. An example would be 4 x 8 min at a challenging pace, with 3 min steady between. That’s 41 minutes of solid aerobic running.

The key for all the solid aerobic workouts is to run via minutes and not miles. This way, you know how much time you need to carve out of your work day to be able to do the run.

In the weeks leading up to the race you need to do some race pace work. The longer the race, the more work you do at that pace. You can do 5,000m of race pace work in 5k training, but after that you don’t need to do quite as much (though the 10k runner probably wants to do 8,000m of race pace work).

I’d like to end with the two components that most runners aren’t doing. You need to do strides on your easy days. They don’t have to be fast – 5 x 20-30 seconds at 5k pace, with 60-90 seconds of recovery jogging is all you need.

You also need to do core strength, hip strength and hip mobility. I have some good resources you can check out here and here. This spring I will be shooting new videos that will be great resources for you. Bottom line is you need to do this type of work every day that you run.

So there is your bare bones training plan. Focus on those elements and give yourself enough weeks to build up the long run.

To get Simple Marathon Training on Amazon, click here!

By Jay Johnson

Finish Your Marathon Strong: Part 1

A question that came up in my recent survey was “How do I keep from bonking between 18-26.2 miles in the marathon?”

Great question. It highlights the crux of the marathon for both recreational and very serious marathon runners.

As you probably know, the body doesn’t have enough glycogen in the muscles and liver to finish a marathon, so the body has to utilize part of its fat stores to finish the race. This means everyone running the marathon has to figure out the best way to both get to the line fit and have a body that can utilize fat (aka lipids) in the final 10k of the race.

So this is a great question for the marathon, yet the same idea applies to shorter distances. How do I run the last mile of a 5k or 10k without slowing down? How do I run the last 5k of a half marathon without slowing down?

What makes the questions about the 5k, 10k and half marathon interesting is that 90% of runners would say they felt well in the opening kilometers/miles of the race. It wasn’t until the end that they felt like they couldn’t maintain pace, let alone speed up.

Today let’s focus on the following question. What does a well executed race look like for a variety of distances? Then next week we can discuss what the proper training looks like for these various distances.

Sound good? Great! Here we go.

Any race can be executed as an “even split” race, where the pace is the same throughout the race.

A negative split race means the second half of the race was faster than the first half. I think a negative split race should be the goal of your racing, yet this may be unrealistic in the marathon and half marathon for some athletes.

I like to see 5k runners break down the 5k into five individual kilometers. My instructions are to maintain a solid pace for the first three kilometers, grind out the fourth to maintain the pace, then speed up in the fifth. You will likely be pleased with both your finishing time and your place in the race if you execute that race plan.

The 10k is similar, but you might want to use miles. Maintain for five miles, grind out a sixth mile at the same pace (and this is going to be really tough), then have a kick – i.e. speed up – the last 200m of the race for a net negative split race.

Half marathons should be run conservatively for 10 miles, then grinding out the last part of a run, a 5k, at a pace that is faster than the first 10 miles. Again, this gives you an overall net negative split race.

I’ve coached runners who have been able to run their fastest miles of the marathon in the final 6.2 miles of the race. Unfortunately, I’ve coached more runners who have failed to execute the race plan of feeling good through 20 miles, then speeding up, as they ran just 5-10 seconds a mile faster in the first 20 miles of the race than we had agreed.

If you run too fast in the early miles of a marathon, you pay the price in the last 6.2. Perhaps this could be part of the problem for the person who wrote in?

If you want to run a good marathon, you need to be right on pace for the first 20 miles. Make it a 20 mile race, then try to run 3 miles faster, 2 miles faster then 1.2 miles faster. Even if you can’t speed up in that last 6.2 miles of the race, having that mentality will often keep you on pace and allow you to finish a race having run even splits.

So there you go, four ways to run four different races. Keep your eyes out for How Do I Keep From Dying At The End Of The Race? Part 2.

To get Simple Marathon Training on Amazon, click here!

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