While out for an easy run this evening I felt remarkably fresh and the effort was, well, very easy! As I tried to piece together my very recent running history my summary comprised several shorter hard-ish sessions with more rest days than normal in between. I suppose this makes sense that I’d be better rested and therefore find it easier to put in the work when required.
But then I got to thinking about the bigger picture and the fact that even though I was well ahead of my mileage from last year I only improved my Marathon PB by 5½ minutes. I say ‘only’ as everything is relative but in my case I was putting in weekly average totals of 80km since the start of the year and I was hoping this would allow for a 10-15 minute PB this year. However, after two false starts (Rotterdam and Portumna) I eventually managed to nudge the PB slightly lower in Chicago. If I’m honest I felt these 5½ minutes are a poor return for the effort put in over the past 52 weeks so where might I be going wrong?
One area that I may have let slip this year was racing 5km - 10 mile races. A result of this appears to be that my speed improvement has stagnated over the past year and that has resulted in 5kms all coming in around 20mins or so. I would expect to be in the mid 19:xx range by now but I guess I haven’t trained specifically enough at this effort. Essentially I feel I have fallen into the trap of running long and slow and have overlooked the required speed aspect.
I’ve seen this too in Krusty’s log on boards whereby he mentions that during the Stook 10 mile race although he placed 5th at the end he was only 16th fastest over the flying mile. And he is a man who has put in a LOT of miles!
So, my medium term plan will be to concentrate on chipping away at some shorter 5km – 5 mile races over December and January and hopefully my training paces will have kicked on for the important part of my Spring marathon (likely to be Barcelona on March 16th) training in February.
 |
| My racing history - 2013 races tended to be much longer distances than the past two years. |
So, my medium term plan will be to concentrate on chipping away at some shorter 5km – 5 mile races over December and January and hopefully my training paces will have kicked on for the important part of my Spring marathon (likely to be Barcelona on March 16th) training in February.
What could possibly go wrong...?
From Krusty's post "Over the year I have become completely one-dimensional in terms of speed and now understand that I don't really have any other gears at the moment. That worked out well for me for the two marathons I ran, but I realize that I have little to offer in terms of other distances. The runner who finished in third place in Stook (a whole two minutes ahead of me and 30 seconds faster than my 10 mile PB), finished Dublin marathon 20 seconds behind me and was well satisfied with his time. It's not that I punch above my weight in marathons, but rather that I punch well-below my weight in all other distances." Sounds like he thinks that lots of miles made him good at the marathon but not the shorter distances. So, what's your aim, better at shorter distances or the marathon. Going by the title of your blog there is only one answer! ;)
ReplyDeleteLet me put it this way...I can't see someone (i.e. me!) getting to a 3hr marathon with a 5k pb of 20mins. All the extra miles this year barely shifted my 5k times so I believe I need to sharpen those up over the next couple of months before going into another marathon schedule.
ReplyDeleteA bit late coming here to this conversation. Was quite surprised that your Marathon PB is still not under 3:20 which I have no doubt you will rectify soon. One session that brought me on massively for Seville was as follows. 400/800 at 10K/MP pace no rest no recovery. Start with 6-8 reps and work your way up 12-14 or 75 Minutes roughly. Its tough and the last few reps really feel like the tail end of the marathon without having to run double digit MP miles.
ReplyDeleteThat seems like one tough session Ger! I like the progression you are proposing too and its a workout that I might bring into my training over the summer when I'm out of marathon plans just to see how it goes. That should certainly help me with the shorter stuff also where I hope to smash a few PBs before getting back into marathon training from July for Berlin.
ReplyDelete