Understanding The Marathon

I told you before about how your body can usually store only enough glycogen to fuel about 20 miles of running. And yet marathons are 26.2 miles long. What gives? The legend of the origin of the marathon goes like this: In 490 B.C., a Greek messenger named Pheidippides ran the 24 miles from the Plains of Marathon to Athens to announce that despite great odds, the Athenian army had defeated the invading Persians. Upon reaching Athens, Pheidippides said, “Rejoice. We conquer!” collapsed, and died. When the modern Olympics began in Athens in 1896, organizers included a 24-mile race from Marathon to Athens to honor this great moment in Greek history. Did this really happen? No one knows for sure, but the general consensus is that like any good story from antiquity, there’s some embellishment stirred in to the truth so well that it’s hard to separate the two, and it’s more fun not to bother anyway. There was a Greek messenger of the time named Pheidippides, but no contemporary record of him producing such a great deathbed quote exists. Nonetheless, the legend has its own resonance. At the 20-mile mark of his first marathon, Frank Shorter turned to a runner next to him and said, “Why couldn’t have Pheidippides have died at 20 miles?” The long race caught on after the 1896 Olympics. The first Boston Marathon was held the next year. Early marathons weren’t standardized—they were 24 or 25 miles, depending on how long a course turned out to be. Early in this century, the starting line of a marathon in England was moved back so that the Queen could watch from Windsor Castle. The resulting distance was 26 miles, 385 yards, or 26.2 miles, which is now the official distance for a marathon.

Timing Is Everything: All About Tempo Runs

Improving your lactate threshold is pretty straightforward: You train at or slightly above your lactate threshold. In the training schedule, I call this speed your LT (lactate threshold) pace. Training at your LT pace pushes back the point at which lactate accumulates, allowing you to maintain a faster pace for these mid-range races. How do you know what this pace is for you? If you already race in 15K to half-marathons, your race pace for those races is your LT pace. If you haven’t raced much, you can still approximate what your LT pace is. If you’ve run a 10K, your LT pace will be about 20 seconds slower per mile than your 10K race pace. If you’ve only run a 5K, your LT pace is probably around 30 seconds slower per mile than your 5K race pace is, but you should go run a 10K first anyway before trying to race a 15K to half-marathon.
Regardless of what pace you choose to shoot for, keep this guideline in mind: Your effort during LT workouts should feel “comfortably hard.” You should feel as though you’re working at a high level that you can sustain. If you were to increase your pace by 10 seconds or more per mile, you would have to slow within a few minutes.
It’s important to run as close to the right pace for as much of your LT workouts as possible. Remember what I told you in the last chapter about training to improve your VO2 max:
The biggest gains come from doing the workout in that small window where you’re most stressing the systems that you want to improve.
When you do LT workouts, you’ll probably think in the first mile that you should be going faster. After all, you’re not all that much out of breath. Stick to your pace. The point of the workout is to run it all at your LT pace. That’s different than starting out too fast, and then slowing in the second half of your LT workout. In that case, you might average the right pace for the whole workout, but never run any part of it at the right intensity. That kind of workout won’t improve your LT as much.
The classic workout to improve your lactate threshold is the tempo run, a continuous run of 20 to 40 minutes at LT pace. An example of a tempo run workout is a two-mile warm-up, a four-mile run at your LT pace, and a short cool-down jog. You can also do LT intervals. In these workouts, you do two or three intervals of a fairly long distance at LT pace, jog easily for 25 to 50 percent of the duration of the interval, and then repeat the sequence. For example, after warming up, you would run two miles at your LT pace, jog for five minutes, run two miles at your LT pace, and then do a cool-down jog.
In the training schedule, I start you with LT intervals to get you used to the workouts and to help you learn what your LT pace feels like. Once you’re familiar with your LT pace, I have you do tempo runs. Tempo runs are better because you become more accustomed to concentrating for an extended period while you’re running hard. This kind of training helps you mentally in your races.
At first, you should do LT workouts on the track or other accurately measured courses so that you have a way of checking your pace. After a few LT workouts you should have a feel for the pace. Studies have shown that most runners can accurately produce that “comfortably hard” level of effort on their own once they have learned it. This frees you to do your LT workouts on the roads or trails. Doing a five-mile tempo run on the track can get pretty boring, after all. Doing some of your LT workouts away from the track is an especially good idea if you’ll be running a hilly race because you’ll be more used to running LT pace over a variety of terrain.
Not many runners know about these workouts. They think that to run a faster halfmarathon, they should work on their speed, so they run 800-meter intervals. This type of workout does make them faster, but it doesn’t do much for their ability to sustain a pretty hard pace for more than an hour.
Those who do talk about doing tempo training throw around the words pretty haphazardly. They’ll say they’re doing an “uptempo run,” when all they mean is that they’re going to go a little harder than usual for a few miles in the middle of a run. Or they’ll go out and run a hard 10 miles and say that’s their tempo run for the week. They can call it whatever they want, but these aren’t really tempo runs. Unlike you, they don’t know why they should do these 20- to 40-minute runs at a precise pace.
Because those were workouts that I think all runners should do some version of. LT workouts are only necessary if you’re going to be doing races of 15K or longer.
Then they make an incredible dif

Beyond the Lactate Threshold

Put on your lab coats: It’s time for a little science lesson. As you know by this point in the book, glycogen, a form of stored carbohydrate, is your body’s preferred source of fuel for aerobic exercise. The faster you run, the more glycogen your body burns compared to how much fat it burns. Like any chemical burning process, the process of burning glycogen generates by-products. Burn paper, and you get smoke. Burn glycogen, and you get lactate. Lactate is the by-product of your body burning carbohydrates. You’ve probably heard about lactic acid. For our purposes here, that’s the same thing as lactate. Have you ever tried to sprint all-out for more than a few hundred yards? Remember how at the end of the sprint your muscles felt as though they were on fire? That’s because there was a lot of lactate circulating in your system from all the carbohydrates that were suddenly being burned to power you down the track. So much lactate was being produced that your body couldn’t clear it from your blood, so your muscles stung. Some people think that you’re damaging your muscles when you expose them to lactate.
That’s wrong. You’re always producing lactate—when you’re running easy, when you’re walking, even when you’re sitting. When you burn carbohydrates, as you almost always do, you produce lactate. Your muscles don’t ache at these low levels of effort because the rate of lactate entering your blood is equal to the rate at which it’s removed.
As you move up the intensity scale from walking to easy running, you produce more lactate, but your body also increases the rate at which it removes lactate from your blood. When you exercise above a certain intensity, however, the rate at which you produce lactate is greater than the rate at which your body can clear it.
The lactate concentration rises in your muscles and blood, and suddenly your effort feels much harder. At this point, you’ve reached your lactate threshold.
You’re probably thinking, “Thanks for the biochemistry lesson, but what does this have to do with running a 10-mile race?” Remember the basic race-training principle that I laid down last chapter: If you want to complete a race, you have to be able to cover the distance. If you also want to race the distance, then you should do workouts that improve your capacities to handle the limiting factors on your performance in that distance. For 5Ks and 10Ks, that meant doing workouts to max out your VO2 max. For 15Ks to half-marathons, that means improving your lactate threshold. Once you get past the hump of being able to cover the distance without great fatigue, the limiting factor on how fast you can run the 15K to the half-marathon is your lactate threshold. In fact, your race pace for the 15K to the half-marathon is roughly equal to your lactate threshold. Go faster than that, and you’ll start accumulating lactate in your blood. You can exceed your lactate threshold in shorter races, such as an 8K, but 15Ks to half-marathons last one to two hours for most runners, and you just can’t run that fast for that long.
To improve, then, you need to increase your lactate threshold. When you do that, your lactate threshold occurs at a higher percentage of your VO2 max. So with the right training, you can push your 15K to half-marathon pace closer to that of your 5K pace; that is, you can make better use of your basic aerobic fitness. You can run faster before you start accumulating lactate.

The Rodney Dangerfields of Races

Races of 15K (9.3 miles) through the half-marathon (13.1 miles) get no respect. The half-marathon doesn’t even get its own name; it’s just half of another distance. Imagine if people called 5Ks “half-10Ks.”
This range of races, which also includes 10-milers and 20K (12.4 miles), is almost never the focus of a runner’s races. Runners usually use these races as tune-up races a month or so before a marathon. Or some runners will run one of these races at the beginning of a racing season to build strength, and then drop down in distance to 5Ks and 10Ks for the rest of the season. But you almost never hear a runner say, “This fall, my goal is to be the best 10-mile runner I can be.”
That’s too bad. These hybrid distances can be some of the most satisfying in running. They’re plenty long, so you’re not going to get through one by running a few miles a few times a week, as you could with a 5K. But they’re not so long that they’re going to knock you down for too long. Most of the soreness and lingering fatigue that people have from marathons comes from what happens after 18 or 20 miles. Should you try a 15K, 10-miler, or a half-marathon? Why not? For people who are thinking about trying a marathon someday, building up to one of these races is a good idea. You learn the routine of training for longer distances by gradually extending your distance. Anyone running a marathon should have experience with other races first. These longer races will give you a better idea of what you’re going to experience if you try to tackle a marathon.
If you usually don’t run farther than five miles, keying on one of these races is a good motivation to extend your distance. To do that, increase the distance of your long run by one mile two out of every
three weeks. For 15Ks and 10-milers, work up to running that far two weeks before the race. Take it easy for the next two weeks, and then run the race at a strong but reasonable
pace that you know you can maintain to the end. If you’re going to do a half-marathon, then build up to 10 to 12 miles at a time, again doing your last long run two weeks before the race.
But if you’ve been running a bit more and think that you can not only cover the distance, but also run a good notch faster than on your usual training runs, you can improve your performance at these distances by entering the strange world of the lactate threshold.

What You Should Do Before a Race?

Following are two training schedules, one for building up to a 5K and one for building up to an 8K or 10K. Here’s the fine print on these schedules:

• They assume that you can manage the first week’s training. If you’re not at that level yet, build your mileage until you are.
• I’ve only listed the key workouts for each week. Try to get in at least one on two other easy runs at your usual distance during the week.
• Don’t run so much or so hard the rest of the week that you can’t complete the listed workouts. They are the ones that will spur your improvement.
• Space the key workouts evenly throughout each week to allow proper recovery.
• Try not to miss any of the key workouts, but don’t try to “make up” missed ones. Just keep going through the schedule.
• If you miss the key workouts two weeks in a row, postpone your goal race by two weeks, and pick up the schedule where you left off.
• Do the striders at the end of an easy run. Try not to do them the day after the speed workouts or the long runs.
• The speed workouts are in terms of meters. If you don’t want to run speed work on the track, translate miles to minutes, and do the workouts on the road or trail.
• The schedules include races before your goal race. Enter these to get used to what racing feels like.
• Don’t run to exhaustion within five days of your goal race.

The speed workouts are in runner shorthand, specifying the number, distance, and pace for the workout. For example, 4 800 meters at 5K goal pace means to do four intervals of 800 meters each at your per mile goal pace for 5K, with the proper recovery between the intervals. Remember, a standard outdoor track is 400 meters around, so 800 meters equals two laps. Also, keep in mind that a 8K/10K goal pace is 10–15 seconds per mile slower than a 5K race pace. Finally, before starting these training schedules, your minimum weekly mileage should be 15 miles for the 5K and 25 miles for the 8K or 10K.

The Proper Pace Prescription

I’ve convinced you that you’ll run faster in 5Ks to 10Ks by doing a weekly speed workout at your VO2 max pace, and I’ve convinced you that you’ll improve more if you do them at this pace instead of as fast as you possibly can. Now you have just one question: How do you know what that pace is?
If you’ve run a 5K race at a solid effort within the last few months and have been running consistently since, use that pace as your current VO2 max pace. Better yet, hop in a 5K race soon, run hard the entire way, and figure out your average pace per mile. In both cases, make your 5K goal pace (what, you hope, will become your new VO2 max pace) about 15 seconds per mile faster. If you haven’t run a 5K in a while (or ever), you can still figure out the proper pace. If you’re running at least 15 miles per week and know your average training pace, subtract one minute per mile to get a reasonable 5K goal pace.
The 5K and 10K training schedules later in this chapter include speed workouts that are based on your 5K goal pace. The intervals in the 8K/10K schedule are a little longer and a little slower to better meet the demands of the longer races. If you’re decently trained, you should be able to run an 8K or 10K within 10 to 15 seconds per mile of your 5K race pace.
These workouts will help you to know what pace to try to reach in your race. You’ll be used to running hard while tired. After awhile, the pace will become second nature. That’s not to say that it will feel easy, but that you can launch into it and be confident that you’re at your goal pace until you get your first split time.
You should try to run as even a pace as you can in races of 5K to 10K. Many runners like to blast through the first mile much faster than their goal pace. This is a bad idea. Their reason behind doing this is to build a cushion to allow for when they slow later in the race, and their strategy becomes self-fulfilling. They have to slow in the second half of the race because they’ve gone into oxygen debt. Oxygen debt doesn’t demonstrate how mentally tough they are; it is an unforgiving physiological fact of life. As a result, their overall time is slower than if they had run at an even pace.
In races of 5K to 10K, when you’re working right at your VO2 max, you have a very small margin of error. If you run more than 10 seconds per mile faster than your VO2 max pace, then you’re running at a pace that you can sustain for at most two miles, usually much less. Trouble is, you still have at least a mile to go. So you’re going to have to slow way down, and you’re really going to hurt. It’s not uncommon for runners to have to slow by more than 30 seconds per mile in the last mile of a 5K when they’ve started too quickly.
In these short races, I sometimes start out a little bit more slowly than my goal pace. I give myself the first few minutes of the race to build gradually. For the first few minutes, I might be running at 5 to 10 seconds per mile slower than my goal pace. This slower start helps my heart and muscles better adapt to the sudden shock of running so quickly. Then, when all systems are firing, I can take off. Running an even pace is physically the most efficient way to race, but trying to run negative splits provides a tremendous psychological boost. You’re passing other runners pretty much the whole way. If you’ve ever run a race and been passed by someone in the last mile, you know how disconcerting it can be. You’re trying as hard as you can, and this runner is just blowing by you. There’s nothing you can do. When I run negative splits, I like to key on a runner about 100 yards ahead of me. I’ll focus on chasing him down and pulling him in gradually, and then I pass him quickly to demoralize him and move on to my next target. Running at an even pace or at negative splits leaves you better prepared for your kick.
How good a kick you’ll have at the end of a 5K, 8K, or 10K depends a lot on how intelligently you ran the race. If you haven’t gone out too quickly, then you’ll still be running aerobically. This means that you can start your kick from farther out than if you’ve gone into oxygen debt. If you have good natural speed, you can shave several seconds from your finishing time with a good, long kick.
Your body can run anaerobically for about 300 yards, so that’s the farthest away from the finish line that you should launch your sprint. If you’ve started the race too fast and have slowed during the second half of the race, you’re going to have a tough time kicking for more than 50 to 100 yards.

Understanding Aerobic Capacity

The key to training to become faster at 5Ks, 8Ks, and 10Ks is to improve your aerobic capacity, or VO2 max. That’s because you run these races at very close to your aerobic capacity—an all-out 5K is run at about 95 percent of your VO2 max, a 10K at about 92 percent. To run those races better, then, you need to max out your VO2 max. The best way to do that is to do one workout each week in which you run intervals at a pace that’s roughly at your VO2 max.
But wait a minute. Didn’t I tell you early on in this book that steady, comfortable running increases your VO2 max and that it will increase by 20 to 30 percent within a year of running? Why would you need to do anything more to race a good 5K? Early on, you don’t. You’re getting fitter by leaps and bounds just by running easy. But after those initial gains, you have to work harder to keep improving. It’s like learning a new computer program—you make the greatest improvements in the beginning, when you go from complete unfamiliarity to a basic working knowledge. It’s only after more extensive experience that you learn all those little tricks of the program that allow you to make that small but significant leap from a basic user to the one in the office who every one asks for advice.
In the training schedules at the end of this chapter, I’ll have you do one speed workout each week that will focus on boosting your VO2 max by having you run your intervals at roughly that pace. In your case, I’m making them a bit faster, because I’m assuming you haven’t done systematic speed work before, so you have more room for improvement than a long-time runner. It’s important to run them as close as possible to that pace to get the greatest improvement.
In these workouts, harder isn’t necessarily better. Most runners think that if they can run a workout of three interval miles in 8:00, then running them in 7:40 will be that much more of an effective workout. But it doesn’t always work that way. In these workouts, the important thing is to work right at the limits of your VO2 max. But that’s not the same as your max.
Remember, you run 5Ks very close to your VO2 max. But obviously you can run shorter races faster; you can maintain a quicker pace for 1 mile than you can for 3.1 miles. In races shorter than 5K, a bigger percentage of your energy is supplied anaerobically, independent of the oxygen that you breathe in. So it’s possible to run faster than your VO2 max for a short distance, stop running until you catch your breath, and then run anaerobically again. Unfortunately, many ambitious runners do their speed workouts this way. They run each interval as hard as they can. When they do that, they’re definitely training hard, but they’re not training very effectively. By training faster than their VO2 max pace, their workouts are more anaerobic, so they’re training their anaerobic systems. But then they go and race 5Ks, 8Ks, and 10Ks, which rely almost entirely on their aerobic systems. In their races, they’ll often not perform up to their expectations. They’ll think, “Gee, I ran three mile intervals the other night in 7:00 each, but I could only average 7:20s in the race.” To make matters worse, they’ll then often think that this means that should train that much harder, and the next week they’ll push themselves to run their mile intervals in 6:50.
See how they’re making their workouts less and less effective the farther that they stray from doing them at their VO2 max pace? Don’t let it happen to you. Train at the right intensity, and you can pass them in the races, leaving them to wonder why you’re behind them in speed workouts, but ahead of them in races.