Marathon Training Questions

[Duanerice]

Hi All,
I know it is a little early, but I have some questions about marathon training. I am going to use the Bingham run plan because it fits my schedule pretty good. I put together a spreadsheet with all the dates and activities so I could keep track of my progress (will send it to anyone that wants it). According to my schedule, I'll start the training on August 27 and continue for 20 weeks cumulating in a marathon FINISH!

Basically I have a question on a few long run days that I am not sure how to handle. In this plan you have Cross Training on Friday, Long Run on Saturday and Rest on Sunday. In going over the schedule, I found a few LR days when I have conflicting activities.

Sanibel Causeway 5K
Scheduled to run 5 miles but race is only 3 - early in the plan shouldn’t be an issue

Disney Race for the Taste
Scheduled to run 9 miles on Saturday but the race is only 6 miles on Sunday. This is the first increase to 9 miles in the plan. Do I do the 9 miles on Saturday then the 6 miles on Sunday and use Monday as a rest day? Decisions, decisions.

Disney Tower of Terror
Scheduled to run 12 miles but the race is only 8 miles. Again, this is the first increase to 12 miles in the plan. I have heard that you don’t want to split the mileage up on a long run so running 4 miles earlier in the day won’t cut it. I really don’t think Disney would let me run an additional 4 miles around the park that night either. Besides, I'll have a party to go to

So, you experienced marathoners, what would you do. Since this is my first time through, I want to stick as close to the plan as possible. Of course as we get closer I will have a lot more questions.

Thanks,
Duane

 

[escape]

Duane -

I'm going to use JB's plan and I kind of have the same problem. I'm going to do the ToT as well as a half-marathon the weekend before. In order to accomodate these events, I actually moved the start date of my training up a week. Now I have an extra week that I need to figure something out for.

I also have a half-marathon scheduled for a day that I'm supposed to do 16 miles. I've read (maybe Runner's World?) that you can actually break up a run in one day. For instance, I could run the 13.1 miles and then sometime later, add in the other 3 miles. However, knowing me, I won't feel like adding in the 3 later. I guess the point is, you could try keeping it together in one day, if possible. Hopefully, the more experienced runners on this board will chime in and give you (and me!) more options.

By the way, I would like a copy of your spreadsheet. I have a Word calendar that I started listing all of my long run and events. Between the two, I should be able to get this thing organized. Sending you a pm.

 

[Duanerice]

Thanks Susie. I sent the spreadsheet. If I can break up the mileage on the long runs then it would be no problem, but I read that you can break up the shorter runs but you don't want to break up the longer one.

Love to hear from some of the more experienced members that have been through this.
Thanks,
Duane

 

[skfulkers]

Duane,

Ah, the joys of training for a marathon and trying to swap/schedule long runs. I feel your pain. One of the biggest drawbacks I've found to date of training for a marathon is that you're getting yourself in excellent shape, so logically, it would be nice to run some races in between during peak fitness, right? Well, as you're seeing, most of the races are on the weekends and most aren't long enough to be your long run for the week.

Krista (aladdinsgirl) and I struggle with this every time we start to train for a marathon. What we've done in the past is one of a few things. You can try to shuffle your schedule around to get the long run for the week knocked out during the middle of the week so your weekend is free'd up to run the race. Problem is, you may have just run 15 miles the last Saturday and then you're trying to run 15 or 17 on Wednesday, which could be a recipe for injury. So be careful of that. This shuffling works best if you have a taper back week coming up where you decrease your weekend long run distance. Which brings me to my second option. If you have a taper back week coming up, in which the long run is somewhat shorter, you have more room to play. Taper back weeks are designed to keep the overall "stress" off your body and allow time to recover for the next big push ahead. If you try to schedule a race for a taper back weekend, and the race is a 10K or so, you won't really be doing yourself too much injustice by running 10K instead of your scheduled 8, 10, 12 miler. You might not want to push it all out in the race so that you don't kill your legs and require an extended rest period, though.

Regarding moving cross training around to either before or after the long run--it shouldn't matter too much on this one. Some people do it before, some after. The key is to make sure your rest day is either before or after the long run day.

Anyway, just my two cents. I'm sure you'll get other advice from others as well. Hope this helps!

Steve

 

[solotraveler]

My advice-- run the races and don't worry about the additional mileage.

Generally speaking, and particularly if you train alone, you should find your pace faster during racing than during your training runs. So instead of running, say 9 miles at your normal training pace, you'll still get 6 miles at an accelerated pace... in my opinion a pretty good trade off. Since we are only talking about 3 weekends out of 20, I think you'll be just fine with only doing the races.

Additionally, these races will get you used to the whole "racing" thing, with crowds, adreniline, logistics, etc, which will do nothing but help you come race day.

Kevin

 

[Duanerice]

Thanks for the replies. Looking at the schedule I should be able to move one of the weeks around and just shortchange another. This will all work out, right?

enjoy,
Duane

 

[Tiger Lily 03]

Yes, it will work out. Do what you can to put in the distance, but many of us have missed some of those long runs and it does work. Just do your best to keep those missed LRs to a minimum and get your training base in as well.

 

[ironz]

splitting long runs isn't necessarily a bad idea....I do that in marathon/Ironman training. If you're getting the two runs done in the same day, your body still gets most of the training effect of running the combined distance. That is especially important for later on....I can't do a training plan that calls for a 20 mile run (that would take me about 4 hours!)...the resources out there indicate that a 4 hour training run is too much to recover from. So splitting to a 3 hour run in the morning and 30+ min. run in evening works well, because you get a bit of recovering in between.

Good luck!!

 

[solotraveler]

Thanks for the replies. Looking at the schedule I should be able to move one of the weeks around and just shortchange another. This will all work out, right?

enjoy,
Duane

Well, since you are using Bingham's plan, I would consider taking his advice on the subject, where he says that if you miss a run, even a long run, forget about it and move on. Otherwise you might end up with back to back weeks having very long runs and increasing mileage. Moving the runs around a bit is one thing (say, switch a LR to Friday instead of Saturday due to other commitments), but I wouldn't flip-flop full weeks.

Disclaimer: I ran my 20-miler before the 2006 WDW race several days late, due to travelling. While I was supposed to skip it to get in the full taper, I felt like I needed to run that distance before the race.

Kevin

 

[Green Tea]

I just printed off an 18 week plan with only about 13 weeks to go. I started in the middle, sort of, but it seems really low in mileage, so I am not being a good follower. Tomorrow I set off for my longest yet, about 18. My high last week was just over 15. I did buy a belt for water this time. Last week was tough!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Hi All,
I know it is a little early, but I have some questions about marathon training. I am going to use the Bingham run plan because it fits my schedule pretty good. I put together a spreadsheet with all the dates and activities so I could keep track of my progress (will send it to anyone that wants it). According to my schedule, I'll start the training on August 27 and continue for 20 weeks cumulating in a marathon FINISH!

Basically I have a question on a few long run days that I am not sure how to handle. In this plan you have Cross Training on Friday, Long Run on Saturday and Rest on Sunday. In going over the schedule, I found a few LR days when I have conflicting activities.

Sanibel Causeway 5K
Scheduled to run 5 miles but race is only 3 - early in the plan shouldn’t be an issue

Disney Race for the Taste
Scheduled to run 9 miles on Saturday but the race is only 6 miles on Sunday. This is the first increase to 9 miles in the plan. Do I do the 9 miles on Saturday then the 6 miles on Sunday and use Monday as a rest day? Decisions, decisions.

Disney Tower of Terror
Scheduled to run 12 miles but the race is only 8 miles. Again, this is the first increase to 12 miles in the plan. I have heard that you don’t want to split the mileage up on a long run so running 4 miles earlier in the day won’t cut it. I really don’t think Disney would let me run an additional 4 miles around the park that night either. Besides, I'll have a party to go to

So, you experienced marathoners, what would you do. Since this is my first time through, I want to stick as close to the plan as possible. Of course as we get closer I will have a lot more questions.

Thanks,
Duane

Just do your races. YOu psychologically tend to run them at a faster pace anyway. I wouldn't worry about your long run and just keep with the races.

(This is my coaches advice--every year on the 14/15 mile weekend there is a local half marathon. Everyone does that instead.)

You will NOT hurt your training by doing this.

Just like if you occasionally have ot miss a workout due to pain or injury, you don't need to make it up. You get through your goal race based on your cumulative efforts. Not one training day.

Examples:

Full Marathon season--I was still able to finish despite being sidelined for 2 of my 3 taper weeks with an injury. My time had nothing to do with that. I had woken up with a bad evil stomach bug. Without that, my time would have been much much better (by at least an hour if not more based on how I was doing at the half way mark).

Half Marathon season--this time is only a few minutes "worse" than my PB for a half attained in a local, flat (no bridges), small half marathon. I consider that a victory. I did it pain free. I should also mention that I had 4 weeks off where I couldn't run at all as I had knee surgery to remove a meniscus tear. That happened half way through the training season. I was still able to come around and do remarkably well considering I was not at 100% yet. (I had the surgeon and PT's blessing though!)

If I can miss a month of running and still be able to do MY personal best, subbing races for a long run day should do nothing but help you to do YOUR personal best.