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Date: 13 Dec 2006 07:42:12
From:
Subject: Need help with increasing speed for a marathon...(for my wife)
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Greetings,
I am hoping the experienced can help here.
My wife, 34 year old female runner, 5-5, 140-145 lbs, seriously running
for 5 years, one marathon under her belt (Dallas, 2003 -ran in 4:45)
and multiple 1/2 marathons run between 2:06 - 2:15 over that time.
Runs and/or cross trains (wieghts, swimming, biking) 4+ days per week,
with a long run of 10+ on the weekend.
Her goal is to qualify for Boston in 2008 (need 3:45), but she is
discouraged in that her speed has not increased. At this point she
does some interval work for speed, but it is not doin enough.
Many years ago in Boston I used to run when I was a fighter, (Anyone
remember the Boston Milk Run? The Shamrock Classic?) but she is
getting into advanced areas now, and needs some help. I don't want her
to get discouraged, so I am hoping there are basic speed principles
that can be used to get her to where she wants to be.
Thanks in advance.
Bluesman
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Date: 13 Dec 2006 10:51:53
From: Alinabi
Subject: Re: Need help with increasing speed for a marathon...(for my wife)
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I'm no expert, but here is what worked for me:
* once a week I do 10 x 100m strides after a 5-10 mi general aerobic
run
* once a week I do a lactate threshold run
this regimen helped me go from 2:03 to 1:45 for the HM. My weekly
mileage stayed the same (50-60 mi/week).
On Dec 13, 10:42 am, hotblue...@netscape.net wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I am hoping the experienced can help here.
>
> My wife, 34 year old female runner, 5-5, 140-145 lbs, seriously running
> for 5 years, one marathon under her belt (Dallas, 2003 -ran in 4:45)
> and multiple 1/2 marathons run between 2:06 - 2:15 over that time.
>
> Runs and/or cross trains (wieghts, swimming, biking) 4+ days per week,
> with a long run of 10+ on the weekend.
>
> Her goal is to qualify for Boston in 2008 (need 3:45), but she is
> discouraged in that her speed has not increased. At this point she
> does some interval work for speed, but it is not doin enough.
>
> Many years ago in Boston I used to run when I was a fighter, (Anyone
> remember the Boston Milk Run? The Shamrock Classic?) but she is
> getting into advanced areas now, and needs some help. I don't want her
> to get discouraged, so I am hoping there are basic speed principles
> that can be used to get her to where she wants to be.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Bluesman
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Date: 13 Dec 2006 10:14:27
From: LSmith
Subject: Re: Need help with increasing speed for a marathon...(for my wife)
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-never lift another weight
-screw the swimming & biking
-run lots of miles/week
-she could stand to lose at least 20-25 .lbs easy
she needs to focus and become a runner and aim for some 1:45 - 48 half
marathon times.
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Date: 13 Dec 2006 19:39:31
From: Alinabi
Subject: Re: Need help with increasing speed for a marathon...(for my wife)
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I mean you sprint for 100m then jog for as long as it takes to
completely recover and repeat the cycle 10 times. The purpose
of this kind of workout is to improve your running form and efficiency.
If you don't completely recover between sprints, you will run with
poor form and will not see any benefits.
I usually do 5x100m w/ 300m jogs between, then jog a mile before the
next set of 5.
On Dec 13, 4:04 pm, hotblue...@netscape.net wrote:
>
> What is the story with the 10x100's mentioned? Do you mean run for 10
> minutes then bust off 10 straight all out 100 meter sprints? Egad.
>
> Thanks
>
> Bluesman
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Date: 13 Dec 2006 14:18:28
From: Tom B.
Subject: Re: Need help with increasing speed for a marathon...(for my wife)
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hotblues20@netscape.net wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I am hoping the experienced can help here.
>
> My wife, 34 year old female runner, 5-5, 140-145 lbs, seriously running
> for 5 years, one marathon under her belt (Dallas, 2003 -ran in 4:45)
> and multiple 1/2 marathons run between 2:06 - 2:15 over that time.
>
> Runs and/or cross trains (wieghts, swimming, biking) 4+ days per week,
> with a long run of 10+ on the weekend.
>
> Her goal is to qualify for Boston in 2008 (need 3:45), but she is
> discouraged in that her speed has not increased. At this point she
> does some interval work for speed, but it is not doin enough.
>
> Many years ago in Boston I used to run when I was a fighter, (Anyone
> remember the Boston Milk Run? The Shamrock Classic?) but she is
> getting into advanced areas now, and needs some help. I don't want her
> to get discouraged, so I am hoping there are basic speed principles
> that can be used to get her to where she wants to be.
You're unclear about one important thing: why are you asking this and
not her? Is it because you intend to learn the basic training
principles involved and then act as coach/adviser?
Going from 4:45 to 3:45 is an enormous change. I'd say it's like going
from recreational jogger to dedicated runner. You pretty much have to
learn how to truly train for the first time, which is not an easy
adjustment to make (psychologically). Just noodling around won't cut
it. Are you planning to try to coach this new mindset?
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Date: 13 Dec 2006 13:06:40
From:
Subject: Re: Need help with increasing speed for a marathon...(for my wife)
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Alinabi wrote:
> I'm no expert, but here is what worked for me:
>
> * once a week I do 10 x 100m strides after a 5-10 mi general aerobic
> run
> * once a week I do a lactate threshold run
>
> this regimen helped me go from 2:03 to 1:45 for the HM. My weekly
> mileage stayed the same (50-60 mi/week).
>
> On Dec 13, 10:42 am, hotblue...@netscape.net wrote:
What is a lactate threshold run?
Bluesman
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Date: 13 Dec 2006 21:18:06
From: Daniel-San
Subject: Re: Need help with increasing speed for a marathon...(for my wife)
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hotblues wrote ...
>>
> What is a lactate threshold run?
>
http://www.runningtimes.com/rt/articles/print.asp?id=5615
Dan
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Date: 13 Dec 2006 13:04:52
From:
Subject: Re: Need help with increasing speed for a marathon...(for my wife)
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Dot wrote:
> hotblues20@netscape.net wrote:
>
> > Greetings,
> >
> > I am hoping the experienced can help here.
> >
> > My wife, 34 year old female runner, 5-5, 140-145 lbs, seriously running
> > for 5 years, one marathon under her belt (Dallas, 2003 -ran in 4:45)
> > and multiple 1/2 marathons run between 2:06 - 2:15 over that time.
> >
> > Runs and/or cross trains (wieghts, swimming, biking) 4+ days per week,
> > with a long run of 10+ on the weekend.
> >
> > Her goal is to qualify for Boston in 2008 (need 3:45), but she is
> > discouraged in that her speed has not increased. At this point she
> > does some interval work for speed, but it is not doin enough.
>
> Run more at conversational effort (complete sentences most of the time,
> shorter phrases occasionally). She needs a much larger endurance base.
> Marathons are aerobic. Is there a specific reason aiming for 2008 Boston
> (or was that the qualifier in 2008 and run in 2009)? A drop of about an
> hour in time is fairly substantial even for a new runner. The half
> marathon times are slower than that also.
>
> It's not clear from your comments how many days she's actually running
> and for how long. When discussing volume, most people will split their
> running out as one number, then include the others as a total number or
> by individual activity (depending on discussion).
>
> Some people do better with many shorter runs while others do better with
> fewer but longer runs, esp. when training for longer distances (long
> discussion on that here recently). Intervals are probably doing almost
> nothing until she has developed a good aerobic base increasing the
> capillarization, mitochondria, etc.
>
> Noticing the run, bike, swim, with supplemental (I'm assuming) weights
> is her primary interest in tri's, and the running is secondary?
>
> She might read some of the training programs or discussions concerning
> base building (Lydiard, Hadd, etc).
>
> Dot
>
> --
> "If we reach all our goals, we are not setting them high enough."
> - Matt Carpenter
Thanks for the replies...she is probably running 4x per week, around
20-30 miles per week. Running is her primary activity. The weights,
bike, swim are just supplemental to the running.
Before the Marathon she was customarily running 15-20 mile long runs
once a week (befoe the recent 1/2 she was doing 10-12) - so I am not
convinced that endurance is her issue, but I suppose increasing mileage
would not be a bad thing.
Hills? Fartlek? Track training?
What is the story with the 10x100's mentioned? Do you mean run for 10
minutes then bust off 10 straight all out 100 meter sprints? Egad.
Thanks
Bluesman
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Date: 14 Dec 2006 06:53:59
From: Dot
Subject: Re: Need help with increasing speed for a marathon...(for my wife)
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hotblues20@netscape.net wrote:
>
> Thanks for the replies...she is probably running 4x per week, around
> 20-30 miles per week. Running is her primary activity. The weights,
> bike, swim are just supplemental to the running.
>
> Before the Marathon she was customarily running 15-20 mile long runs
> once a week (befoe the recent 1/2 she was doing 10-12) - so I am not
> convinced that endurance is her issue, but I suppose increasing mileage
> would not be a bad thing.
I recognize the halves and full are from different years, but if you
plug the half time into a predictor for full marathon time, you'll see
her marathon is slower than predicted. (Note: I wouldn't use these for
actual predictions, just using it as a convenient way to show why
endurance is likely the issue.) This suggests more aerobic development
needed. Also, if running 20-30 mpw, unless they were in mountains with
lots of hills, is probably just beginning to scratch the surface of
aerobic development.
FWIW, it sounds like her training is just a little ahead of where I am
(although my longest race was 15.5 mi and planning on longer), and I'm
still working on base - aerobic (can talk and run) volume, increasing
duration and hills.
IMHO, a person can never go wrong training on hills (within reason, like
once a week if she doesn't usually do hills). I'll do fartleks and hills
aerobically. Depending on an assortment of things, my non-easy runs
(something above easy effort, but below LT, for lack of a better
description) may have some minor effort increases or bump it up close to
LT and keep it there for a few minutes or longer. Or just run a higher,
but aerobic effort, once a week.
>
> Hills? Fartlek? Track training?
Hills are probably one of the best workouts a person can do. At her
level, there's no need for a track, unless it just happens to provide a
convenient place to train.
As someone else asked, is there a reason why you're asking rather than
her? Have you looked at any basic training books or programs.
Dot
--
"If we reach all our goals, we are not setting them high enough."
- Matt Carpenter
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Date: 14 Dec 2006 07:54:29
From: Elflord
Subject: Re: Need help with increasing speed for a marathon...(for my wife)
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On 2006-12-13, hotblues20@netscape.net <hotblues20@netscape.net > wrote:
>
[snip]
> Before the Marathon she was customarily running 15-20 mile long runs
> once a week (befoe the recent 1/2 she was doing 10-12) - so I am not
> convinced that endurance is her issue,
Physiologically, endurance is her issue. But this is more about the big
picture issue of taking it up a level. I'm with Tom B on this one.
Just a question/thought -- what's she doing to educate herself about training
methods ? She really needs to learn this stuff, you can't do the learning for
her.
Cheers,
--
Elflord
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Date: 13 Dec 2006 19:32:53
From: Dot
Subject: Re: Need help with increasing speed for a marathon...(for my wife)
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hotblues20@netscape.net wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> I am hoping the experienced can help here.
>
> My wife, 34 year old female runner, 5-5, 140-145 lbs, seriously running
> for 5 years, one marathon under her belt (Dallas, 2003 -ran in 4:45)
> and multiple 1/2 marathons run between 2:06 - 2:15 over that time.
>
> Runs and/or cross trains (wieghts, swimming, biking) 4+ days per week,
> with a long run of 10+ on the weekend.
>
> Her goal is to qualify for Boston in 2008 (need 3:45), but she is
> discouraged in that her speed has not increased. At this point she
> does some interval work for speed, but it is not doin enough.
Run more at conversational effort (complete sentences most of the time,
shorter phrases occasionally). She needs a much larger endurance base.
Marathons are aerobic. Is there a specific reason aiming for 2008 Boston
(or was that the qualifier in 2008 and run in 2009)? A drop of about an
hour in time is fairly substantial even for a new runner. The half
marathon times are slower than that also.
It's not clear from your comments how many days she's actually running
and for how long. When discussing volume, most people will split their
running out as one number, then include the others as a total number or
by individual activity (depending on discussion).
Some people do better with many shorter runs while others do better with
fewer but longer runs, esp. when training for longer distances (long
discussion on that here recently). Intervals are probably doing almost
nothing until she has developed a good aerobic base increasing the
capillarization, mitochondria, etc.
Noticing the run, bike, swim, with supplemental (I'm assuming) weights
is her primary interest in tri's, and the running is secondary?
She might read some of the training programs or discussions concerning
base building (Lydiard, Hadd, etc).
Dot
--
"If we reach all our goals, we are not setting them high enough."
- Matt Carpenter
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Date: 14 Dec 2006 13:47:05
From: Sean
Subject: Re: Need help with increasing speed for a marathon...(for my wife)
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Hey there,
Good luck to your wife. Hopefully she succeeds in qualifying for
Boston!
How has she described her Dallas marathon? Did she feel like the
effort was really easy? Did she feel like things became really
difficult after twenty miles, causing her pace to drop off? Were the
first fifteen miles really comfortable? Understanding how she felt
during that race could well indicate which area of her training
deserves the most attention.
With what I've read already, my first suspicion is that she could
perhaps improve quite a bit in two manners, both of which have been
suggested in passing:
1) She'd probably do well to increase the length of her long runs.
Although twenty miles seems like a long way, she's still leaving
unfamiliar another six miles, which sound like more than her typical
run. It must be both psychologically and physiologically difficult to
sustain a six mile effort on top of her longest training runs at a
faster than usual pace. Perhaps she could try going 14 or 15 miles in
preparation for the half-marathons and 23+ in preparation for the full?
The long run is assuredly the most important run of her training
programme, for it most closely resembles the race effort.
2) The other part of the race effort that needs sincere attention in
training is her marathon pace (as opposed to distance). This is
essentially what is meant by "threshold" or "lactate" work. In order
to train this system, which governs the pace she can sustain over
distance (as opposed to the distance she can cover as above), she
should run consistently at a pace between what she would run a half and
a full marathon. The longer this run is, the better she'll fare.
There are several ways she could go about this: for example, she could
run continuously at this pace for five-ten miles or run a "fartlek"
session where she maintains a hard average pace, in which alternately a
couple minutes are run slightly faster than marathon pace and a couple
minutes are run slightly slower. She needs be careful, 'though, not to
let the "floats" -- the easy parts -- be too easy. The idea is to push
the pace that she can sustain for a while. (Note that she will only be
able to go so far in this workout as is comfortable for her to run at
an easy pace, which indicates the importance of the long run.)
These are both fairly generic (and simplified) suggestions, but it
sounds like they are applicable in her case as in most. These workouts
will together consume as many weekly miles as she is currently working,
which is partially why it has been suggested by others that she
increase her weekly mileage. Simply jumping into these workouts, as
I'm sure she's aware, would beg injury. But if she focuses on these
two components of her training week, I'm fairly confident she'll be
pleased with the results.
Cheers,
-Sean.
hotblues20@netscape.net wrote:
> Dot wrote:
> > hotblues20@netscape.net wrote:
> >
> > > Greetings,
> > >
> > > I am hoping the experienced can help here.
> > >
> > > My wife, 34 year old female runner, 5-5, 140-145 lbs, seriously running
> > > for 5 years, one marathon under her belt (Dallas, 2003 -ran in 4:45)
> > > and multiple 1/2 marathons run between 2:06 - 2:15 over that time.
> > >
> > > Runs and/or cross trains (wieghts, swimming, biking) 4+ days per week,
> > > with a long run of 10+ on the weekend.
> > >
> > > Her goal is to qualify for Boston in 2008 (need 3:45), but she is
> > > discouraged in that her speed has not increased. At this point she
> > > does some interval work for speed, but it is not doin enough.
> >
> > Run more at conversational effort (complete sentences most of the time,
> > shorter phrases occasionally). She needs a much larger endurance base.
> > Marathons are aerobic. Is there a specific reason aiming for 2008 Boston
> > (or was that the qualifier in 2008 and run in 2009)? A drop of about an
> > hour in time is fairly substantial even for a new runner. The half
> > marathon times are slower than that also.
> >
> > It's not clear from your comments how many days she's actually running
> > and for how long. When discussing volume, most people will split their
> > running out as one number, then include the others as a total number or
> > by individual activity (depending on discussion).
> >
> > Some people do better with many shorter runs while others do better with
> > fewer but longer runs, esp. when training for longer distances (long
> > discussion on that here recently). Intervals are probably doing almost
> > nothing until she has developed a good aerobic base increasing the
> > capillarization, mitochondria, etc.
> >
> > Noticing the run, bike, swim, with supplemental (I'm assuming) weights
> > is her primary interest in tri's, and the running is secondary?
> >
> > She might read some of the training programs or discussions concerning
> > base building (Lydiard, Hadd, etc).
> >
> > Dot
> >
> > --
> > "If we reach all our goals, we are not setting them high enough."
> > - Matt Carpenter
>
> Thanks for the replies...she is probably running 4x per week, around
> 20-30 miles per week. Running is her primary activity. The weights,
> bike, swim are just supplemental to the running.
>
> Before the Marathon she was customarily running 15-20 mile long runs
> once a week (befoe the recent 1/2 she was doing 10-12) - so I am not
> convinced that endurance is her issue, but I suppose increasing mileage
> would not be a bad thing.
>
> Hills? Fartlek? Track training?
>
> What is the story with the 10x100's mentioned? Do you mean run for 10
> minutes then bust off 10 straight all out 100 meter sprints? Egad.
>
> Thanks
>
>
> Bluesman
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