I?m going to offer another vote for Jack Daniels. I?ve never used a Pfitz plan so cannot offer any comparative advice, however, I will second what a number of other posters have said about LT and M pace workouts. Much of the quality workout stuff Daniels outlines in his marathon plan is done at LT pace. This has greatly improved my endurance at faster paces. Most of the long and medium long runs have a lot of LT and M pace stuff thrown in ? both at the beginning and the end of the run. This allows you to adjust to running at M pace or faster in the course of a single run while at different stages of fatigue.

Although I haven?t yet run my target marathon (NYC in just under 3 weeks), I am feeling so much stronger at faster paces over longer runs. In fact I surprised myself last weekend at a half marathon (final tune-up race) by going out faster than I had planned and maintaining that pace through the full 13.1, while feeling that I still had gas left in the tank at the end. Like you, I am shooting for a 3.10 (with 3 previous races at 3.28, 3,16 & 3.17), so was looking to hit a 1.30 for the half marathon. I went out at 6.35 and finished with a 6.22 at an average pace of 6.44 (1.28). I attribute the strength I felt through the final 5k of the race to the extended LT repeats that I have been doing and the LT/M pace segments of my longer runs. I now feel the 3.10 is well within reach, and am much less fearful of the final 6-mile bonk that has plagued me over my last 3 marathons.

In reference to the extended M pace run, I believe Daniels suggests two 15 mile M pace runs with a two mile warm up and two mile warm down. Finally, in reference to base building, the whole first phase (6 weeks+) of the Daniels program is devoted to easy-pace basebuilding.

Marathon training 101. Slow down your long runs. You definitely have the ability to run a 3:10 marathon, probably sub 3 even. The mistake most people make is skipping out on your aerobic base development. This is especially important if you have run middle distance or shorter races prior to moving up to the marathon. every run becomes a lactate tolerance run, you stagnate and don't improve. This is very evident when someone using this training program runs a marathon. Things go well for the first 90 minutes to 2 hours and then wham you are forced to slow down. Why? You have used up all your glycogen in your body and you are forced to run slower.
I would recommend following Jack Daniels program. Give yourself 6 months to train for your next marathon. Run your long runs slower, probably about 8:15 pace or slower. It will be hard, no in fact it will drive you nuts to run that slow. The bottom line is you need to follow your pace and remember running slow is training your body.
The second important point is raising your anaerobic threshold. This pace is faster than marathon pace and is very important to run at your anaerobic threshold, i.e. tempo pace.
Lastly in his program are the MP runs, these are the lactate tolerance runs that are done 6-10 weeks out.
Be patient I have been exactly where you are now. How about this for incongruent times 5K 17:10, 10 mile 58 min, 1/2 marathon 1:21, marathon 3:10. The times don't match because I trained in the tolerance zone all the times. Good luck, Mike Trinrun@yahoo.com

Sue--
My 42:00 10K was at a very small race, with no mile markers and I ran the whole second loop alone so I didn't have real way to guess what my pace was. I knew I was the first female, and also that I had a 18 miler scheduled for the next day, so I didn't push it -- my 1/2 split was 19:40, so I probably could have run faster, but it seemed like a bad idea. On the other hand, the 1/2 was run with some strong (compared to me) runners and they pulled me along, I've never run a 1/2 that fast before, maybe it was an anomaly?

From what I've calculated, I think I should probably start Daniels at a VDOT2 49. I did the worksheet, and my marathon time drops me lower compared to my other times.

trigasman--
Thanks for the advice, after rereading Daniels, I know my easy runs are definitely run way to fast, I average about a 7:40 pace. I'll slow down and follow the training program paying better attention to the intensity. I'll try for a late April marathon or early May.

After everyone's advice I picked apart my past training, and see that I was ignoring the whole intensity part (sorry Pfitz).

quote:<HR>Originally posted by MikeBro:
[b]

Originally posted by sue:
am I reading your times correctly??? 1:25 recent half?
I'm having a hard time corresponding a 1:25 half with someone that runs 42 10k

I'm going to make a stab that leitnerj could be correct about the base.
<HR>

Maybe I'm not understanding your point, Sue, but isn't a 1:25 half great for someone with a 42min 10K? My times fall off badly (18:58 5K, 41:40 10K, 1:34:46 half) and I would absolutely agree with you that base/endurance is my bugaboo, but I wonder if something else is going on with MW. Her 5K -> 10K times seem to correlate well (a 20:15 average 5K to a 42:00 10K) but her half time significantly beats predictions based on her 5K and 10K times. Doesn't that indicate that her base is OK, at least up to the half racing range? My 5K time predicts a 1:27:XX half and even my 10K time (which is a little faster than MW's) predicts a 1:32:45 half, which I fall way off of, so half-distance endurance is surely something I need to work on. But MW is a marked overachiever in this category, as far as I can tell.

If you look at MW's half - > full times, they don't correlate well, which could point toward a need to strengthen marathon-distance base or lengthen MP runs, but I don't think you can look at her 10K -> half correlation and say she lacks base. Can you?

FWIW,
Mike

Mike....no, you are understanding it right. I am totally in awe of that 1:25 time!!! why? because I run only 2 halves around that time (I don't think I've ever tapered for a half, though) and my 10k are significantly faster as well as my marathon. I'm not really looking at the 10k time to guess the lack of base....just really that she seems to have a plateau even with significantly lower mileage. So I'm guessing the bookends need to be pushed out (strength, speed, turnover & endurance)

I too, think that 1:25 shows a definite ability, that's why my eyes bugged out of my head. Can you put out a 1:25 and still lack a base? I'm guessing yes. If MW is patient and works that base, I have a feeling she is going to surprise herself. I find her situation exciting, because her numbers show that she can improve. As a master runner, myself, I'm get a woo-hoo feeling for her!!

http://This message has been edited by MikeBro (edited Oct-20-2005).[/B]

I totally agree with Trigasman (and Sue) - but here's something else: do weights training in the off-season. Get stronger, improve your endurance, and when you eventuelly take on your marathon-specific running program, work on impulsion in the weights room. Good luck

quote:<HR>Originally posted by mgirouard:
It's not possible to have a 10K PR of 42:00 and half marathon PR of 1:25...the latter is a much faster per mile pace. My first thought when I saw those two times in the same sentence was that it must have been an 11.5-mile "half marathon." A 1:25 half is also the only one of those PR's that's really out of whack with a 3:20+ marathon PR.

But if you have confidence the half is legit than I'd say you need more experience racing at other distances. And, more than anything, you just need time.

Long-term aerobic development is the most important factor for success at 26.2 miles. Daniels vs. Pfitzinger is really splitting hairs.<HR>

All replies have been good, but this was the information that jumped out at me right away-- the incongruency between 5K, 10K, and half times. Not to throw a wet blanket on things, but I would also wonder about the half course maybe being measured short?

I also agree that making every other or every third weekend long run a progression run will help significantly in solving the "bonking" problem. Someone made a point about the race itself. What was the fueling like the week before? What was the fueling strategy during the marathons? These things play a major part of the equation on race day even when properly trained. I'm also a big believer in doing a lot of the long runs (not the MP ones) in relative glycogen depletion (don't carbo load, don't take in carbs, just water during the run).

If the half time is correct, and not an anomaly, it seems the tempo run training has been sufficient, and it's just the long runs that need improvement in the training program... i.e. more specificity towards the race (progression, MP runs, and running on empty to train body to conserve glycogen and use other inherent energy sources). Then put the icing on the cake by appropriately carbo-loading and fueling during the race.

M:

You've already been given so much advice, and conflicting advice (slow down! speed up!) that I'm leery of adding to the mix. But I will, just for the heck of it. I'll do so mostly because your race times are similiar to mine (5K: 19:36 but usually race just over 20:00; 10K: 41:30 or so), but also because that half marathon time is truly impressive relative to the others--so impressive that I wonder if it's correct. (My own baseline is 1:32:30).

If it's not correct (i.e., short course), that might help explain why your times are hovering around 3:30 rather than down around 3:00, which is where a 1:25 really ought to land you. Your 5K and 10K times suggest, by themselves, that a 3:15 or so is eminently doable.

I don't think more mileage is needed. You've already had this insight. My own fading memories of good marathons I've run (2:53, 3:00; both about 20 years ago) tells me that I ran two medium runs (10-12) during the week and a 2:00 to 2:30 long run on Sunday with the first hour easy and the remainder drifting up toward some maximal aerobic point that might vary from marathon pace to half marathon pace but were in any case relaxed hi-end running that took some concentration. (The other 4 days were 3-5 very easy miles.) I wouldn't do these faster long runs on hot days, and I'd alternate them (a la McMillan) with plain old easy long runs. They were essentially unstructured long progression runs, with a fairly specific opening-up-of-the-throttle that took place over the 10-15 minutes between, say, 50 minutes and 65 minutes.

It just so happened that I had one of these yesterday. I paused at 7.5 on my 15 mile out-and-back course, drank some water I'd hidden in the weeds, took about a 3 minute break, and then eased back in. I'd finished the out leg with a mile at 8:00 pace (the run began at 9:00 pace); suddenly I was running at 7:30 pace (my MP, theoretically), effortlessly, and I just went with it. The flow-zone lasted for 5.6 miles; then I let it go and finished up with a couple of easy miles.

I'm not in marathon training these days, but hope to run close to 1:30 in a couple of weeks in a half. In any case, it's a mistake to force these sorts of runs into prestablished parameters; it's much more important, I think, to learn how to sneak up on and lock into certain high-end aerobic feeling-states--now surging a little, now easing back a little.

Given the miles you've put in and your track record of times in shorter events, one good explanation for why you're not quite realizing your promise in good marathon times is precisely this: that you're not quite tuning into that deep-listening zone where your hard-working body will tell you exactly how hard it should be working for the next long interval of time. So my advice, which cuts in the opposite direction from most of the other numbers-based advice you've been given, is to make your your new training method the discipline of close listening to subtle bodily cues in combination with unstructured high-end aerobic running. (Some of this running, by the way, should be flush up against your threshold, but NOT over.) What's the difference between the feel of half-marathon pace and the feel of marathon pace? That's THE question, perhaps. When you know in your bones the answer to this question, you'll run your good marathon.

http://This message has been edited by KudzuRunner (edited Oct-24-2005).