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Focusing on the Marathon

Much of the correspondence that I receive from Washington area runners involves runners focusing on the marathon. This column address these three letters in a composite response.

My goal is to run a marathon. I am not much of a runner (run three times, three miles this week). I mountain bike at least once a week. What kind of training will I need to do to be able to run a marathon successfully? Thanks. R.M.

I am a 26-year-old male runner who has recently become fanatical about the sport. My plan is to run Marine Corps Marathon, qualify for Boston in 1999 and progress from there to triathlons. I have been running consistently for the past 3-4 years. Currently I am running 35 miles per week (3 easy Monday, 6 miles hard Tuesday, 3 fast Wednesday, 6 easy Thursday, 3 hard Friday and 14 Sunday). My goal is to run 5K in 18:00 and to keep my 10-mile pace below 7:30. What can I do to train safely to reach these goals by marathon time? G.G.

I am a 32-year-old female with forty-seven minute 10K PR. I want to run a 3:40 to qualify for Boston. What kind of training do I need to do? D.L.

The marathon is the toughest running event that a long-distance runner can do and thus you must be properly trained for it. First, I do not think anyone should be doing a marathon until they have built up a proper running base. This means at least a year of running 10-15 miles per week before you begin training for the event. If you do not build such a base, you greatly increase the likelihood that you will get injured and have to stop running for weeks, if not months. Building a running base slowly gives your body a chance to get used to the kind of pounding it will take during marathon training.

Most marathon training should be done very easy, at 60-70% of Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) or about two minutes per mile slower than your current 10K race pace. You should slowly build up your long run to 12 miles. Then continue running 12 miles once a week for at least three months before your goal marathon. I recommend that you spend at least three months (June-August) building your mileage up to 40-70 miles per week, with the mileage goals based on how long you have been running, your past mileage history, and your work and family schedules.

You should follow the 10% rule. This means that you should not increase your weekly mileage or long run by more than 10% in any consecutive week. I also recommend that every fourth or fifth week you reduce your mileage by 30% to allow your body the chance to recover and assimilate all the mileage you have been running. I want to stress that this build up should be done very slowly with lots of easy miles. If you run too hard and too fast during this phase of training, you will overtrain and probably go into the marathon already beaten up.

After building up your mileage, veteran marathoners can introduce a dose of anaerobic threshold running (AT). AT runs are done at 80-85% of MHR; that translates roughly to your 10-mile or 15K race pace. I suggest doing three times one mile with a 400-meter recovery as your main AT workout and supplementing it with a 20-minute continuous AT run. You can substitute an AT workout with a race between 5K and 10K in length. The only restrictions I would place on AT workouts are that they should not be done back to back nor should they be done the day after a long run. You can also substitute a hard hilly run for the AT. Runners averaging 50+ miles per week can incorporate a third AT workout.

Those marathoners trying for a specific time goal should be doing Predicted Marathon Pace (PMP) runs. Start with 3 miles, and every other week, increase it by two until you get to 13 miles of nonstop PMP. Running at marathon pace will help you learn the pace of the race so that you do not go out too hard and crash at mile twenty. It helps your leg muscles get used to the very specific range of motion associated with your marathon pace. This will also help delay the onset of fatigue toward the end of the marathon. The only caveat about PMP runs is that you need to set a realistic pace. A general rule of thumb is that you can probably run your marathon 45-90 seconds per mile slower than your 10K race pace. The faster you are, the shorter the gap. A thirty-eight minute 10K runner (6:06/mile) can probably run around three hours (6:52/mile), whereas a fifty minute 10K runner (8:00/mile) should be able to run 4:15 (9:30/mile).