I am making no claims whatsoever on the benefits of said document. The training I did was never meant to be followed slavishly, the coach tweaked it as we went along, responding to feedback from my workouts. But I managed to break 3 hours in the marathon that way and maybe someone else can do, too.
The document is available here. If you read it and have any feedback (apart from abuse), you can let me know.
Maybe the best thing about writing it was me remembering a few things about the training again. I am well aware that I should follow the coach's recommendations more closely at the moment. But thinking "I should run more and I should run slower" is just not the same as getting an email from the coach telling me exactly that.
One thing I did remember was doing an evaluation run. It worked the same way as always, 4 miles at HR 161 and then coming to a full stop, measuring the time it takes for the HR to fall back to 130. It was quite windy, which isn't ideal as it has a clear influence on the numbers, but such is life.
Because my Garmin's sound has died I can no longer use the alarm to keep the HR in a very narrow band and have to check the watch more often as relying on perceived effort doesn't work particularly well. As a result I once more ran the first mile too hard but managed to tune into it quite well for the rest. The coach's formula to work around that problem was to add 3.5 seconds for each beat too high, and the adjusted figures are as follows:
7:16, 7:20, 7:27, 7:23, recovery 40 sec
I am doing surprisingly well keeping the pace constant but Good God, this is slow! I know I still have the marathon and the DAR in the legs, but still! Unfortunately, wishful thinking alone won't make me any faster.
The evaluation is a rather mellow workout, but I still paid for it with heavy legs this morning. Luckily I only went out for 8 miles, which passed quickly enough, but I really should finally start following my own orders and run more and run slower.
- 15 Jun
- 10 miles, 1:17:32, 7:45 pace, HR 150
- 16 Jun
- 12 miles, 1:29:55, 7:29 pace, HR 156
incl. 4 miles evaluation: 7:16, 7:20, 7:27, 7:23 - 17 Jun
- 8 miles, 1:01:37, 7:43 pace, HR 151
Appreciation for posting this document: I'll be making my first sub-3 attempt in the Dublin Marathon 2011 - coming from a PB of 3.15, it's probably a bit optimistic, but I'm going to try nonetheless; your document should make the effort that bit more viable. Having followed your progress towards Vienna, I have already adopted the regime's general principles. Looking forward to seeing how it transpires! Cheers.
ReplyDeletereally interesting post. thanks.
ReplyDeleteTonights reading, thanks so much for taking the time to do it.
ReplyDeleteNice little booklet Thomas.
ReplyDeleteI often wondered about the real identity of the mystery coach!
Does he live in Area 51 out in the Nevada Desert?
Maybe he has been cloned from the DNA of the late Arthur Lydiard!
That's good of you Thomas. Might indeed help others training for their first sub-3. Having MC himself (or herself) at the end of an email must have been invaluable too.
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to compile this. It's very interesting to see the various small ways you can tweak the details of the fundamental Lydiard principles.
ReplyDeleteAs I write this I am comparing the Master Run Coach schedules from Nobby and Lorraine which I would use myself and which I customise for my own runners now and it's an interesting exercise.
The phases equate almost directly (as you'd expect) Base for Aerobic, Transition for Hill, while Peak is a combination of the MSR Anaerobic/Coordination phases.
The details of the sessions are different, but their objectives largely similar. The Evaluation run is a very interesting idea and one I am tempted to test. The "Out and Back" and "Progress Calibration Runs" partly take their place in the MSR schedules but there'd be pros and cons for using either.