How to ‘Lift’ a Faster Marathon – Part 2

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I have got all kinds of comments regarding our Weightlifter described in the Part 1. Some of them very clever like “Come on, you never go to the gym for your runs… so that’s not a true story”, then there were some standard responses“I can’t believe someone is training like that”, others were taking it lightly “I am still laughing… would have paid to witness that!!”

Well, it is true that I don’t use gyms and treadmills for my runs, so…

YES: This is pure fiction !!!

I think we can all agree that nobody will train that way: fixing the weights and then increasing the millimeters of lifting. No, the normal way is to get confident with lower weights and gradually increase the intensity/effort.  

Now, let’s move to running. What will you thing if one of your friends makes the following post on Facebook?:

“Yesterday Sunday I had a tough long run. At 20km I was very tired and had to push myself, at 27km I had to stop and walk for half km… At 31km I thought of giving up the run but then X, Y and Z came and with their support I managed to complete the 36km target !!!

Yupeee !!! I finished in 3:24:00 (pace of 5:40), so now I feel confident that I am in the right path to finish the Full Marathon in 4 hours”

You may think of giving a “thumbs up” and comment “WOW, commendable effort, well done!!” You might even feel envious of his pace thinking to yourself,“I would like to be able to push myself like this”.

Well, I pity these kind of runners as much as I pity the weightlifter.

This person is training for his/her marathon EXACTLY THE SAME WAY AS THE WEIGHTLIFTER !!! The lifter was fixing the weights, here the runner is fixing the pace and as the lifter was trying to go higher… The runner is trying to go further: THE SAME MISTAKE IN BOTH CASES !!!

If you want to “lift” a faster marathon, you have to go gradually starting from easier paces, complete the marathon and then increase the pace. You can’t train for a sub4 marathon by fixing the pace and then try to do 1 km more every day. It should be the other way around, if you want to run a sub4 marathon, first you have to run a marathon slow like 5:30, then 5, then 4:30, then 4:15, etc…

The idea is that you have to get very familiar/confident with the slower paces before “attacking” the faster ones. This requires many, many kms at slower pace.

And here is where the 100 days of running can help you. The golden rule is:

Add 45 sec to your PB in marathon and run all these 100 days at that pace, some days longer, some days shorter distances… but don’t overdo it, just stay there… let your body get familiar with that speed, master it!!! And then, coming winter you will be in a position to push the training and cut 15 sec to your PB.

You can take the 45 as a minimum to add, you can add 1 minute or even more. People following the Maffetone are adding upto 2 minutes !!

The “No pain, no gain” doesn’t work in training for endurance:

• Never finish a long run completely exhausted,
• Never finish a week of training completely gone, doubting if you can keep another week of training…

There are many ways of training and the aim of this blog is not to say which one is the best. The key point is that you should not feel bad or “not doing enough” just because you don’t finish your run on Sunday completely drain out.