Marathon Pace

When people talk about a steady run, I think about marathon pace. Marathon pace is aerobic, so you should be able to do your whole weekly long run at this speed. It is also faster than your easy pace and so more interesting for those of us who are not running swift times.

Marathon pace
Variety: Steady run or long repeats (e.g. 2 x 4 miles at marathon pace)
Intensity: Generally in the range 75-84% of VO2max or 80-90% of your HRmax.
Purpose: Used to experience race pace conditions for those training for a marathon or simply as an alternative to Easy pace running for beginners on long run days.
The RUN SMART project

I have been reading the Frank Howitt archive on the Serpentine running club’s website; most of the pro-level training plans he suggests, from the mile to 10k, involve running 13 miles at a pace similar to an athletes marathon speed. Jack Daniel’s advises beginner runners could use this pace as an alternative on easy runs.

Pete Magill in ‘Fast 5K‘ says that the comfortably hard marathon pace is the slowest speed for a tempo run and recommends runners targetting the 5K build up to workouts of 25 to 30 continuous minutes. Pete advises initially breaking tempo runs into 5-10 minute blocks with 2-3 minute jogs as recovery to reduce the resulting fatigue and help you to auto-regulate the pace.

Fast 5K Marathon pace progression:

Beginner: 10min
Intermediate: 2 x 10 min w/ 3 min recovery jog
Advanced #1: 2 x 10 min + 5 min w/ 2 min recovery jog
Advanced #2: 3 x 10 min w/ 3 min recovery
Elite: 30min

Once comfortable performing 30 minutes of continuous marathon pace as part of your weekly 13-mile long run, you could pick up a marathon training plan for progression ideas. In Daniels’ running formula, Jack Daniels recommends 40-110 minutes and under 18 miles marathon pace per workout and between 15-20% of weekly mileage. Daniel’s says to use marathon pace when training for a marathon or building confidence in sustaining longer efforts.

Daniel’s running formula marathon pace workouts:

60 min E, 30 min M, 10 min E
60 min E, 40 min M, 10 min E
60 min E, 60 min M, 10 min E
30-40 min E, 80 min M, 10 min E
40-60 min E, 70 min M, 10 min E

Marathon pace is a fun, comfortably hard pace for steady runs to build stamina and confidence. The pace provides more muscle activation and physiological benefits than the traditional long-run easy pace but can be tougher on your body. Build up slowly to including more of the long run mileage at this speed until you can perform 13 miles at the pace. This approach will introduce enjoyment to the long miles, building a solid engine and strong legs to tackle any distance you choose to race.

Character

The following is taken from the author’s foreword of Middle Distance Running by Percy Cerutty published in 1964.

I teach:
It is not important that we merely compete: that it is important that we endeavour to excel. That means, we do with all our ‘heart and soul’ that which we find at hand to do.
That we leave ‘no stone unturn’d’: no page unread: nothing frustrates us – since with the difficulty is the means of overcoming – and this once we have resolved upon a course of action.
There are much more priceless things than winning especially, if the victories be ‘unearned’ or ‘cheap’.
It is the ‘training’: the ‘way’, that is valuable. That winning is only evidence of something and may be valuable, or not.
That ‘value’ is only ‘earned’ when there has been self-discipline: exhaustive effort and the development of intelligence through experience and thought.
That without these factors preceding ‘winning’ – winning itself, rather than be an advantageous experience, can stultify the personality – not add to it.
I hold:
That suffering and dedication is the only way to understanding, compassion and courage.
That these three add up to a lovable personality, true withal, and the most priceless of all – character.
Percy Cerutty

Have a plan to get lean, to get fast

Getting to a healthy race weight is a crucial part of performing well in endurance events. You need to have a target weight, a plan to get there, and then weigh yourself each day, adjusting the programme when required based on your weekly average weight. A simple strategy is to eat better and move more, but what if you need more guidance?

Researchers at the University of Oxford have created a list of 53 weight loss actions as part of their PREVAIL programme to help people make daily action plans. The weight loss actions are divided into seven categories:

Eat in a structured way
Avoiding or swapping specific foods
Changing what you drink
Creating a healthier diet
Meal-time tactics
Burn more calories
Be more active as part of your daily life

The Oxford researchers carried out a study measuring the effectiveness of self-regulation on weight loss, allow individuals to weigh themselves daily in the morning and then create an action plan from the list for the day based on the result. At the end of the week, they evaluated the effectiveness of the actions chosen and their effect on weight change. Over an eight week study, participants, all starting with a BMI of over 30, lost an average of 4.18kg, 3.2kg less than the control group.

How to create a self-regulation intervention plan for weight loss

Find your A: Weight yourself first thing in the morning
Find your B: Set a target weight
Weigh yourself first thing each morning
Choose one or more actions from the list for the day
Perform the planned action(s)
Reflect on the effectiveness of the actions weekly
Repeat until you reach your target weight

Aim for no more than 0.5kg per week, increase your protein intake, and do regular resistance training to avoid muscle loss. If you are continuing to train hard while losing weight, make sure you have a clear plan for fueling pre, during, and post workouts to ensure you have the energy to perform the planned activity and feed your body with what it needs to recover. This fueling plan should be differentiated for the various intensities and durations of your workout; fuel long and intense workouts but perhaps do some of the shorter, less intense workouts fasted.

My plan

My current average weekly weight 83.7kg, according to my Withings Body+ scale weekly email. I have a target race weight this season of 78kg based on the Stillman height/weight ratio table and my current body fat percentage. I have signed up for the Maderia Skyrun, so I aim to hit my race weight for the 8th of October. This goal gives me just under 24 weeks to lose 5.7kg or 0.24kg per week.

Each day this week, I will weigh myself immediately after waking up and pick at least one action from the PREVAIL study to focus on that day. My Witherings email summarising my weekly weight is sent on Mondays, so I will use that day to evaluate my progress. I prefer the positive actions where you add things rather than remove them. I will focus on these actions first, including burning more calories, drinking at least a litre of water a day or a pint of water before each meal, and using fruit and veg or a protein shake as snacks.

Leaner is faster

Men require around 6% body fat for a healthy functioning body; anything more will slow you down in endurance racing. The top endurance athletes in the world can get close to this number for a short period around key races in the year, but 10% is a more realistic target for the weeks around goal race for the most dedicated top-level amateur athletes. Reaching minimal body fat percentages requires extreme discipline but reaching it while maintaining muscle mass is where the performance gains are realised.

The simplest way to ensure a faster 5k is to run light. Weight loss of even five pounds can improve your 5k time by anywhere from 5 seconds to a minute.
Pete Magill

Healthy weight loss will increase your V02 max, reduce the impact on your muscles and joints, and improve your running economy. Combining these three improvements will make you faster, less prone to injury, and able to maintain high intensities for longer.

The process of losing weight, particularly if you lose it too quickly, will have a temporary negative effect on performance as you have lower muscle glycogen stores to fuel exercise. If you do not eat enough protein while cutting back on food, you might be losing muscles and fat, making you slower. Many people struggle to lose weight initially, even when they reduce their calories and increase exercise. It takes time for the body and specifically the metabolism to adjust.

To minimise the risk of the adverse effects:

always eat some carbs within 30 minutes of a workout to restock glycogen
target a maximum of 0.5kg weight loss per week
perform strength training workouts two to three times per week
use high-intensity interval training to increase your metabolism
train daily to keep your metabolism going

If you are at the beginning of your endurance journey, then incrementally eating a healthier diet and gradually increasing your training volume is all you need to think about to move towards an optimum race weight. As your body adapts to regular training, becoming more efficient, and having your eating in a good place, you will have to become more thoughtful about reducing your excess fat.

Researchers at Oxford University suggest weighing yourself daily as feedback towards reducing body weight. The daily marker helps you self-regulate, letting you know if you are moving towards your goal weight or further away from it. With this information, you can constantly adjust your eating and training habits accordingly and then measure the effects of these changes, learning how your body reacts to different behaviours over time.

The effectiveness of self-monitoring is hypothesised to be based on a self-regulation process, whereby monitoring oneself allows for (1) the comparison of the current status to a previously set goal, thus providing (2) the opportunity to reflect on the effectiveness of previous behaviour, and enabling (3) the formulation of an action plan to reach the goal, which is followed by (4) the performance of the planned action (Boutelle, 2006; Kanfer & Karoly, 1972; LaRose et al., 2009)
Kerstin Frie et al.

For most amateur runners, losing some body fat will make you run faster. Healthy weight loss for those without a medical condition is simple, eat better and move more. Try to keep weight loss to a maximum of half a kg per week. Keep your protein intake high and strength train to maintain muscle mass. To help you learn how your body responds to changes in your habits, weigh your self at the same time each day and reflect on how your behaviours affect your weight over time, then adjust these behaviours based on where you want your weight to be.

The longer the distance you race, the more critical being lean becomes. Focus on shorter races at first and let yourself get leaner over time as you increase your training volume and experience.

Peter Coe’s Diagnostic Tests

Peter Coe was the father of Seb Coe, and an engineer turned middle distance coach. He approached his son’s training scientifically and helped Seb achieve 13 World Records and countless trophies and medals. Coe wrote a book detailing his training methods, strength and conditioning approach, and running workouts to help other middle-distance runners win.

There are runners who seem to be performing quite well but are often, quite unknown to themselves, not reaching their full potential because of a lack of specific or all-round strength.
Peter Coe

In his book, Winning Running; Successful 800m & 1500m Racing and Training, Coe lists a set of tests and standards to help runners identify gaps in their overall conditioning. Once the gaps are identified, the runner can create a programme to address them.

Test	Standard	Details
Balke Test		Run as far as possible in 15 minutes. Divide the distance in meters by 15 to give the speed in meters per minute. Subtract 133 from this number, then multiply by 0.172, then add 34.4 to get oxygen intake in ml/kg/min.
Standard Broad Jump	Athletes height plus 25%	A standing long jump
Hopping Test	10 hops	Mark out a 25m track, one-legged hop the distance. Repeat on the other leg to identify imbalances
50m Dash	6.5 seconds	As the name suggests
Free Weights
– Curl	50% body weight
– Press	70% body weight
– Squat	100% body weight
Sarjent Jump	65 cm	Measure the maximum verticle jump
Harvard Step Test	Score of 180	Using a 20 inch (50cm) step and a metronome set to 120 bpm and perform 30 steps per minute (4 beats per step) for 5 minutes. Rest for 1 minute and count the beats for the next 30 seconds. Multiply the time in seconds by 100, divide it by the 30 second pulse count, and then multiply it by 5.5 to get your score.
Height-weight Ratio	10% less that the Dr Stillman formula result for your height	Using Dr. Stillman’s formular – give 50kg for the first 1.5 meters of height then add 2.5kg for each additional 2.5cm
Percentage Body Fat	8%
Muscular Endurance Test		The maximum number in a minute
– Press-ups	50
– Squat thrusts	50
– Sit-ups	60
– Pull-ups	20

Diagnostic tests for middle distance runners

Creating a running training programme

At the start of the year, I aimed to get serious about my running. I have been running on and off for around five years, but I have never done anything more than 30+ miles in a training week and never followed a programme or put in any consistent volume. I completed several big races including the 69 mile Rat Race Wall in northern England, the 66km long, 4,400m of accent, Pirin Skyrun in Bulgaria, and the 49km long, 3,600m of accent Matterhorn Ultraks with my relaxed approach. Still, the aim has always been to finish rather than to race.

I decided in December 2019, with the help of a Percy Ceritty book, that if I was going to invest time and energy into doing long mountainous races, then I need to respect them by preparing correctly. I chose the Tromso Skyrun, a beautiful and remote event on the edge of my current ability as my target race and set about getting serious. I set an annual target of 2000 miles and got the five times winner of the event to coach me for the six months leading up to the event (The organisers cancelled it in the end). Jon Albon helped me build a strong running foundation, so after the six months under his coaching ended, I wanted to create my plan for the rest of the year.

Creating a training plan

In the book ‘Run Faster from the 5k to the Marathon: How to be your own best coach‘, Brad Hudson and Matt Fitzgerald suggest eight steps to creating your training plan:

Choose a peak race and a race goal
Pick a start date and plan duration
Decide on appropriate running volume, frequency and weekly workout structure.
Divide your plan into introductory, fundamental, and sharpening periods
Plan your peak training week
Schedule tune-up races and recovery weeks
Schedule progressions for intervals workouts, threshold workouts, and long runs
Fill the rest of the schedule

For most people, picking a race and a goal for it in step one is going to be based on an event that gets them excited, but if you are looking for inspiration, check my post from Sunday last week on the progression of a distance runner.

If you want to get faster at running and do not have a coach, you should pick up a copy of Brad Hudson and Matt Fitzgerald’s book. The book is full of useful advice, training plans, and more importantly, guidance on how to adapt a plan for your context and how you react to the training load on a day to day basis.

Contact me on Twitter if you have any questions or want to discuss ideas creating your own running training plan.

A distance runner’s progression

This year is the first year I have taken running seriously. In previous years, I have done some significant challenges, including Sky runs, ultramarathons, and 70.3 Ironman triathlons. I am not a naturally fast runner, I have done ok at the longer events, but I have not been fast, and not fully committed to the training so I never got near to seeing how good I could be.

This year I committed to becoming a better runner. I signed up for the Tromso Skyrun and several warm-up events, I convinced the five-time Tromso winner and OCR world champion Jon Albon to coach me, and set an annual distance target of 2000 miles (over twice the total I had done in the year before).

For the first month of the year, I built up to 40 miles per week and then ran a local half marathon event in early February, setting a slow 1:50 minutes, and a 48 minute 10K time trial solo on local roads. With these benchmarks set, I began working with Jon to build intensity in 2-3 runs per week and then slow down the rest of my running to comfortable distance pace. Events had been cancelled, but I managed to get my Half-marathon time down to 1:37 in a solo time-trial before my time with Jon ended.

The lack of events got me thinking about the progression of a distance runner. What benchmarks should I target at each stage of my training to keep it interesting? I started to look through books and read online about some targets to direct my training towards achieving.

The progression of a distance runner

The term distance running tends to cover events from 5km to Marathon. traditionally younger competative runners would start at the shorter distances, get fast, and then work up to the marathon later in thier career but as I am in my 30s already I can be a bit more created with my running progression. Run Britain have programmes for the following distances and target times. On their website, they list the events by distance, but I wanted to order them based on difficulty to create a ladder of events to target. I have listed these distance and time benchmarks in order of difficulty according to the equivalent race time tool of the Jack Daniels calculator:

10k in under 60 minutes
Marathon in under 4 hours
5k in under 24 minutes
10k in under 50 minutes
Half-marathon in under 95 minutes
10k in under 40 minutes
Marathon in under 3 hours
Half-marathon in under 85 minutes
5k in under 18 minutes

On the 20th December, I am going to time trial a half marathon to get under the 1:35 time. I had planned to do this in an event, but this has cancelled too. I have been following a Half marathon programme from Brad Hudson’s ‘Run Faster’ and can highly recommend this book and its included programmes.

Contact me on Twitter if you have an alternative set of targets that make training more exciting or to share your running progress. I am back to work tomorrow after a week off so the next few days will be focused on Learning Design. I will keep Sundays for running-related blogs.