Thursday, January 28, 2010

The Marathon (simplified)

Borrowed from Dustin's blog & originally written by Tom D: http://irunmissionhill.blogspot.com/2010/01/boston-race-prep.html

"Mileage is the key to the marathon, the next key is racing up to the distance. The closer your daily mileage is to the time of your marathon, the less important is the "long run." If you are a 2:20 marathoners running 100 miles a week then you spend about 2 hours a day running which is only 20 minutes shy of the time you will spend racing, but if you run 40 miles a week and run a 4 hour marathon...well, it is really a different event.

Of course this stuff is hard to do. The marathon is a hard event."


You may or may not like the above two paragraphs and you may or may not agree. But to me, that is some powerful stuff. Where I am with my running currently, it makes perfect sense. If it does not make sense and/or you do not agree, forget about it, and just keep running. :)

5 comments:

  1. i'll be honest, i don't understand how to calculate what the old blue hair is trying to say.

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  2. put it this way, what is he saying i should be doing for 3 hour marathon

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  3. keep your weekly distance as high as possible (within reason of course) & practice running fast at longer distances.

    obviously, we are not elite & never will be. as such, we cannot strictly adhere to what he says. But we can run for (or almost for) two hours total on tues/thurs at faster paces. what he says may not absolutely & directly apply to us, but one can extrapolate pieces & apply accordingly.

    i guess it really hit home to me with what I have been doing w/ these recent races & my plan for Austin.

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  4. Mike I too am constantly confused by Tom's advice. From this statement I gathered that I did not need to run for 2hr and 30 minutes a day, but if I could run for an hour 45 or even 2 hours easyish several times a week, with a couple good quality days then a 20 miler on the weekend, I'd be in good shape. Combine racing with that and I will have a very good idea of where my fitness is for the marathon.
    It is certainly not a strict formula, but a simple one for sure.

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  5. i hear you both, but i still don't understand his formula!
    HAHAHA

    i guess he's sayin my 2 hours and 42 minutes i spend out there every day will get me to my 2:42 goal.

    perfect!

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