Instead of doing a big build-up and taper, I think I'm going to train right through the marathon. I'd like to average somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 miles/week for the next six months, further developing my aerobic capacity. I don't think I'm going to bother with track workouts or threshold runs. Instead, I plan to do a mix of aerobic work. For example, on Monday I'll do a 3/4 effort run. Tuesday: 1/4 effort; Wednesday: Fartlek (six to ten 10 second sprints with at least 5 minutes of recovery in between); Thursday: 1/4 effort; Friday: 3/4 effort; Saturday: rest or 1/4 effort; Sunday: 1/4 effort. I've taken this right out of Arthur Lydiard's playbook. His number one principle was to first train the body to more efficiently provide fuel to and to eliminate waste from the working muscles. The only way to train the body to do this is to run a lot of aerobic miles at varying efforts. Last build-up, I made the mistake of running too many easy miles and not really pushing the aerobic pace. Granted, I did a weekly tempo run/speedwork, but these were close to all out efforts, which are not recommended during the initial period of training. I thought that I was in a bit better marathon shape than 3:53, but I guess not. I now see why I was able to run 3:50 on less mileage. My build-up to the 3:50 incorporated a lot of early very easy aerobic running but gradually progressed to harder aerobic running. For example, I did a good 13-mile run at around 8:15/mile. I didn't do anything this long at that pace in my preparations for Green Mountain. All of my running outside of my tempo work and speedwork was very easy aerobic running. There were days when I felt great but wouldn't push it for fear of jeopardizing my hard workouts, but it turns out that the opposite is true. Hard, sustained efforts are detrimental to the development of one's aerobic capacity in the initial period of training. This type of running should be saved until one's aerobic capacity has been fully developed in the time allowed (for marathoners, 10 to 12 weeks is recommended).
Some may wonder why train through a marathon? The reason is that it can take years to maximize one's aerobic capacity, and I'm not willing to sacrifice years of missed marathons in order to do this. I want to run me a lot of marathons, but I also want to be more consistent in my training.
I'm still making my way through Healthy Intelligent Training: The Proven Principles of Arthur Lydiard, by Keith Livingstone, but I've learned enough thus far to know what I need to do to become a better runner. H.I.T. is endorsed by the Lydiard Foundation and is the go-to resource for Lydiard's principles. Lydiard himself wrote several books on his principles, but his writing was very difficult to follow, so Livingstone tried to better organize it and make it more palatable, which I think he did. In any event, Lydiard was a great coach.
"...the first thing to plan is the fuel supply and waste removal infrastructure because this takes the longest to develop and is the
limiting factor for all high-intensity exercise."
"The endurance phase was all about strong aerobic running. At no stage in a "buildup" would an athlete deliberately undertake sustained work above the anaerobic threshold. Lydiard considered this to be totally counter-productive and harmful to the development of the aerobic systems."
"There was a very simple reason for not running every run at a pace that pushed the anaerobic threshold; this pace would be the equivalent of running the mileage of 4 marathons at race pace, each week, or faster. This would be very tiring and would hammer the glycogen reserves and recovery ability of the body. Longer runs at lower aerobic speeds could actually speed recovery from faster efforts."
"First thing: No. No. Never do anaerobic work in conditioning. Never. Ever. That's one of the first things: You don't do it. Don't even try. Don't even run fast to the finish. That's the one thing you've go to learn." -- Lydiard
This is my training schedule for the Austin Marathon. I put it together myself. I start on Monday, November 1st.
