Why marathon training is wrecking your marathons.
Question...
How do you run a decent marathon?
Answer...
Lotsa long runs--especially that 21 or 22 miler. Plenty of “goal pace” work. A good taper.
Harder question...
How do you KEEP GETTING BETTER at the marathon?
Answer...
TRAIN TO RUN A 5K!
It’s true. I’ll elaborate.
Your body is capable of incredible levels of adaptation to a variety of stresses--both training and otherwise. This means that, if it experiences (and adapts to) nearly the exact same stimuli over a period of time, it no longer believes it needs to “get better”.
So it doesn’t get better. It stays the same. Or at best, adopts rates of improvement akin to the drying of paint.
So how do we break out of this?
The solution is a sneaky one. We’re going to use a shortcut.
Once you’ve decided on a (reasonable) marathon goal, you undergo a number of weeks that focus on the training needs of running a fast 5k. This works for a number of reasons:
Psychologically, it feels good to “break free” from the monotonous drudgery of a rote and depleted marathon program. It feels fresh; it’s a new, exciting goal.
Your central nervous system likes the change, and your legs start to get their “snap” back.
Since 5k training prepares the body for a pace that’s considerably faster than marathon pace, it can make paces SLIGHTLY FASTER THAN MARATHON PACE feel “easy”.
This final point is key. I’ve had clients whose intransient marathon times had them on the brink of madness. Once they abided this training detour, it was like a wall shattered. Things just snapped into place. Not only did they just FEEL better overall, they were able to “capture” the newfound ease of pace that faster training afforded them, and extend it out over the course of much longer distances.
Want to get set up for such a breakthrough? Click here today!
