I Have a Problem

I've always been a marathoner with an endurance problem. I know…not exactly a good combination. You can hide a certain amount of endurance deficiency in a 5K or a 10K or maybe even a half-marathon, but the marathon will expose you. Looking back over my last 3 Chicago marathons my half and full splits are pretty revealing:

Year 1st Half 2nd Half Final
2003: 1:24:07 1:35:53 3:01:53
2004: 1:19:52 1:28:57 2:48:49
2005: 1:20:53 1:25:15 2:46:08

I know, I know. Not the way you want to run a race. My preparation for those marathons were pretty varied, but for the most part, they included two days of speedwork and one long run per week. The speedwork, I was pretty good at getting out there and doing it. The longruns, were more challenging for me, from a motivation standpoint. I always found it a little easier to go out and kill yourself for an hour as opposed to the slow painful death that you get with the longrun. Last year, which was probably the best preparation I ever had from a longrun perspective consisted of these longruns: 17, 18, 20, 17, 17, 20. That's it…and most of those runs were coming on weeks where I was in the mid-50's from a mileage perspective. Now, I don't want to stick my nose up at that. There are many many people who do great running marathons on less long runs and mileage than that. However, keep in mind, that I have an endurance problem. There is really only one cure for an endurance problem, and luckily, it's a pretty simple solution. Mileage….lots and lots of mileage. So that was my goal for this year. High weekly mileage. Lots and lots of long runs. Speedwork mixed in, once I adjusted to the mileage. I wrote this plan up in January and when I looked at it, I kind of laughed to myself. Yeah right…but I stuck with it. And it started working.

In April, after 4 months of my new training philosophy, with very few miles run at faster than 7 min/mile pace, I ran a small trail marathon in the northern suburbs of Chicago. My main goal was to go out and run comfortably maybe break 3 hours, and see how I bounced back from it. The results? A PR of 2:45:55. The first half split was 1:25:10 and the second half was 1:20:45. My last 3 miles were at a 5:45 pace. And it was easy. The plan is working.

Did 17 miles this morning without a watch. The 17 mile run has become my bread and butter run of this training cycle. If I'm starting to feel sluggish or just not right, I go to the 17 miler and I usually feel good after I'm done with it. It's long enough, where there is a sense of accomplishment upon completion, but it isn't so long that it breaks me down. Last year, this would have been the pinnacle of the week. The run that every other run centered around. This year, it's my Tuesday run. Slow steady progress is being made. And anyone can do it.