Spring training

It's been a while since I last had a chance to post something on this blog. Blame work and my super exciting social life. That and the fact that my last draft post was completely garbled by Blogger when I tried to add some pictures to it. I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say that about 30 minutes of work were lost. Thanks Blogger. Thlogger.

Anyway, this post is about running which I'm sure many of you know is one of my favorite hobbies. Sometime late last year, after having run the Berlin Marathon in September, I decided it'd be fun to do another marathon in the spring. Since I was about to move to the States in early 2010 the Boston Marathon, held in mid-April, seemed like an obvious candidate.

For those of you who don't know, the Boston Marathon is the oldest continuously held city marathon in the world. It was first run in 1897 and has been going on ever since, with 2010 being the 114th installment. Unlike many other Marathons it's held on a Monday, but residents of Boston even get the day off for it. (I'm not sure that's actually because of the Marathon. Given that the day is called Patriot's Day, it probably isn't, but still.) It is one of the most popular marathons in the world and probably the most prestigious one to win. It is also the only city marathon that requires a qualifying time from every runner to even be elligible to sign up. For many people just qualifying for Boston (often called a "BQ") is a goal and achievement in itself.

Luckily, my Berlin time was just fast enough to serve as a qualifier for my age group and I signed up early enough to get one of the hotly contested 25,000 spots (they sold out in record time only two months after registration opened in September). I was happy to have gotten a starting bib, but on the flip side this meant it was time to get fit!

When I started my training in early January I had just bought yet another Marathon book, "Advanced Marathoning" by Pete Pfitzinger (former US Olympian) and Scott Douglas. I liked their scientific approach to optimizing all aspects of Marathon training and decided to follow one of their 18 week training plans. I picked a plan that was building up gradually from roughly 55 miles (88 km) to just over 70 miles (113 km) per week. With the Boston Marathon less than 3 weeks away I just entered the tapering phase of the plan, where volume is reduced and resources are built up for the goal race. Even though I haven't actually run the Marathon yet I thought this would be a good opportunity to reflect on how this plan and my spring training have been working out for me.

In many ways, the Pfitzinger plan is like many other Marathon plans in that it focuses on the most important components necessary for good long-distance running performance: Core endurance, high lactate threshold, increased VO2 max, in this order of importance. Compared to previous marathon training plans that I've been following there are a few key differences though:

• Increased emphasis on improving pace at lactate threshold (LT), since research has repeatedly shown that this is the best predictor for Marathon performance. The book gives very precise instructions on how to do LT sessions and at what pace to run them.
• Pfitzinger emphasizes the importance of not going too slow on the long and medium long runs and recommends going only 10% to 20% slower than Marathon Race Pace (MRP). Most other plans that I've seen would advise you to go much slower (30-40% slower than MRP) on your long runs. Remember though, the book is called "Advanced Marathoning" for a reason. This is probably not good advice for beginners.
• Some long runs at MRP: The 18 week schedule has 4 long runs (up to 18 miles) at the planned marathon race pace. Pfitzinger repeatedly stresses the principle of specificity, which dictates that the best way to prepare for a given pace and distance is to do similar workouts during training. Again, this is not for beginners.
• Many more medium to long distance runs: Maybe this is just because I'm doing more total miles than in my previous marathon plans, but I've never done as many 12 to 15 mile (19 to 24 km) mid-week runs as this time.

I liked how the book not only gave me a plan to follow but also explained the rationale behind each the components and their relative importance, making it easy to adjust the plan to my needs and circumstances. I also managed to follow the plan pretty closely without too much trouble.

Now, what about actual results? Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Or in other words, I won't know before I've run Boston on April 19th. But if I had to assess my preparation so far, I'd have to say it's been going very well, and I've noticed some definite improvements to my fitness and pace. I also did two "tune up" races over the last couple of weeks, the San Francisco Half Marathon and the Across the Bay 12K race from Sausalito to San Francisco. Both of these saw new personal bests (1:22:26 for the half marathon, 44:11 for the 12K), despite the fact that I didn't really prepare specifically for either one of these races. Given all that, I'm optimistic that I'll be able to run a new Marathon PR in Boston and maybe even take a crack at that elusive 3 hour barrier. Wish me luck!