This is part 3of a 3 part response to a specific comment.
Part 1 - We Value What We Can Measure
Part 2 - The Correct Amount of Specific Training
The last part of the comment that I wanted to address was the following:
I coach a fair number of 4 hour marathoners & I do have to be very careful to not overstress their bodies because they will take almost twice as long as a a 2:20 marathoner to cover the same distance. But they STILL have to run 26.2 miles on race day. They have to be prepared for that distance regardless of the amount of time they take to cover it.
This is an ongoing concern of mine as I try to optimize the time vs specific stress for each of them.
I do agree the most important part of training for a race is preparing an athlete for what they are going to face on that specific day with their goals in mind, but I do think it is important to consider workouts in terms of time when thinking about athletes at different levels. I’ve come to think about training much more as the sum of a season of training sessions vs. the impact of any big long runs of specific sessions.
I do think running over 2:30-2:45 in a long run puts runners at serious risk of injury late in runs, no matter what the goal time is. Some folks may well cover well over 20 miles in that period while others would accumulate far less mileage. In my mind being able to run 2:30 regularly with some quality work allows an athlete to repeat that effort and recover appropriately.
I think this model is more widely accepted at the ultra-marathon level, where there is a limit to the amount of training you can do and recover from, and it is often far from the demands of the actual race. A big part of effective training is being able to increase fitness in a way where the training is repeatable and manageable enough where motivation stays high and athletes can recover. In my mind one’s ability on race day is much more closely tied to a season’s worth of efforts vs. a handful of workouts.
