Hey everyone, welcome back to another running article!
First, I know it’s been a few weeks since my last article. I have not stopped writing, though! Just the contrary! I joined an online writing competition with an amazing group of other writers.
We ended up with 1st place in one of their prize categories for the competition too!
Part of the rules for this competition was that the writing we published on their platform was the only place we could publish…while the competition was ongoing.
All that to say, I have been writing running articles every week! I just couldn’t publish them on Substack until the competition was over.
So the good news is, you have tons of new articles coming your way! One of them will be the full version of my Run with Joy article which will also be debuted in the May issue of the Vagabond magazine!
But today and next week I wanted to do something different. All these running articles are more about the lessons I’ve learned over my last marathon in Asheville. But I still haven’t done a full debrief of the marathon itself.
So let’s do just that!
And the best place to start a debrief is with all the events that led to the event in question. Let’s jump in!
Before the run
I wanted to mention some of the interesting new training pieces I tried for this marathon training block.
After all, they say it’s foolish to try a new training block the same way as the last and expect better results…that’s insanity.
In terms of running, this block I averaged between 55 and 70 miles a week. I did have 2 weeks in a row with around 40 miles because I got sick.
But that sickness was my only setback this time; no injuries whatsoever!
Last marathon my highest mileage week was 65, so we upped it slightly.
In my last marathon block, my average “easy” run was around 7 or 8 miles. For this marathon block, we upped that to 11 miles.
The reason for this is two-fold.
First, two of my favorite running YouTubers did the same thing for his marathon and I wanted to copy them.
Second and more importantly, I found a perfect route that totals exactly 11 miles without having to drive anywhere!
It turns out I can leave our house, walk down the hill (we’ll come back to the hill), and then run down the road about a mile until you pick up the sidewalk.
Once on the sidewalk, I can run that through downtown, pass the Ingles (where you can stop for a restroom break), and to the middle school where the sidewalk ends. Then run it back.
If you run to the end of that sidewalk and back it turns out to be exactly 11 miles.
Of course, then there is this massive hill I have to walk back up. For reference, our hill is ⅓ of a mile long and goes up around 300 feet in elevation.
So what did I do? Did I run up it? Nope…I walked up it…backward.
But we’ll come back to that in a second. First, I wanted to mention one more change for my runs that I did this block:
Longer quality sessions
Last block, I had maybe 2 long quality sessions.
This block, I did 2 of these every single week for about 9 weeks leading up to the race.
What do I mean by this?
What is a quality session?
A quality session can also be called a speed workout, a hard workout, a session workout, etc. It has a bunch of names. In the heart zone sciencey world, you might call it zone 4 or 5 training.
These workouts will not be continuous running. You aren’t starting a run and then running the same pace for 11 miles and then stopping. Your heart rate will go up and down throughout the whole thing.
Typically, you have a short easy run for a warm-up. Then, from my experience, there are only 2 types of quality session workouts to choose from:
Tempo/Threshold Workouts
Repetition Workouts
* Bonus 3rd option: a mix of both
A threshold/tempo workout means similar things. That can be debated, but in this article, we are talking about your 5k max pace for medium-length intervals. It could be 5 minutes up to 20 minutes. I even see elites run tempo runs for 45 minutes.
Repetition workouts, however, are much faster. It could be intervals at your mile pace for 4 or 5 minutes, take a rest, and repeat.
Or it could be faster than your max mile pace for 200 meters or 400 meters. For you Americans out there, 400 meters is one lap around a track ;)
OR…your workout could be a mixture of both of these types of work.
What is a long quality session?
A typical quality session for me, when I’m not in a training block, is something like 15 minutes of warmup running, 20 minutes running at my threshold pace, 15 minutes of cooldown running, and then that’s it. We usually come in around 7 miles for the workout including the warmup/cooldown.
A typical long run for me is anything above 11 miles. In marathon training, this could be 15 miles up to 22 miles. You usually don’t train much past that.
A long quality session is where you take the kind of workout I just described but multiply it so we end up with a total mileage in that 15-22 mile range.
For instance, I had one workout that said warm up for 1 hour!
Then instead of 20 minutes at threshold one time, it was to run 3 miles at threshold (about 20 minutes), rest for 3 minutes, and then repeat it for a total of 3 times or a total of 9 miles at threshold. Then cool down for 30 minutes or so. And it did end up with a total mileage of around 18 miles.
Back to the marathon
Anyways, why are those runs important?
Well, a lot of them involve running longer distances at your goal race pace. So that makes sense that if you can run your goal pace for 16 miles, going the extra 10 on race day after tapering and resting should be a breeze.
Apparently not, but we’ll get to that.
The backward walking?
Ok, ok, let's talk about this weird habit I got into of walking up our 0.33 mile long hill backwards.
And yes, I got at least 1 or 2 strange looks from the neighbors. But more were impressed than anything else, haha!
It all comes from a man named Ben Patrick, but most people know him as the knees-over-toes guy. He has created a whole new exercise program under his gym and online platform, ATG. Ben is revolutionizing the fitness space…albeit slowly, but with insane strides.
He is already training athletes using his methods in top sports teams including both teams that competed in the Super Bowl this year!
His background is an amazing story. I’ll try and give you a quick overview. Essentially, his knees were obliterated from years of basketball. The doctors said not only would he never be able to dunk a basketball, but he would never even be able to play again.
After a few surgeries, he decided there had to be another way. So he started developing the ATG program.
After a couple of years of training, he had unlocked the most flexible knees of his life, could not only play basketball pain-free but even unlocked a higher vertical so he could finally dunk!
His foot pain, knee pain, and every kind of pain went away. Without even trying he also unlocked some crazy flexibility like a full split.
What is his program you may ask?
Well, he has several different exercises he boasts, different programs for different skill ranges, etc. You can check them all out on his website. But I’ve taken what I think are the most interesting so far and implemented my mobility routine (which I can share sometime).
One of the exercises he has everyone do is backward walking. They even have a backward treadmill they sell.
The quick science behind it is that walking backward helps our feet by striking toes first, almost like it reverses all the impact you just did running.
For your knees, whenever we load our knees where our knees bend over our toes, it increases blood flow into the knee. Increased blood flow means increased recovery and strength.
One of the key sciences behind all of this stuff is that there was a myth believed for a long time that you can’t strengthen tendons or ligaments. That they were just the way they were.
But that has been proven false.
You can strengthen them, they just don’t get stronger like a muscle. You won’t have get a big tendon, but you can get a dense and strong tendon. It also takes a lot longer to train them.
If you take anything from this section, just know that I feel like I found something special that worked for me.
I tried to do one of these mobility sessions at least once a week, with the addition of always walking backward up our hill. And the results were great!
I never had any foot pain or knee pain, and even my hip pain like I had in the previous marathon was non-existent!
Which brings us to the marathon itself!
But let’s save that for next week!
So, until then, run with joy!