Steve Way- 100k

ultrapercy

Steve Way ran 6:19 to win The Anglo Celtic Plate today. He broke the Brittish Road Record and ran a top 10 of all time clocking. Its all the more remarkable as Way ran a marathon pb of 2:16 in London just 3 weeks ago after inadvertently hitting marathon form while training for todays plate race. His Blog is a very good and informative read for runners of all abilities. He was a latecomer to the sport and was very overweight in his late twenties before running his first marathon(for a bet I think) in 3:30ish.

barryoneill50

any link to his blog

pconn062

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=steve+way+blog

Clearlier

ultrapercy wrote: »

Steve Way ran 6:19 to win The Anglo Celtic Plate today. He broke the Brittish Road Record and ran a top 10 of all time clocking. Its all the more remarkable as Way ran a marathon pb of 2:16 in London just 3 weeks ago after inadvertently hitting marathon form while training for todays plate race. His Blog is a very good and informative read for runners of all abilities. He was a latecomer to the sport and was very overweight in his late twenties before running his first marathon(for a bet I think) in 3:30ish.

His first London was 3:06 but he didn't take that too seriously (he is a bit talented). His first serious attempt at London saw him doing 2:35 after following the P&D up to 70 mile plan. Remarkably, IIRC, he did every single session in the plan.

A bit of talent and loads of hard work can bring you an awful long way*.



*sorry, couldn't resist!

Itziger

The London Marathon report is a great read. Flipping hell. Must check his running history later.

Dsenna

He also did an interview on this weeks " marathon talk" podcast , going over some of his training build up to London , not bad going for an over weight beer drinking smoker

TFBubendorfer

You're training your ass off for years and then same fat guy comes along and shows us all up. :rolleyes:

Incredibly impressive.

tHE vAGGABOND

He has been interviewed a couple of times on Marathon Talk [I think he lives near one of them and is in same club etc] - really interesting how he trains, *lots* of marathon pace miles not much else in terms of speed work, where I would think to get to those kind of times you would be flogging yourself at 5k / 10k pace for hours on end

His blog is good, its on my list to check once every so often over lunch

Krusty_Clown

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

He has been interviewed a couple of times on Marathon Talk [I think he lives near one of them and is in same club etc] - really interesting how he trains, *lots* of marathon pace miles not much else in terms of speed work, where I would think to get to those kind of times you would be flogging yourself at 5k / 10k pace for hours on end

Umm.....

Clearlier

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

He has been interviewed a couple of times on Marathon Talk [I think he lives near one of them and is in same club etc] - really interesting how he trains, *lots* of marathon pace miles not much else in terms of speed work, where I would think to get to those kind of times you would be flogging yourself at 5k / 10k pace for hours on end

His blog is good, its on my list to check once every so often over lunch

He lives fairly near (although he moved recently) to Martin Yelling, husband of Olympian Liz Yelling who joined (and had a big input in designing) the BAC (Bournemouth Athletic Club) marathon sessions in the lead up to her last London marathon a couple of years ago (she was never a member of BAC though).

Krusty correctly points out that Steve does do quite a bit of faster than marathon pace running. The two big changes I've seen in recent years are 1. He started doing short intervals eventually leading to a 5k track PB about 18 months ago and 2. Back to back long runs for his ultra training where the long runs were properly long (e.g. marathon on the Saturday followed by 40 miles on Sunday).

I haven't heard the interview on marathon talk or spoken to him since London but I'll be interested to hear what he thinks has made the difference this year. He also hasn't been injured for quite a while which contributes to the consistency that we all know is key to improvements. In the end it may be just that he would have been ready to do better than 2:19 for the marathon in the past couple of years if he hadn't been injured or had some other disruption in his build up, i.e. a small natural progression of 1 min a year condensed into one years improvement because of issues in the previous two.

macinalli

The piece on Marathon Talk is really interesting. Two things that aren't really obvious from the plan Krusty posted:
1. He only had 1 'session' per week (Wednesdays). His marathon pace was 5:15 per mile, and he'd run these @ MP +/- 10 seconds. These would typically be up to 20 miles total!
2. Easy days (e.g. Tuesdays or Thursdays) would often include doubles. He mentions slow recovery runs in the morning (6 miles @ 7 min pace) followed by a steady paced run of maybe 12 miles in the evening (ignores the Garmin, runs by perceived effort). Even though he says 'easy', he's still doing 18 miles....

I really liked his intro on Marathon Talk, where Yelling advises new listeners that this is not the usual training program! Well worth listening to

Krusty_Clown

macinalli wrote: »

Two things that aren't really obvious from the plan Krusty posted

This was his plan for Seville, which (IIRC) he eventually abandoned, in favour of targeting the 100km celtic plate event (with VLM along the way). Obviously the training for 100km will be quite different, but if you follow his blog, you can see he does quite a bit of running/sessions significantly faster than marathon pace. For example, he did this session ~9 days after London marathon. His marathon pace is 5:12/mile, yet he was rattling these intervals out between 4:17 - 5:00/mile (probably threshold -> 5k pace), and this was during his taper for the 100km. If anyone thinks they can get to sub 2:17 for the marathon on marathon pace miles alone, good luck!

Itziger

That's one interesting workout, the highlighted one. Impressive.

T runner

Reviewing the relevant period of his log:

The Seville schedule seems to be 8 weeks of general training: 2-3 sessions per week of 3k, 5k, parkruns, 10k, tempo sessions plus a staple 20 mile+ hilly long run every week.

This is followed by 7 weeks of marathon specific stuff till race day:
2 big sessions: A Wednesday M paced session and a long 20 mile+ weekend run/session often incorprating a race. Last 2 weeks of the 7 are taper.

He made it as far as the taper before bailing on Sevilwl citing he felt he might only run 2:22

After that he got word he was selected for England in the 100k

He then re-did his Wednesday weekly Seville marathon paced run progression (some of these had threshold sections sandwiched between marathon paced longer sections). And he went very long at the weekends.

Sessions were:

10 mile race
M session; Marathon race
M session; HM Race
M session; 10k XC race; 35 mile progression
Double Long: Marathon Race, Hilly 35 mile run
Marathon session; Double long: 40 mile; 26 mile
Marathon session; 50 miler
10k tempo; 20 miler
London marathon.

The difference between his Seville specific training and his London (hindsight specific) training was:

*The weekend long run was very long or double long compared to fast 20 milers

* The London training had a FULL marathon build-up before the last 2 months.

I don't think we can definately deduce that running very long was the key...or better for him than the more normal build-up paces he has used (or can we?). Obviously the combination of all paces in the buildup has helped him get from 2:22 shape to 2:16 shape. Maybe the very long stuff was a vital missing element though.

I'm guessing that the very long runs and doubles have improved the strength and fat burning capabilities of his slow twitch fibres....perhaps the very length of the runs has exhausted all slow twitch and forced beneficial adaptions to his fast twitch fibres: he spoke of the unprecedented strength he felt during taper.

That's pure speculation I haven't a clue about that really: perhaps some of the Ultra guys could chip in and tell us exactly what adaptions those very long runs achieve that might benefit the marathon performance of a slow twitch guy like Steve Way?

Its oft stated that people shouldn't train very long for a marathon because of injury risk etc, but clearly guys like steve way and ultra runners (and Japanese marathoners) can do it and these long runs seem to be a significant support.

The measure for predicting marathon performance has always been a recent half marathon time. Perhaps for some runners the prediction should come from the other direction e.g training to be able to cover 60k in a certain time as a predictor of marathon readiness.


Edit: Just listened to the marathon talk:

He says the very long weekend runs replacing the long fast weekend runs was the significant difference. He suggests that trying something new (100k training since VLM 2013 DNF) allowed him to break through. The same training was yielding the same results.

rom

Was listening to his interview this week on marathon talk and he said he covered basically 100k in sat and sunday with back to back runs and a serious 20 something miles on a wed. He used to do tues/thurs sessions but doesn't any longer. no vo2max stuff but stuff at PMP +/- 10 secs per mile for the wed run.

He tracks all on http://www.fetcheveryone.com/userprofile.php?id=13093&show=training as he changed how he trains greatly of late.

Enduro

T runner wrote: »

I'm guessing that the very long runs and doubles have improved the strength and fat burning capabilities of his slow twitch fibres....perhaps the very length of the runs has exhausted all slow twitch and forced beneficial adaptions to his fast twitch fibres: he spoke of the unprecedented strength he felt during taper.

That's pure speculation I haven't a clue about that really: perhaps some of the Ultra guys could chip in and tell us exactly what adaptions those very long runs achieve that might benefit the marathon performance of a slow twitch guy like Steve Way?

Well I certainly think that double long runs are the key part of my fat-burning adaptation/training (doing them on empty to ensure the adaptation). I've no idea how any of it relates to fast-twitch / slow-twitch etc. But I do know that it is most definitely working for me. I had the ultimate test of it all last week at the NY 6 day race and the results were amazing (Basically, I can pretty much run non-stop without having to eat... just need to drink to thirst to stay going... at no point did I feel even slightly hungry)

Zach Bitter, perhaps the most outstanding of the up-and-coming American ultra-runners, has been blogging some interesting stuff on fat-burning and efficiency recently.

rom

He is selected for commonwealth marathon. Not bad for M40. The only way is Steve.

Krusty_Clown

and here's his commonwealth marathon plan (from his blog):



Given that he only has two months, and is off the back of a period of solid endurance training, the emphasis seems slightly different, with speed sessions, track sessions and weekly races in the early parts of the plan, gradually replaced by easy runs. Interesting that he's peaking at 35 miles (4 weeks out) and going with a carb depletion phase, though he doesn't have any long tough runs during carb depletion, which would reduce the benefit, right?

TFBubendorfer

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

he doesn't have any long tough runs during carb depletion, which would reduce the benefit, right?

A long tough run during carb depletion carries a high injury risk. My guess is that he thinks it's not worth it.

Enduro

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

A long tough run during carb depletion carries a high injury risk. My guess is that he thinks it's not worth it.

What makes you think the injury risk is higher TFB?

My guess is that he is simply putting more emphasis on (relatively speaking) speed rather than endurance, so less emphasis on pushing things out on long runs (more to be lost than gained as his endurance ability is already way beyond what's needed for a marathon, the marginal gains are more likely to be found in speed)

Clearlier

Enduro wrote: »

What makes you think the injury risk is higher TFB?

My guess is that he is simply putting more emphasis on (relatively speaking) speed rather than endurance, so less emphasis on pushing things out on long runs (more to be lost than gained as his endurance ability is already way beyond what's needed for a marathon, the marginal gains are more likely to be found in speed)

I think that you could make an argument that a long tough run during carb depletion could see you become a little less efficient mechanically - it's a bit of a stretch for someone with as many miles in the bank as Steve though - more of a concern for your novice or biomechanically poor runner.

In terms of Steve's taper it's best understood as a result of trial and error. He tried the Aussie carb load protocol for a while but was persuaded to try this old school method by (IIRC) John Boyes - a 2:13 guy (1985) that used to run for Bournemouth and now has a holiday/training camp destination in the Pyrenees. The very sharp taper with short fast runs in the last week is something that worked for him well this year.

TFBubendorfer

Enduro wrote: »

What makes you think the injury risk is higher TFB?

The fact that I've read about it.

A quick google gives plenty of hits, e.g.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1317793/
or
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0275.htm

I'm not arguing that one should not run in a depleted state. I regularly do long runs in a fasted state, like the 20 miler I ran a few weeks ago, well over 15 hours after last eating, or the 50k I started 5 hours after a small breakfast.

I was purely guessing that Steve Way might have decided that a long hard run during depletion phase wasn't worth it.

Krusty_Clown

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

I'm not arguing that one should not run in a depleted state. I regularly do long runs in a fasted state, like the 20 miler I ran a few weeks ago, well over 15 hours after last eating, or the 50k I started 5 hours after a small breakfast.

Small correction: it's not running in a depleted state. It's running in a carb-depleted state.

clearlier wrote:

I think that you could make an argument that a long tough run during carb depletion could see you become a little less efficient mechanically

Not sure how mechanics could be impacted 2-6 days before the goal race, unless he picks up an injury?

Clearlier

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Small correction: it's not running in a depleted state. It's running in a carb-depleted state.


Not sure how mechanics could be impacted 2-6 days before the goal race, unless he picks up an injury?

Sorry, probably wasn't clear enough (there's a reason for my handle!). My thinking is that a long hard run in a carb depleted state can leave you more likely to be injured by that run because your mechanics during that run might be altered due to a lack of energy leading to poor posture however I would have thought that less likely in somebody who has run as many miles as Steve as the movement patters should be more ingrained than in for example a novice runner.

Enduro

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

The fact that I've read about it.

A quick google gives plenty of hits, e.g.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1317793/
or
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0275.htm

I'm not arguing that one should not run in a depleted state. I regularly do long runs in a fasted state, like the 20 miler I ran a few weeks ago, well over 15 hours after last eating, or the 50k I started 5 hours after a small breakfast.

I was purely guessing that Steve Way might have decided that a long hard run during depletion phase wasn't worth it.

I'm not arguing either, in case you think I am. I was genuinely curious as to what made you so sure there was a link. The difference between depleted vs specifically carb/glycogen depleted would seem to me be very significant to the applicability of the research.

(and for reference, I would actually personally think that the injury risk is indeed higher (but only slightly) when you're knackered (to be scientific ), as form does deteriorate... I also find I'm more likely to trip/snag things)

TFBubendorfer

Enduro wrote: »

I was genuinely curious as to what made you so sure there was a link

Actually, I just realised that I wrote "A long tough run during carb depletion carries a high injury risk" when what I meant to say was "carries a higher injury risk".

As for if it that's correct or not, who knows. It's how I interpreted those articles.