Multiple marathons a year

Myles Splitz

Enduro wrote: »

Do you have any links to any science as to why there would be a risk that a well trained marathon runner would not be able to recover in the (rather large) period of time between the closing of the qualification window and the olympic marathon race? I know it widely held received wisdom (dogma) that this is the case, but I've yet to see any actual science to support this.

(Not aimed at you in any way... I've asked question several times in several places in the last few weeks without getting a trace of an answer).

(Taken from another thread)

I think this is a question which needs to be addressed not just from a scientific point of view and is where the art of coaching is balanced with the science.

What would a normal marathon cycle look like in your opinion? (duration and phases)

BeepBeep67

Myles Splitz wrote: »

(Taken from another thread)

I think this is a question which needs to be addressed not just from a scientific point of view and is where the art of coaching is balanced with the science.

What would a normal marathon cycle look like in your opinion? (duration and phases)

I'm not an experienced marathon runner, but I am trying build on my endurance and to a position where my marathon time reflects my shorter distance times.
For me I find it difficult to follow a 24-26 plan for a marathon. I probably start overthinking the training and the outcome too much.
I much prefer a 12-16 cycle, but will precede that 8 weeks of consistent running, slowly building up the mileage to about 85-90% of what will be the peak.
Sessions will be unstructured from the point of view that if I feel fresh I may run hard doing some tempo or fartlek and will chuck in the occasional short race to stay sharp.
It still boils down 5 months training, add in post marathon recovery and assuming you stay injury free, 2 target marathons per year should be achievable. But for me that would bore me, I'd prefer one every 12-18 months with a focus on the shorter stuff in between.

El Caballo

Ha, I had a fairly comprehensive post wrote up but it didn't post for some reason. I'll have another go and hopefully have some success. Interesting topic!

There really isn't a problem with running two marathons a year in my opinion. I believe a 20-24 week marathon cycle offers plenty of time to both recover and hit the necessary stimulus to run an optimal marathon and that is achievable when running two a year. In an ideal world, A normal periodisation model would look like this in my opinion

Base(8-12 weeks depending on the length of the cycle)
Transition (4 weeks)
Lactate & Vo2 (4 weeks)
Speed & Taper (4 weeks)

This is a pretty basic model but it hits the spot and allocates plenty of time to improve in each phase, In fact, the specific training is probably too long for most runners so an adjustment would have to be made to the last 3 specific mesocycles and added to base training leaving a bigger window for recovery. For arguments sake, if we take an athlete who has 6 months between marathons, this 20 week block leaves 6 weeks of recovery between the marathon and the beginning of the new cycle which is a substantial amount of recovery time for any athlete of any ability. Base training is also introduced slowly as the aim early in the base phase is refresh and lay down the groundwork so this leaves even more time for the runner to recover as if they already needed it after having 6 weeks to get fresh and ready to go. I would see the above model as optimal for both approaching a single marathon or coming off the back of a marathon and targeting another marathon. If both are fully recovered at the start and both can do the same training block, I don't see an issue. That would be my persective from a general point of view of recovery and ability to get the training done and get adaptions in mind and I think both can be accomplished more than adequately enough running two marathons a year.

If I could answer the original question about short marathon cycles between marathons for Olympians, I'd be an Olympic coach:) but I think when we are talking about this situation, maintainance is a more important factor and can be achieved in a shorter cycle as it takes less to maintain than it does to create a breakthrough. Recovery time is also shorter among elite athletes because of their huge engines. 16-18 weeks should be more than time for them to fully recover, rebuild their fitness to previous levels. How this would be individualised in periodisation is anyone's guess but with maintanence being the goal, I think a condensed cycle would work well in achieving it. Obviously, the shortened cycle would not be ideal for a breakthrough performance but I don't think post marathon recovery is an insurmountable hurdle to clear in running a good marathon, the window is still big enough in my opinion. How it is managed will inevitably come down to an individualized approach to which phases hold the most importance for a given athlete. Another way we could possibly look at it is that there may be room for improvement in this time frame once recovery is managed post-marathon. Canova has been quoted in the past as saying many European and American athletes could run a much faster marathon 6-8 weeks later than they actually did, he says this is because the arrive at the race with great aerobic support but the difference between them and the Kenyans is that Kenyans are starting specific training when everyone else is starting the race so that potentially opens up a window for exploration in my opinion.

Coming off a marathon, the athlete will have a great aerobic background but will obviously be fatigued. Once they are fully regenrated, since the athlete will not have lost much of that background in 3-4 weeks, maybe they could place a shortened fundamental block in place to get back to full aerobic fitness and lay down a support system to attack a more specific block a la Canova and see improvements in the shortened cycle? just some random armchair thoughts but I would be interested in hearing others thoughts on this approach for one-off close back to back marathons.