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Apr 2014
12:58pm, 25 Apr 2014
6,699 posts
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Bazoaxe
I also have an example where a conservative start led to a better finish and I dont believe RWR would have improved me any further.
I spent a long part of 2011 injured, got back running and had 11 weeks under my belt before a marathon, but I was well short of fitness. I set a target of sub 3:50 and set out and did the first half in very easy pace of 9mm with the aim that the 2nd half would be faster if I felt up to it. From half way I picked up the pace and ended up running 7:45mm towards the end. I had no need to walk ,but did have one toilet break and finished with an 11 minute negative split and a 3:35 time well ahead of my prediction. In this case I was definitely not adequatley trained ,but know that I got the best oitcome possible on that day.
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Apr 2014
1:00pm, 25 Apr 2014
29,599 posts
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Velociraptor
I've done a fair number of marathons. Taking one particular course (Windermere) over three consecutive years, and running fatigued from a marathon the previous day each year, my deliberate RWR-strategy time the first year was a little more than 5 hours, my blunderbuss walk-only-when-you-can't-run strategy the following year gave me 4:41:21, and my run-all-the-way time on day 2 of the 10-in-10 the year after that was under 4 hours. I was well trained in the first and third years, and very suboptimally trained and a bit podgy in the second year.
I wouldn't choose to do RWR if I thought, based on my recent training, that I was capable of running all or most of the way round a marathon course, and wouldn't touch the strategy at half-marathon. But that's just me and just those distances. Other people may well have strengths and weaknesses that mean that alternating running hard with walking is optimal for them beyond a particular distance, a distance which will vary between individuals.
And I suspect that in a race that was more than slightly longer than marathon distance, I'd be looking seriously at RWR too.
(This year I'm planning to discover what it feels like to run that same marathon having done almost all my training on a bicycle.)
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Apr 2014
1:14pm, 25 Apr 2014
50,559 posts
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plodding hippo
Gosh this is quite a technical thread
I know of many people for who RWR works really well, andf I know of one marathon runner personally who achieved a pb of 3.40 using it.
For long distance ultras, its a must(Im talking 100 miles or multi day events here)
Now, Ive only ever run the whole was in 2 out of 304 maras/ultras
So, yes,. I do walk, but the planned RWR doest work for me for several reasons
1.It doesnt matter how slowly I start a marathon, I will ALWAYS get slower.So I run as long as I can and then do run wlk to feel, NOT to time
2.For me, walking signals a pyschologically bad point in the race, so the longer I can put it off, the better.This even applies if it is more cost effective to walk, eg up a giant hill early on
3.I never think the walk breaks are long enough
4.If you are doing it to a fixed pattern, you cant take advantage of downhills and you might have to run uphill when it would be beter to walk
It really really does work for some though
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Apr 2014
1:17pm, 25 Apr 2014
1,302 posts
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MudMeanderer
Isn't this effectively turning the race into a set of tempo intervals? If so I think I'd really struggle with it; a good race is one where I'm cracked at the end, but I also know from experience that if the pace drops off and I'm feeling tired trying to accelerate feels much harder than just sustaining a consistent pace, even if that sustainable pace really hurts. This opens up two possibilities; either I get to the last break feeling relatively too fresh and struggle to achieve the overall pace I could have, or I get to the last break and never get back to race pace again.
I'm sure it could work for some, but getting going again after any walk break just sounds insurmountably hard.
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Apr 2014
1:24pm, 25 Apr 2014
50,560 posts
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plodding hippo
I find it hard when I first shift MM but then you do get into a rhythm-of sorts
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Apr 2014
1:26pm, 25 Apr 2014
29,600 posts
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Velociraptor
I've found that, MM. As the race goes on, making the transition from a walk to a run becomes increasingly laborious.
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Apr 2014
1:27pm, 25 Apr 2014
17,590 posts
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JohnnyO
What Curly says.
I think its just a question of pacing. Most should aim to run at a sustainable pace and their target time relates to that pace, however, some cannot maintain running for the required distance, and in direct relation to that, the required time. I couldn't maintain my marathon effort pace for the five hours that some do.
I doubt that a RWR strategy would beat a well paced and equally fit runner though, even if that pace was low. I did a particularly hilly marathon and plodded all the way, never stopped to walk. I went past lots of walkers in the second half. At first they would come past me again within half a mile, but eventually they all fell back. I think they were pacing the whole effort very badly, but ultimately the time they lost in their walk breaks and the effort they made to run faster in their intervals did them in.
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Apr 2014
1:28pm, 25 Apr 2014
17,591 posts
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JohnnyO
Sorry, not Curly, MM.
I should read names rather than pass a cursory glance at avatars.
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Apr 2014
1:38pm, 25 Apr 2014
2,055 posts
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RevBarbaraG
PtB - no problem making this about me, examples can be helpful. As it happens, I ran for 21 hours in March, and that includes two weeks of greatly reduced training due to injury. This is one of the factors in determining what optimally, or adequately, trained looks like - doing enough miles for a marathon as a slow runner takes an awfully long time.
And I think what it looks like depends entirely on the goal. Let's drop the idea of elite, and think in terms of reaching your potential best performance - the fastest marathon of which you, with your genetics and at your age, are physically capable.
To attain that, I think you may need to run for rather more than 5 hours a week. What you *can* do in 5 hours a week (or 7-8, which is more like what I was spending when I was able to run as much as I planned) is train enough to finish feeling vaguely human and - if you get your pacing right - fairly evenly.
I didn't do as long a long run as I had planned because of injury - the longest was 18, where I'd originally planned 2x20. This no doubt contributed to me slowing down after 25K - my 5K splits up to that point were a couple of minutes either side of 45 minutes, 30K was 49 minutes and 35K and 40K were 52:xx. I managed to speed up over the last 2.2K. So - the length of my long runs was a factor, but within the constraints of that, I think I paced myself pretty well, although ending up with a positive split of nearly 22 minutes.
I certainly did better than a guy called Ricky who is in the start line picture with me. He ran a lot quicker than me in the first 10 K, reached half way 3 minutes before me, and crossed the finish half an hour after me.
In order to approach group 1, you need quite a few things which I currently haven't got: several years' consistent running history, for a start; to remain injury-free; to be close to your optimum racing weight; a training programme which includes plenty of long runs, speed work etc; AND - and I think this is a big one - it needs to be important enough to you that you are willing to undergo the pain that comes from pushing yourself to the max over 26.2 miles.
There is a choice to be made about whether you want to try to run the fastest marathon you possibly can - always assuming you want to run one at all. At the moment, I'm saying I want to run a better marathon than I have, which is why I haven't signed up for another one yet. I have work to do before it is worth trying again. But do I want to work towards running the fastest marathon I possibly can? Probably not, if I'm honest. I don't like pain.
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Apr 2014
2:42pm, 25 Apr 2014
5,551 posts
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becca7
For me, fast marathon does not hurt anything like as much as a fast parkrun or half marathon Rev. I can honestly say that the five or six fastest marathons that I have run have been the least painful of my fastest races. The effort level has been pretty even and no lactic acid has been involved whatsoever. However those came with experience of a few marathons and a good level of training. Even pacing and no walking breaks.
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Run/walk ratio
Jul 2016