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Apr 2014
2:52pm, 25 Apr 2014
1,281 posts
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FenlandRunner
Personally, perhaps due to the fact I'm crap and under-trained, my restriction isn't lack of aerobic capacity. What does restrict my performance is the pounding (perhaps because I'm also old) on the legs and by talking walk breaks it enables me to maximise my aerobic capacity and minimise the damage.
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Apr 2014
3:29pm, 25 Apr 2014
4,501 posts
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paul the builder
*Starts off by wishing there was a convenient "quote" feature on Fetch Forum...*
RevBG - you wrote:
"""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."""
Well yes - I certainly agree that more than 5 hours per week are going to be needed for anyone to run their absolute personal optimum. But I don't think it's what we're talking about here. It's certainly not what I'm talking about.
5 hours per week (just so as to put a number on it) isn't enough for anyone to maximise their potential. But it's enough to become a decent runner, if sustained over a long period. Not 3 months or 6 months ahead of a marathon, but several years.
The end result of sustained 'moderate' training (if we can agree that 5 hrs per week is moderate and achievable by most people, certainly not requiring them to give their lives over to dedicate themselves to running) is *much* better than "finishing feeling vaguely human".
"""In order to approach group 1, you need quite a few things which I currently haven't got: (1) several years' consistent running history, for a start; (2) to remain injury-free; (3) to be close to your optimum racing weight; (4) a training programme which includes plenty of long runs, speed work etc; AND - and I think this is a big one - (4) 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."""
(1) No. But if you enjoy running you will have soon, because 5 hrs per week surely isn't a frightening and daunting commitment to someone who enjoys running
(2) Not many people are inevitably and repeatedly going to get injured from running, fingers certainly crossed you won't be one. Be patient and let your body strengthen and adapt. That's part of the 'years' thing I'm going on about.
(3) It'll come, be patient again. You don't have to have that *now*.
(4) Ah. Well yes, we all need to really ask ourselves, honestly - do we really want to push ourselves to the max in a race? Is a time important enough to motivate me to do that? If not - well that's OK, we're all entitled to do what we want to do. But in that case why worry about RWR strategy as a means to improving time (which is what most of this thread has been about)?
That last point reminds me a bit of the typical RW article - Run Less to Run Faster, or Speedy Superfoods, etc. All those 'shortcuts' for people who want to run faster but without training more.
"""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. """
Gah, I think you're creating a straw man again. Don't hide behind "the fastest marathon I possibly can". That performance is horizon-far-away for almost all of us. We're (most of us) probably never going to get anywhere near it either. If that's held up as a goal, then we might as well all give up (or find a more forgiving employer and family life).
If you enjoy running - keep going out running.
If you keep going out running - you'll get gradually better and stronger and faster.
And if you enjoy races - your times will come down.
That's it.
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Apr 2014
3:30pm, 25 Apr 2014
4,502 posts
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paul the builder
Bloody hell, that's an essay. Sorry. Even Canute would have thought twice before posting that 
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Apr 2014
3:43pm, 25 Apr 2014
50,561 posts
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plodding hippo
Canute would have added references;)
This is an interesting discussion though
I think Ive got somewhat too set in my (unfocused) ways
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Apr 2014
4:20pm, 25 Apr 2014
959 posts
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Canute
Ok after PtB’s welcome I can’t stay out of this interesting discussion, but PH, I am going to disappoint you with lack of references. For a guy with my temperament, the biggest frustration of Galloway’s ideas is the lack of any decent evidence that would even reach the low standards of acceptable sports science – an area where good science is actually hard to do. But I wonder why there is no good published evidence?
So it will have to be anecdotal evidence. In the few marathons I ran seriously, I was not far short of second ventilatory threshold most of the way (only short utterances possible). It was long before the era of heart rate monitors, but I was certainly only just below the point of rapid lactate accumulation. Second VT is actually produced by rise in blood acid level. If I had done RWR at the same average pace, I would have been accumulating a lot of acid during the run and I doubt that it would have dissipated in a short walk, so it is virtually certain RWR would not have helped. (Note: these races were not painful until the final few miles – and that late pan was almost certainly largely due to damaged leg muscles, though pretty well all my physiology was near the limit).
So I think that if you want to approach your best possible performance, and you are young (ie less than about 65) you are unlikely to do it with RWR.
However in my late 60’s my legs cannot cope with paces near second VT for long – not just the muscles but most of the connective tissues around my knees send messages to my brain saying ‘slow down’. In the past few months I have experimented with RWR and so far I think it has allowed me to cope better with long runs. I am still undecided how much RWR I will do over the next few months.
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Apr 2014
4:59pm, 25 Apr 2014
2,059 posts
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RevBarbaraG
PtB - ah, I think I see the problem. You think I'm promoting RWR as a strategy to run your fastest possible time, and I'm not.
I'm choosing it (for myself) as a strategy to cope with injury and enable me to finish a marathon which, given the training I lost through injury, I may well not have been able to finish had I attempted continuous running. Or if I had finished, I would have been in a lot worse state.
Along the way, I repeated a number of claims that Galloway makes for it, including the "enables you to run faster". That's the one that people are debating. And to paraphrase, the discussion seems (to me) to have gone like this:-
Me: Galloway says people who adopt his strategy speed up, by an average of 7 mins on a half and 13 mins on a mara
Others: That can't be right
Me: Galloways says this is what has happened to actual people, in his experience
Others: Well, they must have been capable of running faster, they just hadn't tried before; it's because they're better trained now; it's because they worked with a coach - not because of RWR. They would get faster times by continuous running if they trained properly/worked with a coach/tried harder
So, now, I say: Galloways says this is the average speed-up that has been obtained by actual real people who have adopted his method. He does *not* say - so far as I can see - that this is the way to get the fastest possible time by any given person. He *does* say that those people he has worked with have, on average, gone faster doing it.
And at the end of the day, Canute's last paragraph is where I'm at too. This enables me to do something which, if I were to insist on continuous running, I would be able to do much less of. I run because I enjoy running, and I want to carry on doing it. Even if it means walking some. Or a lot.
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Apr 2014
5:08pm, 25 Apr 2014
2,302 posts
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Curly45
I'm not sure who should be more offended by JohnnyO's post: me or MM
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Apr 2014
5:48pm, 25 Apr 2014
960 posts
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Canute
I would be delighted to be mistaken for the person in either avatar. Curly, I think the exuberance of MMs avatar would suit you well, but MM should also be delighted by the confusion. I think it was confusion reflecting well on all parties.
But back to RWR, the experiences of my younger days were enough to convince me that preparing your legs for 26.2 miles is just as important as aerobic fitness, if you are aiming for a marathon PB. If your goal is simply completion, preparing your legs is likely to be the major thing. I think that RWR is likely to be helpful insofar as it facilitates running at a reasonable pace for at least short periods after several hours on your feet , but possibly RWR needs augmenting by specific exercise designed to adapt your legs eccentric stress. Maybe some plyometrics – especially bounding type exercise, but my joints will not allow this at present . At the moment I do trampolining.
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Apr 2014
6:23pm, 25 Apr 2014
7,033 posts
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Maz Heeps
Nobody has mentioned the Tshirt that you'd need that says "I'm this sweaty coz I'm running (mostly!) X miles today and not out for a walk" .... Or a placard for those walking moments saying I'm on mile 18 of 26! I'm walking coz I chose to, not failing.....
Or am I the only one who thinks people think like that when I'm on a walk break?!
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Apr 2014
6:25pm, 25 Apr 2014
18,423 posts
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sheri3004
I have on occasion wished for a t-shirt that says "I'm training for an ultra..."
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