This weekend, I had an epiphany, an eye-opener of the widest kind.  But before we get into it, I’ve got some ‘splaining to do.

As you all know, I loved marathon training, found it challenging but not difficult using the plan I’d chosen, Pfitzinger’s 18/55.

I admit that during this period, I fully expected to end up faster in other distances simply by dint of “the marathon training process”.  I’d read enough accounts of easy PRs gained, both during and soon after such training periods, that of course I expected it to happen for me.  How unhappy-making then, that my one race in the midst of the plan (a measly 4-miler) ended up with such disappointing results.

To understand just how disappointing is to look back at my Spring PRs: a 5K in April (23:06) and a 10-miler in May (1:19).  Both of these races are in the same ballpark of McMillan’s calculator.  Yet here was this 4-miler in September at 30:48!  I attributed it to the marathon training process, tired legs and the fact that it was a short race when I’d been training to go long.  I played it down.  But in my critically thinking head, I was a bit dismayed.

Fast forward to this last weekend, my 10K race.  Yes, it was a sizeable PR and I’m genuinely satisfied with my performance, but if I compare it to last Spring’s PRs, it was not good.  In fact, as far as McMillan goes, it’s right on par with my shitty 4-miler!  When I realized this (and that my Marathon time also fits in the same McMillan range as well) I had to recognize it as a trend, not a few unrelated blips.

So I began investigating the Big Picture and it quickly became apparent to me what was going on.

#1 Revelation:
My mileage build for the marathon was no great shakes.
Note: These monthly graphs include all training runs, but exclude races.

Or rather, since I was no stranger to 45-50+ mile weeks, it was stupid for me to expect that doing the same thing would give me some kind of bonus.  Sure, I had a peak month, but the surrounding ones don’t look any different than assorted previous months.  The fact that my marathon training mileage was apportioned differently (spread out across 5 days instead of 6) certainly helped my endurance, but the mileage itself wasn’t a stress factor, and stress (or increases) are how envelopes get pushed.

#2 Revelation:
My average pace got slower…much slower.

See anything notable starting in June?  That’s where marathon training began and with it, recovery and much slower long runs.  Quite an obvious difference, huh?  Back in the Spring, I not only ran all my easy and long runs faster, I was also doing both a speed and a tempo workout each week.  For marathon training, I had weekly speed or tempo, never both.  So no dramatic mileage growth and less fast stuff, too.

How silly, then, to think marathon training should have given me a speed boost, why would it?  I didn’t stress either speed or mileage – just longer long runs.  That said, I gained beautiful endurance which was completely the whole point anyway – I never could have run a marathon back in the Spring.  With this in mind, I consider my marathon training 100% successful, I have no regrets or complaints.

The important and freeing thing though is that I now feel totally OK with where I’m at speedwise, even if it seems I’ve regressed a tad, because I understand why.  It’s not because I’m all washed up, that I started too late or used myself up too soon (yeah, I actually was thinking this crap).  No, it’s an obvious reaction to a lack of stimuli.  Duh!

Does this mean I’m abandoning everything I learned during marathon training?  Well, you can see from the last month on graph #2 that I’m still doing some slower stuff, though honestly, it won’t be doing those 10+min recovery runs unless I really need them.  And expect this month’s avg. pace bar to become a lot shorter starting with next week’s dual quality sessions.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll approach the next marathon much differently, either.  I’ll try to increase the mileage, but a main priority for me is keeping training fun and I’m not sure how many miles it’ll take before fun turns into drudgery.  And I love that I was able to avoid injury the whole cycle, so keeping the fast stuff to once a week sounds wise, too.

The main thing is realizing that everything requires it’s own proper attention, that no one training cycle is going to cover all race bases and to keep expectations in line with that training.  I’m only beginning to understand how all this works, how I work.  As they say, “we’re all an experiment of one.”  It sure is fun figuring it out.

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