Treino Para Maratona Stevenson

16 l MARATHON & BEYOND l Sept/Oct 2009

Advanced Training Techniques for the Marathon

Consistency and sticking to a program are critical.

by Roy StevenSon

At some stage of their running career, all marathoners stop improving, even seasoned ones with several marathons under their belts. If you have reached a plateau where your times are getting slower, it might be time

to reevaluate your training program. Likewise, if you have been getting sick or injured frequently over the past year or two and suspect that you are overtraining, restructuring your training program might be long overdue.

Even experienced marathoners need to reexamine their training periodically. So if you’ve been running consistently for three to five years and can run 50 to 70 miles per week, here is some advice to help you reassess your training schedules, with the goal of cutting time off your next marathon.

Your training phasesYour program needs some structure, and this program provides definite start and end points for each phase. Collectively, the segments resemble Arthur Lydiard’s marathon training system, but I’ve made a number of significant changes in light of what exercise science research has shown us in the past two decades.

PHASE ONE: marathon conditioning; a weekly schedule for the conditioning phase Insert short 20- to 30-minute, slow morning jogs where suitable.

Sample Schedule

Monday 45-minute slow runTuesday Fast workoutWednesday 1.75-hour slow run

Roy Stevenson l ADvANcED TRAiNiNg TEcHNiquES fOR THE MARATHON l 17

The Training Phases

Phase Number Time for Phase Phase Type Goals and Effects

One 8-12 weeks conditioning Maximize aerobic capacity and and buildup muscular, enzymatic, respiratory, and cardiac development.

Two 2-4 weeks Hill running use hill running to prepare for anaerobic training to follow, increase leg power, recruit fast- twitch muscle fibers, improve lactate tolerance, increase oxygen-debt ability, and improve neuromuscular coordination and leg turnover.

Three 4-6 weeks Race-pace time Simulate race pace in preparation trials, tempo for best marathon time, using runs anaerobic-threshold training. Develop sound pace judgment.

Four 4-6 weeks interval training further develop above goals, increase lactate tolerance and buffering capacity of muscles, increase stride frequency and leg speed.

Five 2-3 weeks Premarathon final tapering and peaking for the tapering marathon

Six 4 weeks Postmarathon Make sure you recover from the recovery marathon without getting sick or injured.

Thursday 45-minute slow runfriday Rest daySaturday 2- to 3-hour slow run. This can be reduced by 30 minutes every

other week.Sunday 1.5-hour slow run

Frequency of your training runs

Start by looking at your number of training sessions each week. You need a mini-mum of four to five days. Six is OK too, but leave seven to the Kenyans. Even the Creator rested on the seventh day.


During your conditioning phase, you can run twice daily by adding a shorter jog in the mornings at a very slow pace, if you feel you can handle it. You need add only one or two of these twice-daily efforts to each week. They can be 20 to 30 minutes long and purely for additional aerobic conditioning.

Your long endurance runs

Three long runs each week should form the cornerstone of your marathon-training program. These develop your endurance capacity by improving your body’s ability to consume oxygen, or what exercise physiologists call maximal oxygen uptake (also referred to as VO

2 max).

These long endurance runs are what will get you across the marathon finish line. In fact, most beginning marathoners are better off concentrating solely on longer runs to develop their endurance enough to finish the 26.2-mile distance, even if they do no running between those runs.

You will notice that I’m recommending long runs of up to three hours—about 22 miles if you run at 8:00-per-mile pace, or 20 miles at nine minutes per mile. These are necessary because the muscles adapt to the wear and tear of these long efforts by repairing themselves and becoming stronger.

The formidable list of damage done during long runs of two- to three-hour duration includes ruptures and tears in the muscle fibers, depleted glycogen stores, severe inflammation, spillage of intracellular contents outside the muscle, swelling, displaced red and white blood cells, degenerated mitochondria, and high levels of stress hormones, to name a few.

But inflicting muscle damage is merely part of the marathon-training process and should not present a problem to healthy runners, providing they get enough rest, watch stress levels, and eat a healthy, balanced diet to facilitate anabolic muscle regeneration.

However, a myriad of other, more positive, changes takes place, too—an increase in the size and number of mitochondria in the muscle cells (the little powerhouses within each muscle cell), an increase in the size and number of blood capillaries, improved aerobic enzyme function for metabolizing carbohydrate and fats, improved efficiency of your respiratory muscles, enhanced cardiac output, and many more.

The long runs should be spread out, at least two days apart, for recovery. Your muscle tissues need to repair, glycogen stores need to replenish, and you need to mentally recover from these long efforts. These runs should last one-and-a-half to three hours.

Despite my advice to spread out the long runs over the week, you will notice that the weekends are stacked up with a long run on Saturday followed by a (not quite as) long run on Sunday. This is a trick that legendary New Zealand coach Arthur Lydiard’s athletes used to maximize their aerobic conditioning. You will


feel flat on your Monday run, but by Tuesday you will be running much stronger, wondering where it all came from.

The speed of your long endurance runs

When you are in your conditioning cycle, your long running can be as slow as you like—in fact, when starting out, you should deliberately keep your pace slow. Run at a comfortable pace where you can talk. You will find that these long runs will get progressively faster as you get fitter, without any apparent extra effort. Change the course and terrain for each long run, and note the times for each run in a training diary.

To better handle this increased mileage and avoid overuse injuries, sore legs, and those niggling pains that often afflict runners at this stage, run slow, run easy, and use a heart rate monitor to ensure that you are staying within your easy train-ing zone. Avoid racing during this time.

Avoiding injuries and leg soreness

If possible, run on soft surfaces such as cross-country courses, golf courses, farmland, forests, dirt trails, or sawdust trails at least a couple of days each week. Lydiard’s athletes have used this old trick for decades in New Zealand to keep their legs from getting too sore from the pounding on the road surface.

The length of your conditioning phase

Since aerobic adaptations are relatively slow, this phase should last from eight to 12 weeks. Advanced marathoners who train year-round and already are in good condition may need only eight to 10 weeks of this conditioning.

Using periodization principles to help adapt to mileage

Here is a twist to the standard conditioning format that will help you handle the training better. Instead of grinding out the same mileage every week, back off your mileage every third week. Cut back during your easy week by simply lopping 25 minutes off each training run. By programming in this lower-mileage recovery week every three weeks, you will recover from those long runs better and reduce your chances of overtraining and getting sick.

This approach, where your running volume increases for two weeks followed by a shorter, easier week, is called periodization, and it enables your body to adapt more efficiently. You will bounce back the following week with renewed energy and feel mentally refreshed from the reduced mileage. I am always amazed at how many marathoners just do the same weekly mileage over the same courses, at the same pace, week in and week out every year, often burning out. Using periodized schedules will revolutionize a stale runner’s program.


Consider adding a fast day during your conditioning phase

Advanced marathoners should add a day of faster running into their condition-ing schedules. This is considered heresy in traditional Lydiard circles, but these faster running days keep your leg speed from slowing down by stimulating your neuromuscular system at a higher level.

Additionally, you will work your anaerobic threshold up a notch or two and get a good “blowout” to make sure that you are not just becoming a long, slow distance runner. These faster workouts can be a fartlek run on cross-country courses, trails, forest, or road, or slower interval-training repeats on the track.

The track intervals don’t need to be elaborate, finely tuned, strenuous anaerobic workouts that you can barely walk away from. The idea is just to get you running at a faster pace to move you out of that long, slow distance plodding.

Some suggested workouts and guidelines follow. As you can see from these interval workouts, there is nothing magical about them. The sole purpose is to get you revving at a faster pace—not to bust your chops as you did in your high school track days. Make sure you warm up with at least 20 minutes of jogging, some stretching, and some stride-outs over 50 meters.

A sample fartlek workout

One of my favorite fartlek workouts is a 15-minute jog (warm-up), a hard five-minute burst, a recovery jog of three to four minutes, another hard five-minute

Length of Distance of Number of Recovery Speed of Recovery Fast Burst Repetitions Interval Fast Burst Mode

200 meters 6-10 200 meters 3-5 seconds Walk/jog faster than your 400-meter workout pace

400 meters 4-8 400 meters, 5-10 seconds Walk/jog then reduce faster than to 200 meters your 800-meter workout pace

800 meters 2-4 800 meters, 10 seconds Walk/jog then reduce faster than to 400 meters your 1,600-meter workout pace

Suggested Fartlek Workouts for Marathoners


burst, a recovery jog of three to four minutes, then five or six fast-pace stride-outs over 200 meters, followed by a cool-down jog.

Now that you have completed your eight to 12 weeks of conditioning, it’s time to start adding intensity to your program with hill running.

PHASE TWO: hill runningAn essential component of a marathoner’s training program, hill training brings many dividends. I have modified Lydiard’s hill-springing and -bounding technique because of its high potential for injury to the Achilles tendon, ankle, calf, quadriceps, hamstrings, and hips. I have watered it down by changing the mechanics of this action to simply striding at a faster pace uphill (I didn’t say it would be easy).

Sample Schedule That Includes Two Hill-Running Workouts Each Week

Monday 45-minute slow run

Tuesday Run hills on your course hard for one hour

Wednesday 1.5-hour slow run

Thursday Uphill-repeats session in 45-minute workout

friday Rest day

Saturday 2-hour slow run

Sunday 1.5-hour slow run

What are the benefits of hill running? You would be surprised at how much research has been done on uphill running. Here is a summary of what research has found.

Uphill running increases stride length—the hip flexors become stronger and pull the legs through higher, leading to a longer stride. Stronger ankles lead to increased stride frequency, thus a faster leg turnover. If you run faster downhill, your neuromuscular system will also adapt to a faster leg turnover.

Anyone who runs up hills will tell you that breathing is much harder—your V.O

2max increases significantly while hill running compared with running on

the flat. Coupled with this, your running economy improves, so you will use less

energy over longer distances.Hill training increases your lactate threshold, so your body adapts by metabo-

lizing lactic acid and resynthesizing it as fuel. Thus, you won’t get as fatigued when running at any given pace. This is great preparation for the time-trials and tempo-running phase you will be doing next.

If you train hard on hills, you will run the uphill sections of your races faster. So if you are running a hilly marathon, you will be better prepared than most of your competitors, and they will be left struggling behind.


Hill-running technique

Concentrate on driving your arms harder and lifting your knees a little higher, while still striving to hold your form. Your aim is to become smoother while running faster on the upgrade.

Two workouts for hill training

The first way to utilize hills is to simply accelerate gradually up each one on your training route, maintaining a submaximal pace that is just below your maximal threshold—that is, if you speed up any more, you will end up walking.

You will find in your early uphill efforts that you will have to slow down to-ward the top. However, if you persist, you will go a little farther on each outing at your faster pace, your breathing will get easier, and your legs will not feel so fatigued and heavy.

The second variation is to select a steady uphill slope that is not too steep and do a number of repeats up it. After warming up, start with four fast running bursts up the slope over a distance of 100 to 200 meters, then walk or jog slowly back down to the start. Increase the repetitions by two on each subsequent session, to six, then eight, and finally to 10 repeats.

PHASE THREE: race-pace time trials and tempo runsMost exercise scientists who study the effects of endurance training, as well as coaches of marathoners, agree that the most important predictor of success in this event is the ability to cruise at a high percentage of your V

.O

2max.

In his book Running the Lydiard Way, Arthur Lydiard says, “The idea is to run trials under the distance you are training for. Time trials are most important in bringing about coordination of speed and stamina.”

A time trial (often referred to as tempo running) is simply running “at a pace that produces an elevated yet steady-state accumulation of lactic acid,” according to Jack Daniels, PhD, in his book Daniels’ Running Formula.

Because of the grueling physical and mental toll, these high-intensity efforts should be done only once each week. An easy concept to understand, time trials are much less fun to implement.

You have already developed your body’s ability to consume large amounts of oxygen during the conditioning phase, so now it’s time to improve your ability to run closer to your maximal aerobic capacity for a longer duration. This is where race-pace tempo runs and time trials enter your arsenal of training techniques.

You do this by dipping slightly into your anaerobic zone, where you start accumulating lactic acid faster than it can be metabolized or broken down. This is called lactate threshold, sometimes referred to as onset of blood-lactate accu-mulation (OBLA), or even anaerobic threshold.


There is some debate between the new breed of exercise scientists and the old guard over whether lactate accumulates because of insufficient oxygen in the muscle tissue or from the increased breakdown of carbohydrates during lactate threshold and that perhaps it’s the increased concentration of hydrogen ions (a byproduct of lactic acid in fatigued muscle) that causes the feeling of tiredness. Regardless of the physiology, for practical training purposes, time trials or tempo runs still have the desired training effect.

Most good runners can work at only 75 to 80 percent of their aerobic capacity during a marathon. Amazingly, some of the world’s best marathoners have had their anaerobic threshold tested and were found to race marathons at 90 percent of their maximal aerobic capacity. Astounding!

You will be doing your lactate-threshold time trials somewhere between 70 and 85 percent of your maximal aerobic capacity, which corresponds to about 78 to 91 percent of your maximal heart rate.

Establish your maximal heart rate by subtracting your age from 220—a rough guide at best because considerable variation exists between our maximal heart rates. The easiest way to establish your maximal heart rate is to run one mile on the track as hard as you can while wearing a heart rate monitor and note your peak heart rate.

Once you have established your maximal heart rate, calculate your lactate-threshold pace by calculating 82 to 91 percent of your maximal heart rate. When you start time trials, it’s wise to start at the low end of the recommended heart range—that is, 82 percent of your maximal heart rate.

Your goal is to maintain a strong, steady pace all the way, hence the importance of checking your pace every mile for consistency. Your heart rate monitor will help you zero in on a steady, constant heart rate to cruise at.

How do you know when you are running at lactate threshold? Oh, you will know all right—you’ll have shortness of breath, heavy legs, a burning sensation in your muscles, and poor coordination. You can use these subjective symptoms to gauge whether you are running at lactate threshold or close to it.

If you find your pace too easy, speed up a little until you find your threshold using the symptoms above. Your heart rate during time trials should be about 15 beats per minute faster than during your standard long training runs.

Tempo running is grueling, but if you don’t practice running at your lactate- threshold point, you will run much slower than you should in your marathons and races over lesser distances and cheat yourself out of achieving your true marathon potential.

A Schedule That Includes One Tempo-Running Workout Each WeekMonday Easy 45-minute runTuesday Time trial run over 5K, 8K, 10K, 10 miles, or half-marathon


Wednesday 1.5-hour slow runThursday Easy 45-minute runfriday Rest daySaturday 2-hour slow runSunday 1.5-hour slow run

How to do time trials and tempo runs

Choose a flat, measured distance (see below for recommend distances) on a road or track. Warm up for 10 to 15 minutes by jogging followed by a few stride-outs over 50 meters. Push yourself over your selected time-trial distance at a submaximal threshold pace. The pace should be faster than your marathon pace but slower than your 10K pace—ideally, somewhere around your half-marathon racing pace.

You are aiming to finish your time trials at the same pace you started. You should be left with some reserves when you finish time trials, not be exhausted. In fact, you should do a 10- to 15-minute cool-down jog to ease your muscles and resynthesize the waste products that have built up. Time trials also give you the opportunity to practice ingesting sports drinks and/or energy gels to find out what works the best for you.

Note your finishing times for these efforts and try to better them slightly in subsequent time trials. Ideal distances for time trials for marathoners are 8K, 10 miles, and half-marathon. Because the time-trial phase lasts four to six weeks, you might start with two or three 8K time trials and then move up to one or two 10-mile trials and finally to one half-marathon effort.

To get a reasonable prediction of your actual marathon time, double your half-marathon time. You should come in a bit faster than this in your marathon in a few months’ time because you still have to do the interval-training phase, and the added stimulus of competition in the marathon will have you running faster.

Time trials train your body to use less muscle glycogen during the marathon, thus prolonging your energy stores. You will accumulate less lactic acid at any given pace, enabling you to cruise at a faster pace and increasing your endurance capacity.

This all translates into developing the ability to push yourself over the entire race distance so that when you toe the start line, your body (and, just as important, your mind) is used to thrashing yourself over that distance.

You will also find that toward the end of the marathon, when people are flag-ging and starting to slow down, you are maintaining your pace and form and, if you’re having a really good run, perhaps speeding up slightly. Either way, you are pulling ahead, and your time will reflect this.

Time trials also help you perfect pace judgment. This valuable skill helps you run your marathons at even pace, so that your second half is the same or perhaps


faster than your first half. This skill gives you a tremendous advantage over the rest of the marathoners—running even splits or negative splits is by far the most efficient way to get your best marathon time.

So while you are struggling through your time trials, think of the manifold benefits you are gaining to keep you going.

PHASE fOuR: interval training

Interval training can be considered the icing on the cake. This final sharpening phase will have you jumping out of your skin by race day.

Sample Weekly Training Schedule That Includes Interval Training

Monday 1-hour slow run

Tuesday Interval-training session

Wednesday 1.5-hour run

Thursday 1-hour steady pace run

friday Rest day

Saturday Second interval-training session (if 35 years old or less); otherwise, 1- to 1.5-hour run

Sunday 2- to 3-hour slow run

For runners over 35, one interval workout each week is all you need. As we age, our muscle cells, connective tissues, tendons, and ligaments lose their elastic-ity and tensile strength, and it takes longer to recover from intervals.

Benefits of interval training

The many benefits of intervals to the marathoner make this fast-paced running well worthwhile: enhanced utilization of fats and carbohydrates, longer stride length, and improved running economy, which translate into decreased oxygen extraction at submaximal pace, increased maximal oxygen consumption at maximal pace, and improved lactate tolerance, which delays fatigue.

Track interval workouts are well defined. You run a certain number of repetitions over a set distance at a predetermined speed, with walking or recovery jogging between the fast bursts. The amount of recovery between the fast bursts should be about the same as, or slightly less than, the time spent in the actual fast burst. The recovery can be done at a walk or, as you improve your fitness, a slow jog.

According to Pete Pfitzinger’s book, Advanced Marathoning, the interval bursts need to be between three and 10 minutes. Jack Daniels, in his book Daniels’ Running Formula, prefers interval bursts between three and five minutes. The workouts below cover both bases.


Progressing your interval training

Progress your interval workouts as you adapt to them by taking a shorter distance to recover, speeding up the fast bursts, increasing the number of repetitions, or going from walking to jogging during the recovery. But change only one of these at a time, since interval training can plunge you over the abyss into the dark void of overtraining in a few short sessions.

Start with the lowest number of repetitions and add one or two repetitions per week until you hit the maximum number recommended on the table below. Rotate these workouts each week. For example, in week 1, do 4 × 800 meters; in week 2, do 4 × 1,000 meters; in week 3, do 3 × 1,200 meters, and so forth, until you have come full circle.

You will do these interval bursts at 80 to 90 percent of maximal heart rate—somewhat faster than your time trials.

Putting it all together: designing your new training programYour revised training program now consists of a series of phases that lead from one to the other. Very few marathoners can get through any sequence of training phases without interruptions of some sort—illness, muscle soreness, travel, work and family demands, and inclement weather, for example.

You will need to be flexible here. Your body does not adapt in the linear fashion in which these schedules are laid out, so sticking doggedly to training schedules can cause problems. If you are feeling under the weather, sore, exhausted, or mentally tired, don’t be afraid to take a day or two off—put your feet up in front of the fire and read the newspaper with a cold beer at your side. A day or two of rest, if applied judiciously, is probably what your body is demanding.

Length of Distance of Number of Recovery Speed of Recovery Fast Burst Repetitions Interval Fast Burst Mode

800 meters 5-6 400 meters 5K race pace Walk, then proceed to jog

1,000 meters 4-5 800 meters 5K race pace Walk/jog

1,200 meters 3-4 1,000 meters 5K race pace Walk/jog

1,600 meters 2-3 1,200 meters 8K race pace Walk/jog

2,000 meters 2-3 1,200 meters 10K race pace Walk/Jog

Suggested Interval Workouts for Marathoners


If you feel exhausted and unready to tackle any of the high-intensity workouts outlined here, try slow, easy recovery jogs of 30 minutes until you feel better. Once your legs and breathing are fine and your energy has returned, it’s time for your next high-intensity workout. If not, jog again that day and see how you feel the next.

You will notice that two long runs are included in every phase of this training program. They should eventually become pro forma and be something to look forward to. If you need to reduce a long run temporarily because of fatigue, do so without guilt.

Phases five and six, tapering for the marathon and recovery, are beyond the purview of this article. There is no shortage of good advice on these crucial aspects of marathon preparation on the Internet and in the many excellent running books on the shelves of your local bookstore.

If you stick with these phases, following them as closely as possible given your circumstances, you should run your best marathon or return to your recent best performance level. Stay with it—and have faith that as you line up for your next marathon, you are one of the best-prepared runners.

ReferencesBowers, Richard, and Edward Fox. 1992. Sports Physiology, 3rd ed. Dubuque, IA:

Wm. C. Brown. Costill, David, PhD. 1986. Inside Running: Basics of Sports Physiology. Indianapolis,

IN: Benchmark Press.Daniels, Jack, PhD. 2005. Daniels’ Running Formula, 2nd ed. Champaign, Illinois:

Human Kinetics.Daws, Ron. 1985. Running Your Best. Fairfield, PA: Stephen Greene Press, Fairfield

Graphics.Lydiard, Arthur, and Garth Gilmour. 1978. Running the Lydiard Way. Mountain View,

CA: World Publications.Lydiard, Arthur, and Garth Gilmour. 1962. Run to the Top. Wellington, New Zealand:

A.H. & A.W. Reed.McArdle, William, Frank Katch, and Victor Katch. 2007. Exercise Physiology: En-

ergy, Nutrition, and Human Performance, 6th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Pfitzinger, Pete, and Scott Douglas. 2009. Advanced Marathoning, 2nd ed. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Sleamaker, Rob. 1989. Serious Training for Serious Athletes. Champaign, IL: Leisure Press, Human Kinetics.

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