Competitive Jerks Racing and Training - 2023 (Read 574 times)

 

We won't mention there were only 877 starters of 1011 entries that year.

Sometimes half the competition is just making it to the start line.

I keep telling myself I should quit marathons because they're stupid, and do some focused training for shorter distances because they're fun. But instead all my short-distance PRs have come at some point during a marathon training cycle, or occasionally squeezed in between them. One of the main benefits of short distances is the ability to quickly recover and reload for another attempt. But when doing them during marathon training, and you have a bad day, it's like "oh well, that was my one shot, now back to my regularly scheduled marathon training."

How long are your marathon cycles?  When I was running fast I'd often do a short cycle focusing on miles/5Ks (summer works well for this), and then shift into marathon training when I was 9 weeks out from the marathon.  It was a nice way to enjoy both worlds.  It also worked well for me because I couldn't marathon train for too long or I would miss my peak.

RP - Really enjoying each instalment.  That paragraph of the doubts running through your head sounds very familiar, although it turns out you really don't need them anymore (unlike others..).  You and Cal just seem to be built to crush marathons.  Not that others here don't have really impressive marathons but for you 2 it seems like it's at the exclusion of all other distances and you always deliver.

 

I don't disagree with the excellence of RP and Cal at the marathon distance, but I also think they don't really focus as much on the shorter distances as some of us do.

RP - you do save those reports before posting, right?  That would be a hell of a time to lose your post.

Everyone - which table are we using for race equivalencies?  There's umpteen different ones.  Jack Daniels has one, McMillan has one, there's age grading (which also depends on which standard you use), there's Purdy tables....  I find that it's hard to have this conversation without agreeing on which one to use.

 

How long are your marathon cycles?  When I was running fast I'd often do a short cycle focusing on miles/5Ks (summer works well for this), and then shift into marathon training when I was 9 weeks out from the marathon.  It was a nice way to enjoy both worlds.  It also worked well for me because I couldn't marathon train for too long or I would miss my peak.

 

Everyone - which table are we using for race equivalencies?  There's umpteen different ones.  Jack Daniels has one, McMillan has one, there's age grading (which also depends on which standard you use), there's Purdy tables....  I find that it's hard to have this conversation without agreeing on which one to use.

One time I did an 8 week buildup to a half, then shifted to marathon focus for a race 6 weeks later. Training for the two distances is pretty similar. That seemed easier mentally than one long cycle with a tuneup half, even if not really that different. Not sure why I don’t do it more often. I only do 12 week marathon cycles anyway, since I try to maintain high enough mileage year round.

The calculators I’m familiar with:

• McMillan - the most popular calculator and generally what people refer to, although not the best; pretty aggressive in predicting longer distances.
• Daniels - even more aggressive.
• The one right here on RA, which has the benefit of (1) letting you enter two predictor races, and (2) letting you set your own exponent for the prediction formula, since not everyone projects out the same way. https://www.runningahead.com/tools/calculators/race
• Slate magazine of all places (not sure who actually came up with it) - one of the best. That one lets you enter your weekly mileage, two predictor races, as well as how easy or hard the conditions were for those races. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/marathon-calculator/
  
  

Everyone - which table are we using for race equivalencies?  There's umpteen different ones.  Jack Daniels has one, McMillan has one, there's age grading (which also depends on which standard you use), there's Purdy tables....  I find that it's hard to have this conversation without agreeing on which one to use.

RWOL (and then Running Times) used to have marathon pace advice threads. Provide one's running history, training cycle description and mileage, plus any races in-cycle (like a raced half 4-6 weeks out), and the "experts" would opine on marathon goal paces. Ilanarama and I were major contributors; pretty sure George (wcrunner) often chimed in. Memory fades, but I think we did a thread for piwikiwi (IIRC on an extreme downhill course??).

The various tables assume one is "equally trained for the distances compared." During discussions, we pretty much agreed that to use Daniels tables, for the marathon distance one needed to be training at 70mpw (112 kpw) or more for the core of the training cycle. As noted above, the McMillan tables were less aggressive, so we figured a marathon cycle at 60-70 mpw would be needed to hit the McMillan marathon time from an in-cycle half marathon time.

We used age-grading sparingly; we could have given it more weight as older runners appear to have greater difficulty matching up. For older runners, we put more weight on warm weather for a marathon, as experience showed us old guys don't do as well in the heat.*

 George is right -- most tables are based on the Riedel equation. 

The Slate predictor was based on a survey of Slate readers -- essentially crowd-sourced. Does a pretty good job, and gets the over-confident people back to earth.

ETA: I'm once gain trying to build mileage to be able to race (now ~30 mpw). May rejoin this thread if I can complete a reasonable half marathon in June.

RWOL (and then Running Times) used to have marathon pace advice threads. Provide one's running history, training cycle description and mileage, plus any races in-cycle (like a raced half 4-6 weeks out), and the "experts" would opine on marathon goal paces. Ilanarama and I were major contributors; pretty sure George (wcrunner) often chimed in. Memory fades, but I think we did a thread for piwikiwi (IIRC on an extreme downhill course??).

Ilana moved that thread to RA too! But it's been quite some time.

Longboat good to hear from you. Nice job getting back to 30 mpw.

I've never run or considered a downhill marathon so might have been someone else....if my memory serves me correctly 

https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a43632605/boston-marathon-medals-2023/

 

how do you fuck this up? You know exactly how many people you charged and announced exactly how many runners you'd let into the race. How in the fuck, after 127 years, do you RUN OUT OF PARTICIPATION TROPHIES?!?!?!?!

Maybe they factor in a certain number to DNF and expectations were exceeded?  But still, they take the entry fee from everyone.

Longboat - I  like the sound of that.  I can imagine how my thread would go...Mikkey and JMac predicting sub 3:10 and me cramping at the 3km aid station

Longboat - I  like the sound of that.  I can imagine how my thread would go...Mikkey and JMac predicting sub 3:10 and me cramping at the 3km aid station

Front page material.

Delurking here. I found the Slate calculator really accurate for my 1 marathon. I'm think you can stll be over confident with it. I did a 10 miler and HM in hot & humid conditions. If I was over cocnfident, I'd have said they were easy and got a fasster prediction.

With medals, Baltimore ran out/didn;t have them a few years back. Volunteers were trying to clean up what they could before the finish line closed and someone put the box in the truck. I'll givie the race credit, they were very quick to defend the volunteers, because socia media was not kind.It wouldn't surprise me if Boston is a similar situation, unless they have a massive problem with unregistered runners.