The Shortest Answer

The Lydiard base (or build-up) is perfect for most of a marathon preparation, except that during the last 4 weeks, on a strong running day, we’d replace the sub-threshold runs with threshold (for a couple of weeks) and then if that’s been successful, we’d just polish up VO2 with a couple of VO2 max sessions too. You’d gradually taper your long run miles over the last two weeks- NOT suddenly. On your effort days, you’d NEVER NEED to do any higher intensity than the first part of VO2 max training (5k pace) above.

The Shortish Answer

Your current weekly schedule has two longer runs, and this is good, but you’ll need three in a Lydiard preparation, usually with an easy hour jog on in-between days. You’ll also need to drop the overall intensity several cogs and run a pleasant, easy 1 hour on Fridays instead of doing no training. You need to smell the roses more! If you need a day’s rest, you’re probably training too intensely overall. Drop your intense sessions and replace them with Lydiard’s time-proven “marathon pace” 3/4 effort hour runs. (refer Pg 84 of the book, though there’s a misprint saying 1/4 effort instead of 3/4 effort: also look up my post ‘More Questions on Base Training’/Nov 2009)

The regular Lydiard buildup as outlined in the book is fine for most of a marathon preparation. In the last 4 weeks, on your selected weekly stronger running day, we’d smoothly transition up a cog and replace the strong, fun sub-threshold 1 hour (marathon-pace/75% MHR) runs with threshold runs (15k race pace/85% MHR) for a couple of consecutive weeks. The rest of the week would be much the same. DON’T do the threshold runs for an hour- that’s too long for most people: to get the effect you’re after without knocking yourself around too much, try something like 20 mins w/up: 20 mins A.T. tempo: 20 mins cool-down. If you’re particularly strong and coping with much higher easy mileage for the bulk of your training, you could add another burst of tempo to the session. The only rule here is to think of efforts above threshold as a little innoculation of what you need. If these efforts have been successful, we’d then just polish up VO2 max to get you nicely efficient. For instance,  a couple of VO2 max sessions at a maximum intensity of 95% VO2 max (5k race pace) ie: for a 15 minute 5k runner, 5 x 1000m @ 3:00/3:00 jog recovery (1 every 6 mins), OR 6 x 800m @ 2:24/2:36 recovery (1 every 5 mins). No need for anything more intense than that. KEEP THINGS SIMPLE!

NEVER do more than two tough workouts in a week leading into a distance race, unless you really like gambling! Assuming a limited 12-week programme, the last two weeks you’d taper GRADUALLY, by firstly cutting your longer runs of the week to 80% of that achieved by week 10, and the next week back to 60%. ie: your 20-mile (32k) run would become 16 miles, then the next week 12 miles (19k), before your race. If you suddenly taper by dropping long runs, you COULD experience undue fatigue- it happens commonly. So keep an EASY aerobic undercurrent going right till race day.

THE REALLY LONG-WINDED AND NERDY ANSWER

You’re quite right about the different slant required for marathoning effectively. Sprints primarily use IIB fast twitch fibres and the short-term ALACTIC creatine phosphate anaerobic system, long sprints like 400m primarily use the lactate anaerobic system and the IIA fast twitch fibres, then middle distance events (800-3000m) start to introduce more and more of the aerobic system with its type I slow twitch fibres. As we increase race distance out to the marathon, the aerobic system and Type I slow-twitch fibre contribution becomes more and more important, and the need for intensive glycolytic/lactate training (ie: 300-400m repetitions at goal 800-1500m pace) becomes almost totally insignificant.

So, in terms of balancing energy systems, training for sprints is dead simple, middle distance is a real juggling act of varying intensities and energy systems at just the right time, and marathon training is dead simple.

The ideal base conditioning of a marathon runner or a middle distance runner are identical for the first 8 weeks. The purpose of the aerobic base for the middle distance runner is to INCREASE HIS CAPACITY TO DO MORE ANAEROBIC VOLUME, LATER, WITH FASTER RECOVERY.

The purpose of base conditioning for a marathoner is to INCREASE HIS CAPACITY TO DO MORE AEROBIC VOLUME AT HIGHER SPEEDS, WITH FASTER RECOVERY, and INCREASE UTILIZATION OF FATTY ACIDS, while CONSERVING GLYCOGEN STORES.

I just had a look at your schedule, and it’s got a bit of everything required to run well, but not enough of the most important thing for a marathoner. STEADY AEROBIC VOLUME. The good things are that you’ve got the 2 hour run in there on Sundays, and the mid-week 90 minute run. These will get you by, and may even deliver you a decent marathon, however to really get to your marathon potential the Lydiard way, you’d have at least 3 runs a week over 90 minutes, and vary your aerobic distances and intensities in the mix. One of those runs each week would need to be over 2 hrs 30 to make sure you glycogen deplete and use fatty acids.

Your schedule has no runs on Fridays, the day after what looks to be quite a tough session of 4 km/ 3km/1km efforts (presumably hard?).

I’d suggest that a gentle active aerobic recovery jog of around an hour is going to be so much better for you than a complete rest day. I rather imagine that this sort of programme you’ve been doing, over time, would be frustrating: you’d build up an aerobic capacity for a short time, then grind it down shortly thereafter with hard racing and training. Arthur always used to say that if you need a complete rest day, then you’re training far too hard or fast, and I’d tend to agree.

The notion of complete recovery days applies to body-building with its “train to failure” dogma and its over-training culture. Somehow this notion has crept into distance athletics, and exercise prescription generally, but it’s unsound for aerobic distances.

You should be able to train every day at a level that you know is repeatable, ad nauseam. There’s really not enough volume in your schedule at present to achieve your best potential marathon result, and a bit too much of the faster short stuff. So with this sort of training we’re going to get stiff and sore and grumpy, and be open to any little infection doing the rounds. You certainly can’t afford that!

You’d be better off by far to drop the short fast harder efforts, and replace them with constant steady long efforts of around 75% of your heart rate reserve, but well below your anaerobic threshold (usually around 85% HRR), which is right about 15k road race pace for a good distance athlete. ‘Tempo runs ‘ or ’threshold runs’ have been lionized in recent years, but I totally disagree with the regular use of this type of training in an aerobic buildup. Running at threshold for any period is a bit like like hopping into a road race, and will ensure twin outcomes: glycogen depletion, and residual muscular fatigue, each time it is done. You want to BUILD UP your aerobic system and fatty acid utilization to stave off glycogen depletion as long as possible in a marathon. So keep any of that sort of intensity down to a relatively short duration that won’t wipe you out .

DON’T do the threshold runs for an hour- that’s too long for most people: to get the effect you’re after without knocking yourself around too much, try something like 20 mins w/up: 20 mins A.T. tempo: 20 mins cool-down. If you’re particularly strong and coping with much higher easy mileage for the bulk of your training, you could add another burst of tempo to the session. The only rule here is to think of efforts above threshold as a little innoculation of what you need. Sure, you’re measurably increasing your aerobic ceiling so that what was previously ‘anaerobic’ now becomes ‘aerobic’, but you’re exiting the true aerobic zones doing it. YOU CAN STEADILY RAISE YOUR ANAEROBIC THRESHOLD MUCH MORE SAFELY WITH SUB-THRESHOLD RUNS.

These runs are much the same as your marathon race pace. Good ‘Marathon Conditioning’ is as much about regular hour long runs at marathon pace as it is about very long runs. People often think that Lydiard conditioning is only about long slow runs. It isn’t. It’s about an intelligent steady increment of aerobic pace over many weeks in the hour runs, and naturally progressing from long slow Sunday runs to long faster Sunday runs- ALL IN COMFORT, then taking the pressure off the long run pace the last few weeks.

Anaerobic Threshold sessions are only a good thing to do once a huge aerobic base has been built, in specific sessions, which are preceded and followed by AMPLE low-intensity recovery running. These sessions should be safely spaced maybe a week or so apart, to allow for ample recovery, and carbohydrate and protein replacement should commence immediately the session is completed. The idea is to steadily transition into the higher intensities safely without unhappy surprises, and gradually push your anaerobic threshold up ‘from below’ with Lydiard’s time-proven constant 1 hour “3/4 effort” runs, (roughly 75% of maximum heart rate by the Karvonen method). This is all well-covered in the book on Page 54. These runs may be done once or twice a week in your build-up. This sub-threshold running is “magic” according to Kiwi marathon great and Lydiard pupil Barry Magee, and can be considered a “cornerstone” of a good aerobic build-up. Kiwi greats John Walker, Dick Quax and Rod Dixon used these runs as cornerstones for their extensive aerobic preparations for very long European track seasons.

If you’re training too hard and feel a bit ordinary, it’s possibly because your system is running in a mildly acidic environment (BAD!). For the regular runner who wants to check this, urine dipsticks available from the chemist are probably useful to ascertain if your operating system is running in an alkali or acid environment. I find diluted red grape juice is a very good alkali (diluted to be slightly weaker than isotonic with regard to sugars- usually 3:1 is about right), as well as (very surprisingly to me!) tomato juice or V8 vegetable juice. The latter is a terrific post-training recovery drink. Red grape juice is a rich source of potassium and the powerful antioxidant resveratol.

Ideally you’d have 14 weeks from a good injury-free fitness base to your marathon.

In your case, you have 12 weeks, but so long as you are fit and running easily, I’d gradually ease your slower volume running up over a few weeks until you’re holding your higher goal mileage .

HOW TO SAFELY REACH YOUR TARGET VOLUME

Often athletes who claim that they “can’t do mileage” are really saying that they can’t slow their training pace enough to easily cope with mileage. Once in the regular habit of running long slow distances, as the weeks go by, the running naturally gets faster and faster and faster, all still at aerobic speeds, with the perceived effort being largely unchanged, but with the stopwatch telling the truth.

You’ll have to gradually increase your volume runs by no more than 10% running time per week, taking it really easy, till your long ones are at least 2hr 30-40, and you can do TWO mid-week ones about 1hr 30. One way of doing this that’s very good is to jog or plod for 30-60 minutes as slow as possible before running your normal medium or long run circuit. What’ll happen is you’ll finish with quite a long run, but the sensation that you’ve only really run your regular course at an easy effort. Distance doesn’t kill, but speed does. The first slow part has to be around 60% MHR (Karvonen) to achieve the low-end aerobic effect desired. This will just perfuse your running muscles with lovely oxygen-rich blood in a mildly alkali environment- a perfect warmup for higher aerobic levels without depleting glycogen stores.

In your build-up you want to start running controlled 1 hour runs at sub-threshold HR on a set course, trying to chip a couple of seconds off each time. You’ll find the first few weeks of volume training are quite tiring, however once those mitochondria kick in you’ll be off and away.

After taking a few weeks to steadily reach your goal levels, your typical training week could look more like this: about 9.5 hours of aerobic training, or 110 kms/week. Over a few years, you’d increase your pace and volume quite naturally.

Lydiard training for the marathon therefore would be essentially the common base training period for (ideally) 10 weeks, introducing only a touch of anaerobic threshold (maybe one specific session a week: ie: warmup 5k, AT 8k, cooldown 5k) for two consecutive weeks, then transitioning to 2 or 3 tightly controlled, evenly paced VO2 Max sessions (ie: 5 x 1000m @ 5000m pace/ equal or shorter recovery) a good week or so apart in the last few weeks. These sessions, combined with a weekly light fartlek session that includes several short relaxed sprints with ample recovery, done throughout the base period and continued through to the eve of the goal race, would train the essential energy systems enough to get the ideal outcome.

Try to do very easy medium length aerobic runs on the day before and after tougher sessions.

No hard or extended long runs in the last couple of weeks generally, and no more than two VO2 sessions in a week. Any more in a week and you’re dicing with marathon death. Then a controlled taper for the last 2 weeks.

TAPERING

Your taper should be gradual, and not sudden. It’s an odd thing, but many people who suddenly ease up on volume aerobic training complain of feeling sleepy and fatigued on marathon day. So whatever volume you’ve reached in daily runs on set days by week 10, you want to reduce to 80% in Week 11, and then 60% in marathon week leading up to race day. With aerobic training, it’s essential that a certain volume or aerobic undercurrent is kept up to maintain the necessary  oxidative enzyme levels and mitochondria.

ie: if your Sunday long run is 20 miles, this becomes 16 miles the next week, then the next week 12 miles. Pretty obviously, all other run lengths and times would be cut down by the same amount!

We don’t do any glycolytic /lactate tolerance training anywhere near a marathon or during base training. Those sessions are very intense, flooding the running muscles with highly acidic metabolites that soon force the exercise to cease due to the localised neuromuscular junctions going on strike. While absolutely necessary for a middle distance athlete’s final preparation, the acidosis created has the distinct possibility of harming aerobic enzyme levels, glycogen and fatty acid utilization, and mitochondrial function at the expense of your marathon potential. VO2 max intervals are far longer and far less intense, (i.e.: 1000m intervals @ 5000m pace/ equal time recovery or shorter) and are much safer and more useful coming into your absolute final phase.

For a 15 min 5000m runner this could be something like 5 x 1000m on the road @ 3:00/3:00 active jog recovery, preferably on a non-cambered asphalt road surface. Really, your estimated 5000m race pace (95% of absolute VO2 max pace) is the safest to develop VO2max without overdoing things. Anaerobic training is like playing with matches for a marathoner.

These controlled VO2 interval sessions will top up the final anaerobic contribution to VO2 Max, and thereby increase efficiency at any of the aerobic, sub threshold, or threshold speeds, but they’ve got to be sparingly introduced AFTER those lower systems have been trained.

It’s an idea to have sufficiently trained each of the energy systems most related to your event in the preceding weeks to your goal race.

WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE?

The resting heart rate can drop markedly with the left ventricle becoming larger, and its muscular walls becoming thicker and more powerful. (This is effectively like training up a much more powerful pump).

Every high-pressure heart beat delivers far more blood, far further, into an ever-increasing network of low-pressure web-like capillaries. Because there are now so many very fine blood vessels developing into muscle beds that have been exposed to constant perfusion, the flow rate and pressure of the oxygen-rich blood is lowered exponentially, thereby allowing the red blood cells exponentially more time to deliver their payload to an ever-increasing surface area of working muscle cells.

More oxygen and fuel can be delivered to far more muscle cells, and the resultant metabolites can be flushed away back to the liver more quickly. Eventually very long runs become like a pleasant “walk in the park” where you can play tourist as you cover favourite courses. One can almost dissociate from one’s body on long runs as it becomes a long, smooth ride. This is the type of fitness you want to take into the final weeks of a marathon preparation, at your own level.

The long running becomes continually easier because the muscles develop very fine networks of capillaries that can perfuse and deliver oxygen and fuel-rich blood “right to the doorstep” of the muscle cells. A network of finer and finer blood vessels courses throughout the working muscle over time. Oxygen and fuels are ideally delivered to an actively working muscle cell across its semi-permeable cell-wall. Muscle cells that don’t have any direct capillarisation have to obtain their nutrients second-hand, or delve into anaerobic metabolism because they haven’t received the necessary oxygen. An untrained muscle will generally have the usual major arteries, merging with finer arteriole beds, then merging further with a relatively small bed of even finer capillaries. Each capillary may have to be accessed and shared by several muscle cells initially, but biopsies of muscles that have been extensively trained aerobically show that the surface area of muscle cells experiencing direct capillarization can increase vastly.

An example from nature of what I am describing is the leg muscle of one of the most aerobically fit creatures on the planet- the kangaroo. This meat is almost “spongy” on first inspection, but if you look very closely you will see that it is traversed by many very fine capillaries; many more than in meats from relatively sedentary farm-raised livestock like beef cattle.

Initially in building your marathon base, you want to run long enough, about once a week, till you achieve the “tired heavy legs” stage (this represents glycogen depletion) and then run a few more miles like that, forcing your body to respond over time by utilising a higher ratio of fatty acids. Initially this “tired, heavy legs” response may kick in quite early if you’re not used to decent long runs regularly. However, as you respond, it will be entirely possible to run for over 2hrs 30 at a good clip, without undue fatigue over the last few miles.

The thing NOT to do in training, especially on long runs over 2 hours, is to carbo-load with something like a power-bar or gu-gel. Many distance runners these days do that, and think it’s great because they finish their training runs with that extra shot of ‘juice’ in the system, then wonder why they crash badly in the marathon. HOWEVER, at marathon race pace, it’s all about CONSERVING GLYCOGEN STORES AND UTILISING THE ABUNDANT FATTY ACIDS IN THE BLOODSTREAM EFFECTIVELY.

If you want to go as far and as long as possible without hitting the wall, you must have THREE things going for you:

1. A trained ability to utilize a blend of (‘unlimited’) fatty acids and (‘limited’) carbohydrates for long periods at high aerobic levels, thereby conserving glycogen (high energy) stores for the business end of your race.

2. Sufficient hydration of the muscles to allow access to the stored glycogen. Glycogen is really an endless starchy chain of glucose molecules. It needs about twice its volume in accessible H2O to be metabolized. So a marathoner who is ready to race will often be slightly heavier than normal.

3. The patience to start slightly slower than your intended race pace, so as to spare glycogen and come home full of running. The marathon doesn’t ’start’ till the 20 mile/32km mark, so go steadily till then.

The traditional “wall” that marathoners hit at around 20 miles represents the final unloading of glycogen stores from the type IIA fatigue-resistant (aerobic) fast twitch fibres as they are sequentially recruited while the slow twitch fibres have exhausted their work capacity.

HOWEVER, if one has trained the fatty acid system properly by many weeks of long runs to depletion, BY ALL MEANS use a carbohydrate gel in the last few kilometres of a race (but test it out in training at least once on one of your weekly long runs!)

For more information on how elite athletes are applying Lydiard principles in the USA:  http://www.mcmillanelite.com/index.html

For an interview with Coach Greg McMillan on how he used the principles to guide Brett Gotcher to a debut 2:10.36 marathon….

http://www.flotrack.org/articles/view/1696-greg-mcmillan>