DBing while in MC

[bustorama]

Hijack warning...MARATHONS

For good beginner programs look up the names Hal Higdon and Jeff Galloway (the Galloway plans are even walk/run plans and are helpful for avoiding injury in beginning marathoners). Most beginner marathon training is focused on three components.

1) THE LONG RUN -- the most critical is the weekly long run (usually the Sat AM run). It gets progressively longer during training with no more than an average 10% increase per week across the training schedule and peaking at a run of 20-23 miles 3 weeks before the race (the rule of thumb for recovery is 1 day per mile run so you don't want to do a LONG run too close to the race). Many plans also have step-down weeks (like where you might run 12 miles, then 13 miles, then 7 miles, then 15 miles for the long runs). The long run is run SLOWLY (as much as 1-2 minutes/mile slower than your planned race pace) and in your fat-burning aerobic zone. The idea is you are burning fat and TRAINING your body to be able to run and use fat as its fuel source (because you need to minimize how much your body uses carbs when you run on race day because you can't store enough glycogen in your liver to provide carb needs for the whole race -- part of the experience of THE WALL is thought to be related to your body depleting its carbohydrate reserves so your body needs to know how to run on body fat as fuel.

2) CONSISTENT, CUMULATIVE MILEAGE -- Lots of filler "junk" runs between the long runs increasing gradually in length from 30 to up to about 60 min/run, but usually to no longer than an hour in length with a frequency of like 5-6x/week. For beginners, cumulative weekly mileage goes up from like around 20 miles/week to 40-50 miles/week by the peak weeks.

3) BUILT-IN RECOVERY / CROSS-TRAINING -- The biggest obstacle to successful marathon training in beginners is to avoid injury, not an endurance problem in completing runs. So, most beginner plans ENFORCE days off (or at least non weight-bearing cross-training) the day after long runs and also to LISTEN to your body and spirit for signs of breakdown or exhaustion and cross-train accordingly. Better to skip a run or two or cross-train than to break down and lose 3-4 weeks to overuse injury.

There are some interesting parallels to DBing and marathon training....