Shoe question!!! So since we are both starting marathon training this week and although you will put a sum total of a lot more miles than me on your shoes prior to the big race...When do you bring "THE SHOES" for the actual race into your training regimen? I know this has been posted somewhere, but searching for shoe related things here comes up with a ton of topics. I have three active pairs and a fresh untouched pair so I'm trying to decide at what point the fresh "race day" shoe gets to start. And do you only use that race day pair for certain training days.
I've yet to run 26.2 but I have ran 13.1 one time on shoes that probably had their death by mile 12.
It depends on your personal preference. The best way to know is to try out the active pair shoes. When do they feel like they are at their peak? Then, aim to have the new shoes to be at that same point for race day. For me, my Kinvara 8s feel at their peak after about 10-15 miles. So I typically get one or two runs in on them and then they're race ready. My Saucony Rides used to have a different peak profile. They seemed to peak at about 50 miles, descend and then rebounded around 200 miles. So find where you best like the shoes performance for yourself and then aim to position them their for race day.
As for what types of runs to do in them, that's best saved for race specific paced days. So for a marathon, try those new shoes out on marathon paced days. If you're worried about taking them on long distance MP days, then break them in first with a few easy days. The key is you want to feel how they feel at desired race pace. This works out any possible kinks before the big day.
It'll be interesting to see how this plan, with only 2 hard workouts/week, works out for you. I'm currently reading Matt Fitzgerald's 80/20 Running, and he makes a strong case for a higher volume/slower paced program (with some hard days, of course). My own experience in 2017 suggests it works, at least for me. Last year, I ran my highest annual mileage ever, at about 2550 miles, but did almost no hard or workout days. Leading up to Richmond in November (my annual BQ attempt), I added in some tempo runs every 10 days or so, but I didn't follow any sort of structured plan. In the past, I'd used Hansons Advanced and always got under 3:20, except for 2014, when I was injured. Based on this higher volume/lower intensity approach, I ran a 3:18:05 at Richmond, less than 5 minutes off my 2016 result of 3:13:30. Given how much less "quality" I had in 2017 vs. 2016, I found this result shocking. I think and hope the shift to fewer hard days will get you to sub-3.
So I've never read Fitzgerald's 80/20, but I have read the research paper behind it (
Stephen Seiler's 80/20) before his book came out. All of my training starting after Spring 2015 has been based around this core principal.
"Do mostly easy, and mix in some hard across the entire pacing spectrum. As race day approaches, do more hard around the desired race pace and tighten the spectrum."
So even all of the described plans above from Spring 2017 through Spring 2018 follow that same principal of 80% easy and 20% hard. To be fair though, the numbers certainly do fluctuate with the ebbs and flows of the plan. One point of debate is what to define as "hard". Some say anything faster than M Tempo and others say anything AT M Tempo or faster. It's a debate as to whether to include M Tempo as hard or not. I personally see M Tempo as hard and design my plans around that principle. So with that being said, even the Hansons plans, while not advertised as 80/20, are in fact following that core principle pretty closely. As do Daniels plans. As do most plans when you dive into the text of them (about the only one that doesn't is the FIRST plan, but that specifically requires cross training at aerobic pacing to compensate). Where people generally fail the plans as written is when they do the 80% easy too fast for their current fitness and thus in essence make it hard and no longer 80/20. They either think "because I can run faster on a day I should" OR "I want to run a 3:30 marathon even though my current fitness suggests a 4:20 marathon."
And the reason this type of structured plan works is based on the basis of the races themselves. The marathon is 99% aerobic. Almost pure aerobic pacing is M Tempo or slower. So if you train at almost exclusively M Tempo or slower, you're likely to still do fine at a marathon distance. Although, you can train too slow. The HM, 10k, and 5k become less aerobic in nature and do require some faster pacing, but even the 5k is still about 80-85% endurance based. So the slow training is king when it comes to the recreational distance events.
For me, this plan will actually serve as a lower volume. I primarily chose that because I need to continue to find that sweet spot for myself that maximizes performance but keeps me injury free. As a reminder, I focus on duration and pace more so than mileage. My feeling is that duration * pace = mileage. So while I might run 60 miles in two different years training cycles, if one year it took me 9 hrs to hit that and another year it took me 8 hrs, then the 8 hrs serves as a lower training volume. This happens because my current fitness has increased over the years and thus my relative fitness pacing has increased to a point where it takes less time to cover the same distance.
My 18 week 2016 Lakefront Marathon plan was historically high in volume. After the previous training plans, I always had felt I had more to give. It was almost too easy. So I decided to mirror my training after the Hansons Elite plan in the back of the book that Luke Humphrey used. I didn't follow that plan, but I mirrored it with my duration of easy/hard days and such. During those 18 weeks, I went over 8 hrs in training 14 times. I went over 9 hours in training 9 times. During those weeks I was averaging about 58-71 miles based on my then estimated current fitness of a 3:18 marathon. The easy/hard split was about 80/20 throughout with a low of 77% easy. That training plan led to classic overtraining. I was unable to hit over 70% of my interval pace windows for pretty much the last 7 weeks of training. I was constantly struggling towards the end. I suffered from some dizziness and "jelly legs". I ended up running a then PR of 3:23 and had a serious leg issue that made me unable to walk for a few days post-race (did not end up as a stress fracture but was probably pretty darn close).
My 15 week 2017 Lakefront Marathon plan was strategically pulled back on volume to see if I could find that sweet spot. It had 7 weeks over 8 hours of training and no weeks over 9 hours. A dramatic change from the 2016 plan. Average miles was 51-65 and based on a current fitness of a 3:02 marathon. So the training distance was nearly the same, but the training volume/load had dropped significantly. The easy/hard split was nearly the same hovering around 80/20 with a low of 77% easy. No overtraining and reaped tremendous results throughout training. Everything leading up to race day suggested a sub-3 was possible. Although for some reason race day just wasn't there for me. I still PR'd at 3:14 but no where close to where I thought I was physically. I could tell very early on I just didn't have my best stuff. A myriad of reasons came to mind, but I still don't really know why it happened that way.
Which leads us to the 2018 Chicago Marathon plan. Again strategically aimed at 8-9 hrs of training because based on the 2016 plan too much over 9 hours yields overtraining symptoms for me. The plan is 16 weeks long. It has 2 weeks over 9 hours and only 1 additional week over 8 hours (so 3 total). Again a dramatic cut from the prior two Fall marathon plans (14+9 to 7+0 to 3+2). Mileage wise it ranges from 59-71 miles so again nearly the same mileage as 2016 but significantly less time spent training. I made yet another cut because of the injury in early 2018 and my desire to try and stave off another bone injury. My best guess is that has been related to under-eating my calories in an effort to keep my weight low and maintain good training. But my body has let me know that's an unsustainable strategy. So while I might have eaten too much during the 2017 Lakefront plan, I've under eaten during the Dopey 2018 and Daniels HM 2018 plans. I've got to correct that now before it becomes an issue again. So the volume has been cut again in the Daniels plan. The easy/hard split follows a much more dramatic pattern. For the 2016 and 2017 plans that 80/20 was held rather tight, but this plan has a much wider swing going from weeks with 100% easy to weeks with 60% easy. So in effect, there are weeks where the intensity is actually higher in this plan than the previous ones. But I believe them to be strategically placed. So interestingly while this plan cuts down to 2 hard days per week, those two hard workouts are REALLY HARD to make up for the lack of a third hard day. It's a different method to attack the same core principle. I'm very interested to see how the Stravistix data (training load calculation) plays out but I'd guess this 2 hard day plan will be similar in overall training load to the 3 hard day plans of the previous years from an intensity standpoint.