Marathon course

I recently took an online course called "Chasing Pheidippides: Marathon Training 101" through my work at the Y. I don't know that I would call it a "101" level course, because much of it was way over my head, but it was good and helpful nonetheless.

Pheidippides is said to have been the inspiration for what we now know of as the marathon. Tradition holds he was a "professional running courier" in Athens, Greece and he was sent to Sparta to request help when the Persians landed at the Greek city of Marathon. There is a lot of conflicting information and maybe not just a little folklore, but because of his help the Greeks beat the Persians in the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. Or something like that...

Anyway, while the course was helpful, it was geared more toward personal trainers and people smarter than me. In the beginning the instructor talked about things like cardiac output, blood flow, strike volume, VO2max, lactate threshold and glycogen storage and depletion - more the science involved - before getting into actual methods.

Some interesting tidbits I gleaned:

• He says men have a greater cardiovascular endurance than women because men generally have greater SV (strike volume) and CO (cardiac output) to send more blood and oxygen to muscles and more hemoglobin in their blood to transport oxygen. Women, on the other hand, have a greater capacity to metabolize fat and conserve glycogen, which may give them an advantage for very long endurance activities (such as ultramarathons). I don't know if it's related to this, but Jane and I often talk about how she has more trouble with breathing but her legs don't tend to get as tired, and I am just the opposite. I think that's what he was saying.
• The 3 things that influence marathon performance are: Running Economy, VO2max, and Lactate Threshold (don't ask me to explain these things, but I get the gist of what he means).
• Muscles preferred fuel is CHO (carbs). Ability to perform prolonged endurance exercise is strongly influenced by amount of glycogen stored in skeletal muscles, with fatigue coinciding with glycogen depletion. Muscles have enough glycogen to last slightly more than 2 hours of sustained running at moderate intensity. I think this has to do with why I decided to quite lifting weights until after the marathon. The reason distance runners don't have big muscles is because all that muscle is competing for the same food. A marathoner needs to "feed" their leg muscles, not arms and neck and so on.
• Glycogen depletion and accompanying low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) coincide with hitting the infamous "marathon wall." Marathon requires the largest glycogen storage capacity possible, a very efficient capacity to make new glucose, and a very effective use of fat. He suggested not using a lot of gels and "food" while on training runs so your body can learn to do this on it's own. Maybe use gels every other long run, just to get your stomach accustomed for race day - when you DO want to take in nutrients during the race.
• Number of miles (or time) run each week is the most important part of training. If you're running on the road, the training should be done on the road. Train on whatever surface you're training for.
• The purpose of long runs - other than to get more miles in - is to deplete muscle glycogen in order to stimulate greater synthesis and storage, stimulate reliance on fat, prepare muscles and connective tissue to handle the stress, and to callous you psychologically for 26.2 miles of running.
• Long runs shouldn't account for more than 1/3 of weekly mileage. Should be at a comfortable pace (about 2 min. per mile slower than 5k race pace - 70-75% max heart rate). Time spent on your feet is more important than number of miles or speed.
• There was also info on interval workouts and LT (lactate threshold) workouts, which are designed to increase speed and endurance, but it was complicated and also not something I do a lot of yet. I'm satisfied at this point in life to be a novice runner - just completing the run is as important as time.
• Tapering should begin 2-3 weeks before a marathon. Oddly enough, reducing the weekly mileage at this point is shown to improve performance for the event. You should also increase carbohydrate intake to greater than 70% of total calories during this phase. This has always boggled my mind when training for half marathons, even more so last year for the full. But it absolutely works!

So, while the course was more difficult than I anticipated, I am glad I took it. There were some helpful/practical things I learned, and it also gave me a greater appreciation for the science behind exercise and running. It almost makes sense!