December 2024
FUN RUNS, TRAINING RUNS
In November we completed our final Fun Run of 2024. Get rid of that sad face now, as our next Fun Run will likely be in March which is just 3 months away. We are also considering possibly holding Fun Runs in January and February, so stay tuned!
Although not technically a Fun Run, our weekly Saturday morning runs are still quite fun! Come join us every Saturday at 8:00 am at the Copper Rock coffee shop on College Ave, Appleton. Rain, snow, ice or shine, you are likely to find runners congregating there every Saturday between now and the end of May. Come join us!
PaceSetters Christmas Dinner Party
Hey, remember that Saturday December 7th is the date for our annual PaceSetters Christmas Dinner Event at Wilder's Bistro, 2639 So Oneida St, Appleton. Bring a spouse, special friend or come on your own. Social begins at 5:30 with dinner at 6:00. Great food, many prizes (everyone goes home with something!), and a good time for all. And no running required!
All for the incredibly low price of just $23, you will get food, a drink ticket, dessert, milk, coffee, with sales tax and tip included. Select between Beef Brisket, Smoked Chicken or Stuffed Portabella Mushroom, all with mixed vegetables risotto or mashed potatoes.
If you have not already registered you can still do that by Thursday December 5th. Register and choose your dinner option here. Hope to see everyone there!
NY City Marathon Notable Participants
Chris Koch, a 45 year old resident of British Columbia, Canada, recently completed the 2024 NY City Marathon in 4:16, a 9:47 pace.
If that doesn't impress you, consider this: Chris has no arms or legs, yet still completed the full marathon on a skateboard!
Also at this NYC Marathon, both a U.S. Man and U.S. Woman became the first pair from their host nation to win their respective wheelchair events. Daniel Romanchuk crossed in first place at 1:36:31 and Susannah Scaroni finished at 1:48:05.
Should Our Marathon Training Runs Go Beyond 20 Miles?
If you look at traditional training plans for preparing for a marathon, most of them stop at 20 miles for your longest training run. Although this is what our past summer training plans have followed, some of us PaceSetter members have had discussions about whether this makes sense. Many marathoners have had first hand collisions with that 20-mile wall that magically appears during our marathons right near that 20-mile mark. It is a very real thing for many. But is that just a coincidence …. we only train up to 20 miles, and then we find on race day that it becomes mighty difficult after 20 miles. When the longest run of your training program is 20 miles, that leaves quite a distance of uncharted territory. Part of that is mental …. how can I expect to go 6.2 miles further, that’s a whopping 31% more miles than what I’ve trained for! Perhaps we should be pushing beyond 20-miles on our longer run to know we are acclimated to go beyond that wall.
"The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare," said former Tanzanian marathoner Juma Ikangaa. Many training plans do work but they are not guaranteed to produce success. Long distance running requires a big commitment of time and energy. It is vital to count the cost that this training requires; no plan will work if you don’t follow it.
Searching the internet, there are not many training plans that include a long run distance over 20 miles. It seems those are aimed at advanced marathoners, who are peaking at 55-70 run miles per week. The Pfitz plan, by former US Olympic marathoner Pete Pfitzinger, includes 4 different tier levels. His highest tier plan starts at 80 and reaches a peak of 107 miles per week. This is done averaging 9 to 10 runs per week, including a long run of 24 miles. There is emphasis on both endurance and speed. There are specific, important training sessions during a training week and going beyond 20 miles generally requires too much recovery to be worth the investment for most runners. It may be better to stop your long run at 20 and then still be able to hit a speed session and a marathon pace workout during the week than to complete 23 miles and be limited to easy running during the week.
There is much information supporting why you should only train up to 20 miles. Some experts say that running longer than 20 has minimal benefit, that the risk of injury exceeds any possible training benefits, and that you’re better off channeling that energy into interval or marathon pace workouts. Others say your training run should not be any longer than 3 hours. After that, physical and mental fatigue may set in, and risk of injury may increase. For someone doing a 10 minute per mile pace, that would mean not going past 18 miles. Recovery after a long run is important.
Running 20+ miles takes a lot of physical effort and is a real strain on the body, requiring rest afterwards. If you’ve trained properly, including a 20 mile long run, you have your body in great running shape. Then after finishing the 3 week taper, you will have given your body the rest it needs. On race day, the adrenaline and crowd support will help push you across the wall and on to the finish line. With recovery being very important before pushing our bodies hard again, a longer training run of say 22 miles might require a 4 week taper rather than the traditional 3 week length.
Some amateur marathoners may only run 3 or 4 times per week, and may not complete much more than 30 or 35 miles in a week. That sort of training makes it difficult to expect to complete a long run over 20 miles. Your longest run shouldn’t be that large of a percentage of your total weekly miles. If you’re going to do a 23+ mile long run, you best be averaging at least 50 and perhaps closing in on a 60 mile week at your peak. It’s not as important to focus on what your longest run was, but instead, how much cumulative miles you’ve achieved across your training weeks. This can be a challenge to manage with possible conflicting constraints in your life. Be realistic on what you can accomplish during your training.
And just because you complete a long run of over 20 miles doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t still hit that 20 mile wall on race day. This may be more a result of under-fueling and depleting your glycogen stores on race day. You can conquer that issue by employing proper fueling practices during your long training runs that you can implement on race day.
Here is an interesting spreadsheet comparing some notable marathon training plans.
The golden rule of training is to stay injury free so you can keep on training. This sounds obvious but can be hard to follow. Different people will respond differently to any given training plan. Some people will respond well and become fitter, some will not be stressed enough and won't improve, while others will be stressed too much and become injured or unable to compensate. A plan that has a higher level of training stress will produce a greater benefit in the subset of the population that can withstand the stress, but will have a larger number of people that become injured or unable to adapt. Thus, a harder plan may have strong advocates, but it may not be suitable for a wider population. Remember that it’s better to reach the start line slightly undertrained, than injured or burned out.
We’d love to hear from you about this topic. If the PaceSetters prepared a training plan for the summer of 2025 that went beyond 20 miles, would you be interested in following it? Even though most information out there seems to be against running longer than 20 miles during your training, we could consider the option of some of our longer training runs having distances beyond 20 miles. Perhaps we can do so where those extra miles would be an optional loop at the finish, and there would still be traditional length routes for those not interested in those extra miles. It would be interesting to see how these different plans worked for our members.
