Speed Work for the Marathon w/ Coach Jacob Phillips

Marathon season is upon us with Chicago earlier this month, New York next week, and the winter and spring marathons approaching! If you want to get faster over the marathon there might be one key element you are missing: Speed work! In this month's episode we are chatting about adding in 'speed work' to your marathon training regiment and what that might look like for you! 

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Transcript

Jacob Phillips 0:17

This is the Next Level Running Podcast, brought to you by the expert coaches at Rungoyan. Helping runners of all levels crush their goals on race day by matching with the perfect coach for training players. Hello, and welcome back to the Next Level Running Podcast. I'm your host, Jacob Phillips, and I'm excited to bring the full form podcast to you this month. I'm going to be my own guest this month, and we're going to talk about speed work in the marathon. The last couple of months we've really focused on the marathon. You know, with Chicago earlier this month, New York about a week away. We're coming into the winter and spring marathon season. We've got CIM coming up in December. We've got Houston in January. And then you've got the big ones. You've got Tokyo, London, Boston. We're about to enter into the marathon season. And so I want to make sure that we're covering all things marathon to get you ready to train at your best level. I think one of the places that we tend to neglect in the marathon is is speed work. And so tonight we're going to dive into the idea of what does speed work look like in marathon training. But before we jump into the episode, I want to point you to the show notes below. I'll have my contact info there if you want to reach out uh to me about the podcast or about coaching, training, etc. Um, but I'm gonna also have uh uh the link to the rundoyen.com website. Look, if you're wanting to take your running to the next level, look no further than rundoyen.com. Look, you don't have to connect with me. You can connect with a roster full of world-class expert run coaches who want to help you crush your running goals. We have uh a unique matching feature that can help set you up with a coach that fits what you're looking for. Look, if you want scientific-based training that's really focused on the data and the analytics, we've got coaches who fit that. If you want someone who's gonna encourage and motivate and inspire, we have coaches that fit that too. Look, it's a it's a it's a unique feature that helps put you with the coach that can best get you to your goals. But hey, if you're not ready for uh a full-term coach, a full-time coach yet, then maybe you want to check out the Doyen Dashers program. I've got that link below as well. The Doyen Dashers program is only$39 a month. It's a training program written for what you're trying to accomplish, whether it's trying to do a 5K or a marathon or a half marathon. And it's written by one of our world-class uh expert run coaches here at Run Doyen. I tried it this past spring. I thought it was awesome. You know, it was uh flexible, I can move the schedule around. Uh there was a lack of accountability that I just wasn't quite ready. I wasn't ready for the full accountability. I knew I couldn't fit it all in, but it was a program that allowed me to kind of go at my own pace, at my own rhythm. Um, and I thought it was great. I thought it worked really, really well. I also have the links below to the at Run Doyen Instagram account. Look, click that follow button if you haven't already. Each month we go live with an Instagram live uh with one of our expert run coaches. You'll be notified or alerted whenever that's going live, and you can join that conversation. I also have the link to the next level running Facebook group. Look, hey, look, if Instagram's not your thing, then the next level running Facebook group uh might be it for you. It's basically what we've got going on there in on Instagram, but it's a little bit more interactive. Um and so check that out. And finally, uh, hey, like I said before, I've got the I've got the uh the contact info for me. Look, if you've got questions for me, if you've got questions for a future podcast or you've got ideas for future podcasts, something we haven't covered yet, feel free to reach out to me. My contact info is there. But now we're gonna talk about speed training for the marathon. Marathon season's coming. It's actually here. Chicago was uh earlier this month. New York's coming up in about a week. We're gonna jump into some marathon stuff tonight. Let's get it. So as we enter this heart of the marathon season, you know, we talked about Chicago already being done, got New York coming up, CIM in December, Houston in January, and then we hit the big ones. We've got Tokyo, we've got London, we've got Boston, we've got the big ones, right? I wanted to make sure that we were covering uh speed work within marathon training. We covered long-run nutrition, we've covered long runs within the marathon training cycle. About a year ago, I did a uh a podcast that that uh basically talked about a full 16 to 20 week program that would get you to your sub-three hour goal or whatever that might have looked like. But I don't want to uh neglect this little small pocket of training that I think is super important. And that's the speed work within the marathon. You know, if you're new to the marathon, uh whether it's your first or, you know, maybe you're just kind of figuring it out, like the first step is obviously conquering the distance. But once you've conquered the distance and you have a time or a pace goal, then you obviously have to train to hit that pace and you need to train to be comfortable at that pace, right? And so uh we're gonna talk about this area where not necessarily the specificity of like locking into a pace, but how can you make yourself more efficient over longer distances running faster? And for me, that's speed work. And it's not the speed work that you might be thinking of. It's not necessarily sprinting. I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about max sprinting, I'm not talking about plyometrics or weight room. I'm talking about uh paces that are faster than marathon race pace that can help us become more efficient over longer distances at faster paces. And so with that, I want to first say like um whether you're a newbie to running, whether you've been going at it a long time, whether you're a master's runner, the the first thing that I think tends to meet be neglected in training or tends to kind of go to the back burner uh is the idea of speed work. You know, like a lot of times when I talk to clients, they'll talk about their tempo runs, they'll talk about their marathon pastework, they'll talk about the long runs. Those things, that's the that's the that's the meat and potatoes of it all, right? But that side dish over here of speed work is something that a lot of times they either don't want to do, aren't comfortable doing, or don't know how to integrate within their training program. And I think it's super important. And so the first thing I want to do is I want to talk about this idea of like, well, what am I actually talking about, right? You keep saying speed work, you're saying it's not sprinting, it's not marathon pace, it's it's pace is faster than marathon pace. What does that involve? Really, it kind of involves a little bit of everything. Uh 5K pace, 10K pace, even some half marathon pace. And you can kind of get into some scientific terms there. I think that's always the the hard part when you're when you're talking training, right? Some people call it this and some people call it that, but but really I'm talking about this just this gambit of paces that are faster than marathon pace, right? And so um, and I like to start with um the most basic of terms. I want to I don't want to uh talk about VO2 max today. I don't want to talk about lactate threshold. I want to talk about just this effort and this rhythm that you want to feel when you're starting to do these things. And so um, one of the things I like to always introduce early into training is strides. It's it's maybe the most simple of workouts, but it's one of the first things that I assign as a coach uh to a new client or to a client that's training for a marathon. We we do some easy running, four, five, six, up to 10 miles easy, and then we go through some running form drills to make sure that we're moving properly. And then we do anything from four to 10 times uh a 20-second stride. And that stride, I usually say, hey, start around uh 5K, kind of feel like you're you're you're racing a 5K. What does that effort or pace feel like? And try to work it down as you warm up through there, but but the focus isn't necessarily on the pace. It's not necessarily on the speed. What the focus is is running smooth, running relaxed, being efficient, feeling like one of those professional runners where you're just floating for that 20-second uh you know segment of time there, which is it's not so long to really get you, you know, hands on your knees. You know, we're not sprinting these at 100% effort, but really just feeling good and turning the legs over and really introducing, maybe for the first time in a long time, some faster running. And from there we try to build it, right? We can go into some hills. I love using hills for um some speed work, like you know, maybe you're doing eight to ten to twelve times a one-minute hill repeat, right? And so you find a hill that's probably three to five percent grade or something like that. And you honestly, I don't really care about the grade. I just want it to be a good incline where you can run with full form and you can really work hard up the hill without, you know, really having to change your form too much. And you're just running hard and strong up the hill, not sprinting because it's hard to sprint for a minute, but you're running hard and strong up the hill, and you get to the top, you turn around, you jog down easily, you recover, go back, you do it again. They were really focusing on just running smooth and running strong. And and really what the hill does outside of just giving you some speed uh work, it gives you a really good practice uh at running with good form, right? Like you're it's forcing your knees to be picked up. It's it's it's giving you a softer landing on the way uphill. Obviously, you're jogging downhill at the end, but um, but we're really focusing on good form there again and trying to make it into a rhythm. And you're obviously going to get some aerobic benefits out of it. It's a continuous workout, but we're trying to really run strong uphill. We're trying to um, you know, not overrun it, but find that effort where we feel like we're running fast, probably like somewhere around 10K type effort or you know, even working down to 5K type effort on the last couple of reps. Um, and then from there we kind of progress to some faster running, whether that's a fartlic uh or it's track intervals or road intervals, you know, where we're gonna go uh maybe something simple like you know, 10 to 20 times one minute fast, one minute easy. That's one that I love to assign to break up the monotony of just marathon paced work or or tempo pace to work. I love um saying, hey, let's spin the legs today and let's do you know 10 to 20 times a minute fast, a minute easy. And that fast is is again, it's it's just like the hills, it's just like the strides, it's not sprinting, it's a comfortable, picked up, turning the legs over, focusing on good form, focusing on good rhythm, and just really um enjoying some faster, shorter running uh that's not like that marathon pace or that easy pace, but you're picking it up, you're feeling good, you're feeling like you're like again, like that professional runner where you're just floating and smooth and efficient, right? That's what we're looking for there. And from there you can build into um some longer repetitions, whether that's you know, some some 800-meter repetitions or some 400-meter repetitions or even 1,000 meter repetitions. But we want to make sure that we're not getting away from running fast. Um, the running fast is going to help you be more efficient over longer distances at easier paces, right? Like uh let's just use some simple numbers, right? Like if you're trying to run seven-minute pace for the marathon, well, if you're if you're training, you know, every couple weeks you're touching uh a workout that where you're hitting maybe six minute pace or six fifteen pace or six thirty pace per mile, like it's gonna make the seven-minute pace a little bit easier to handle, right? That's just kind of the common sense. Doesn't mean you need to neglect the work at seven-minute pace, but doing some faster work, doing some work that's um that's gonna be, you know, harder but hopefully smooth will make that seven-minute pace feel a lot easier. I had an athlete that I coached um uh about a decade ago, and she was one of the best masters runners in the country. Um, and she raced a lot. Uh so that's obviously one thing. But the one thing that we did every week, we we alternated. So on one week we would do uh 10 to 12 times a one-minute hill, and the instructions were very simple. It was running 10 to 12 times one minute uphill, hard, strong, in control, but strong, get to the top, jog down easy, repeat. And that was the instruction. It was run strong, run hard, run in control, get to the top, jog down easily, repeat. So we did that nearly every single Tuesday, or every other Tuesday. On the alternate Tuesday, she did anything from 16 to 20 times a 200 on the track with a 200 jog recovery. So she would run uh a harder or uh faster 200 and she would jog a 200. And it was it was four to five miles continuous, but it was done the hard way, right? Hard, easy, hard, easy. And the and again, the instruction was be smooth, be efficient, run strong on the 200 hard, and then jog easy on the 200 off. And we rotated between those two workouts like all year. Now, obviously, we would have some rest weeks and we'd have some down weeks, but for the most part, if we were in training mode, this lady was doing 200s or or hill repeats. Um, and that was always on Tuesday, and then we'd always come back on Thursday with a tempo type of session, whether that was marathon pace or half marathon pace or something like that. And so one of the things I loved about it was is when we started working together, she was about a 310 marathoner. And by the time we were, uh we were, or maybe it was 320, but by the time we were, we were done working together, she was running in the 240s. And and I think that the speed had been neglected for so many years. She could run 24 miles easy, like it was nothing. She could run uh she could run an 8K or a 10K race on Saturday, run 24 miles on a Sunday, and you know, do that every week. And so she got really good at conquering the distance. She got really good at at running, you know, hard, but she she was neglecting speed. And so we started with strides, and that worked the 200s and hills, and we just kept going with that because it was working. And as you get older uh as a runner, you know, you're not gonna lose the ability to cover the distance. Once you've kind of gotten to the point where you can run 20 plus miles, you're not gonna lose the ability to cover the distance. You're not gonna lose your endurance. That's one of the quickest things for you to bring back as you uh if you've been a a consistent runner. What you will lose as you get older is your speed, your power, your explosiveness. And and without having someone watch you in the weight room or someone monitor like a plyometric type of workout, I think the safest way to do it is starting with strides and getting really comfortable running uh, you know, 20 seconds, 30 seconds at 5K type of effort and working it down uh comfortably, and then moving that into something like this athlete that I had in the past doing, like doing some hill repeats, doing some 200-meter repeats, and really focusing on being smooth, being strong, being efficient, uh, and just getting really comfortable doing that. And what we learned when we were doing that was uh each sort of big race segment. So we ran a, you know, we had a marathon segment for 12 to 16 weeks, kind of recovered a little bit. Then we had another, you know, segment that we were training for 12 to 20 weeks, and then we recovered a bit. And what we noticed is in each segment, her tempo runs got faster, uh, her marathon pace obviously got faster, everything else was getting faster. And I think that's directly related to the consistency that we did in the in the speed training, right? Like we never got away from doing those 200s or those hills. And even when we would take a break and then come back into training, we would do a couple weeks of really focused strides, and then the strides became the hills, the hills became the 200s, and we would build from there. And uh and she just kept getting faster and faster and faster. Right now, uh with several of the clients that I have, I make sure that we never get away. What we don't want to do in a 12 to 20 week marathon build is just get caught up in running goal pace, goal pace, goal pace. We want to make sure that we're running faster, especially um early in the marathon training segment. I want to, I want to do those uh hill repeats or those one-minute fartlicks or those 200-meter repeats where we're really focusing on making sure that we're moving smoothly and efficiently and doing those things really well before we start jumping into uh kind of the bread and butter uh marathon workouts, right? Now, once we kind of get through a few weeks or a month or two of that, we might move into where we're gonna alternate, you know, uh half marathon pace workouts with marathon pace workouts. But every third or fourth workout, we try to come back uh and hit that, you know, 20 times 200 or uh 16 times a minute hard. We try to come back and hit that faster work so we're never losing it. And we're always making sure that we're doing strides the day before either our really good quality workout or our really good long run, right? We're always making sure we're coming back and we're knocking out six times a 20-second stride or eight times a 20-second stride. Um, I've got a runner that's running New York City marathon next week, and every Thursday um we hit eight times 30 seconds, and and the and there's never a pace assigned to it. It's always we want to be smooth, we want to be fluid, we want to be efficient. And we've watched his times and his tempo work and his marathon pace work just continue to drop. And I think, I think, man, we're just getting, yeah, obviously we're getting fitter, but I think we're also getting faster, right? Um, and so I want to tell you just kind of the practical way you can um you can insert in some of this speed type of work um that I think is just really important. Um I I already talked about the idea of starting with strides and then maybe some hills and then you know some fire lick or some 200s, that sort of stuff. But what I really think you should do is I think twice a week you should be running strides. Uh like I said, anything from four to ten times, 20 seconds, smooth, fast, relaxed, faster running. That's probably 5K effort or pace, getting a little faster as you kind of warm up into it. And you want to make sure you're warmed up before you do this. You don't want to walk outside the door and start hammering 20 second strides. You want to do an easy run before that, and maybe even some good running form drills. But you want to do those probably twice a week. And and and I tend to try to do those the day before a tempo type of workout, so half marathon pace or marathon pace workouts, and I like to do those before my long run. So, like the day before a long run, I like to say, hey, you're just running very easy, and then you're gonna do some strides, and that's gonna get us ready for the long run the next day. So we start there. Twice a week, good strides. Once that's kind of become the norm and you're really comfortable with those, I think once a week you can maybe even get rid of the strides. So you got once a week you're doing strides, probably before the long run. But now a secondary workout you can do outside of your long run and maybe your big tempo workout could be hill repeats, especially before we get into really big marathon training. Eight, 10, 12 repeats, kind of working your way up. So maybe you start with eight times a one minute uphill. And so you're gonna run one minute up a hill uh strong, maybe 10K working down to 5K type of effort, jog down recovery, and you can jog as easily as you need to jog down to recover, then repeat that, do that eight, do that eight to ten to twelve times. Start maybe the first workout with eight, and then two weeks later, maybe try 10 reps, and then maybe two weeks later, try try 12 reps. In between that workout, um, maybe going and doing um, you don't have to do 200s on the track. That's one I really like. But if you don't have access to a track, just get on the road and you can do uh 10 to 12 times a minute fast, a minute easy. And again, that minute fast is more like 5K to 10K type of effort. It's not sprinting with a minute jog recovery. And, you know, maybe on the first time you do that workout, you do 10 to 12 reps. The next time you're doing maybe 12 to 16 reps, and then the third time maybe you're doing 16 to 20 reps, right? 16 to 20 times a minute fast with a minute easy jog. I think once you get through that, then it's like, okay, I've got this foundation of speed and faster running. Now let's jump into uh maybe some half marathon pace work, some marathon pace specific work. Because your marathon training block doesn't need to be 20 weeks just devoted to running marathon pace, running marathon pace. Okay, maybe I'll switch it up and run half marathon pace here. You want uh you want to maybe focus on that the last 12 weeks, but man, those first four to eight weeks, you really want to build the foundation of speed and efficiency so that everything else is smooth, right? Um and then speed work kind of becomes like more of a maintenance thing, right? So like you you've got the strides before the long run. Maybe you've hit, you know, something like six times a mile at half marathon pace on one week, and then maybe you hit a six mile tempo at marathon pace the next week, and then the third week you can come back to either those hill repetitions or the one minute on, one minute off fartlick to make sure you're always coming back and just kind of refreshing that speed work, right? And then you can start to cycle over. You could say, okay, cool, I'm gonna hit a really good uh half marathon pace workout. The next week I'm gonna hit a really good marathon paced workout, maybe it's an eight-mile tempo this time, and then I'm gonna come back out of that with the hills or the one minute fartlick again. I think if you do that and you're consistent with that, you're gonna be more efficient. And the pace that you're trying to run for like your goal marathon pace, I think is gonna eventually feel easier. You're gonna be more efficient at that pace. Um, and I think it's just gonna make you all around a better runner, especially as you get older. I also think, too, um, when you're running a uh like a hilly course like a Boston, um, you know, like so doing those hill repeats, it's not just helping you get faster, but just kind of uh it's kind of getting you used to being on hills and telling yourself, hey, I'm good at hills. I do hills all the time. And so there's some There's multiple benefits to it that's not just speed or efficiency, but um but I do think it's one of those things where a lot of times when we're talking uh to clients about marathon training, uh, and I insert some strides, like, I've never done this before. I think it's I think it's something that's lacking. Yeah, you've got to conquer the distance. Yeah, you've got to do the long runs, yeah, you've got to nail the nutrition for for the marathon. You know, you've got to do all that sp uh specific work that's gonna help you uh, you know, conquer the 26.2 miles at a certain pace or effort that you're wanting to hit. But I'm telling you, you insert some speed work in there, especially early in that training cycle, and you're consistent with it, you will become a better, fitter, faster, stronger runner. And I think you'll crush your goals. So I don't know if that talk made sense to you, but if you're not doing speed work, think about it, especially as we start to enter into, hey, you know, we're like 20 weeks out from Tokyo, hey, we're we're getting ready for marathon training season. Let's start with being an efficient, faster, smoother runner that now can handle uh marathon pace a bit easier, so or a bit more efficiently. So um I hope that helps you. Hey, the marathon's long, um, but it's also becoming it's also it's also pretty fast. I don't know if you're watching those pros uh anymore. Chicago, we saw we saw a lady run under 210 for the first time ever, completely obliterated the world record. And uh I can promise you there was some speed work to get there and to uh to help her nail that. So appreciate you uh joining us for the for the for the podcast again this month. Um you know, as always, if you need anything, check out the show notes below. We've got all the contact info that you need there. Hey, look, if you're looking for a coach to help you crush your running goals or take it to the next level, look no further than rundoyen.com. Uh we've got a roster full of world-class expert run coaches uh that can help you uh yeah, help you crush your personal best. Um, but thanks so much, and until next time, have a great run. Thank you for joining us here on the Next Level Running Podcast, your source for training advice from the expert coaches at Rundorian. If you're ready to take your training and racing to the next level, head over to Rundoyan.com and get matched to your ideal coach who will provide you with the highly customized online training you need for crushing your goals on race day.