Raise Your Marathon Plateau

Strategies to help you find your breakthrough race

It's not just the diminished pounding that helps keep a trail devotee healthy. In addition, running on slightly non-uniform surfaces calls a variety of muscle groups into play in ways running on pavement does not. This strengthening of the support muscles can play an important role in forestalling aches and pains as well.

There's at least one good reason, however, for occasionally running on hard surfaces. As John Kellogg, a Dallas-based coach of national-class runners says, "If you train exclusively on soft surfaces and then suddenly switch to long races on the roads, you're very likely to get injured or at least require prolonged post-race recovery time." Kellogg adds that although his high-mileage runners do between 50% and 65% of their running on soft surfaces to develop joint integrity and reduce impact stress, his athletes do most of their fast continuous runs, such as MP sessions, on the roads or track in order to ensure consistency in footstrikes and rhythm.

The main lesson? It's probably worth going the extra mile to find forgiving surfaces to run on between more directed efforts. If you truly don't have access to soft trails, try running on the soft shoulder of a road if the surface is smooth and level. During marathon training, footfalls add up quickly, and the overall decrease in stress burden achieved by foregoing tarred roadways can be tremendous.

Up the tempo

According to exercise scientist and coach Jack Daniels' widely accepted definition, a tempo run is a 20-minute effort at anaerobic threshold (AT) pace, also known as lactate threshold pace. Although the benefits of these bouts are well studied, marathoners may gain even more from a similar workout that pushes the envelope: runs at or near AT pace sustained for up to 15 miles. Examples of these "overtempo" runs include six to seven miles at 10-mile race pace, and eight to 10 miles at half marathon to 25K race pace. "These sessions work exactly the same systems as shorter AT runs, but because they are held longer they provide a greater stimulus for improvement," says two-time Olympic marathoner and exercise physiologist Pete Pfitzinger.

Because these efforts are more taxing than standard tempo runs, they require higher levels of pre-workout rest and post-workout recovery. Kellogg suggests that for these reasons, such sessions be limited to no more than one every two to three weeks for maximal effectiveness, recovery and integration into the overall training scheme.

Many runners balk at doing workouts so perilously akin to all-out racing. However, if your objective is a fast marathon, you won't be doing many tune-up races anyway; those you do should be chosen in advance and treated as stepping stones to success at 26.2 miles rather than benchmarks in their own right. Those who have the discipline can use these races for their overtempo runs.