35 months. That is the deal I made with my coach about when I'll run my next marathon. That puts me at an October 2104 marathon, probably Chicago. And that is perfectly fine with me. I love the marathon. I loved the 50k. Unfortunately, they didn't love me back. They beat the crap out of me more or less. But now I know, and in the words of G.I Joe, "knowing is half the battle." What exactly do I know? I know what it will take to be able to run a great marathon, one that will have to wait until 2014. Running is sometimes about patience.
I know some people would argue with me about mileage, and pounding, and the physical limits of the body, and I'd be happy to argue all day long. But I don't think the best way to prepare for a marathon is to beat your head into a wall running lots of long intervals, threshold runs, and mileage. Speed can't be ignored, and it is ok to race sparingly at that distance, or step away totally, but still make strides towards improving at the marathon distance.
I ask you this, if I had you chose between two runners running the marathon, and one had a 14:30 5k pr, and the other had a 15:00 5k pr, who would you pick? If you're smart, you'd pick the faster 5k runner. This isn't a trick question. In all likelihood, the faster 5ker will run faster at the marathon 9 times out of 10. Speed is speed and you can only stretch the rules of physiology so much. There may be the occasional freak who skews the lines a bit. Heck, I picked the marathon because I thought I was that guy. It's the most "trainable" and work is every bit as important as "talent" but I found out two things.
I was never going to run a fast marathon with the type of 5k I could run. And I was also a heck of a lot more talented that I thought I was. In the grand scheme of things, I'm a blip on the running radar. But I thought it would take years of perfect training to crack the 15 minute barrier. It took one year, and it seemed easy. And I thought I could run the old Olympic Trials B standard (before they took three minutes from me) with that PR. Jack Daniels and some others would beg to differ. Boy was I wrong.
So I figured I'd spend my time focusing on the 5k (thanks to the wisdom of the legendary Sam Alexander) because it is a heck of a lot easier to train for, the results aren't misleading, and it probably is the best way to improve my marathon in the long run. And it just kills me when people train for a marathon and think mileage is the most important aspect. Its not. And you can do long intervals until you keel over and die, and it will only get you so far. But at some point you have to be fast to run fast. And if you have a shit 5k, you can't expect to run all that fast at 10k, 1/2 marathon, marathon, and even a friggin 50k. Just wait until there is enough money in ultras and the Africans start running. You'll see how it works.
And you better believe any of the truly elite marathoners can run a friggin fantastic 5k at any given time. And you can be sure that they are running some fast intervals in practice. So for the next 35 months, I'll be training for a 2:19 marathon, by training for a fast 5k and a big pr, and a fast 10k, and I even plan on setting a PR in the 1500. And lets not forget the steeple chase. I better throw one of those in there for fun.
