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Lead Stories: Monday, December 1, 2008

Optimal Marathon Running

Posted December 11th, 2006 at 11:30 AM by Jim Fortner

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips

Jim Fortner is a weekly, guest contributor to TFS. Also check out his own personal running and advice site: “Jim2’s Running Page”.

Running an optimum marathon requires the following 4 things:

(1) An accurate and realistic assessment of a target time.

This is absolutely critical. Be too optimistic with your goal and even a starting pace that you think is a little conservative will really be too fast and will result in a lot of lost time as you slow in the latter miles. OTOH, set a very conservative goal time and you will lose more time in the first half than can be overcome in the second half. If hot and/or humid weather is expected during the race, it is necessary to adjust the realistic goal accordingly.
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Negative Splits: Use Them to Perform Better in Your Next Marathon

Posted September 25th, 2006 at 3:25 AM by Jim Fortner

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips

A note from TFS: Jim Fortner is a weekly, guest contributor to The Final Sprint. Make sure to also check out “Jim2’s Running Page”, his own personal running and advice site.

Negative splits are the time proven way to best run a marathon. All “experts” and most experienced marathoners that I am aware of recommend targeting negative splits of 2-3%.

The problems with a race plan that is based on positive splits, even small ones, are: (1) faster consumption of glycogen, which means that your body becomes more dependent on fat for fuel earlier in the race; (2) you reach your AT/LT earlier in the race, so a greater portion of the race is spent running anaerobically, i.e., the wall arrives earlier and harder; and (3) it allows for less margin of error in case you miscalculated your ability on race day or any of many other variables bite you in the butt. You wind up running a greater percentage of the race in the less efficient mode, which exacerbates your late race “decline” and can lead to a hard crash.

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