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Archive-name: running-faq/part3
Last-modified: 16 Jul 2002 Posting-Frequency: 14 days See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge ============================================================ Mail Order Addresses The addresse/phone of some popular running mail order outfits (Directory assistance at 1-800-555-1212 for mail order outfits not listed): Road Runner Sports 6150 Nancy Ridge Road 1-800-551-5558 (Orders) rrunner@cts.com San Diego, CA 92121 1-800-662-8896 (Cust Serv) Fax: 1-619-455-6470 California Best 970 Broadway 1-800-CAL-BEST Chula Vista, CA 91911-1798 1-800-225-2378 Tel-a-Runner 80 Speedwell Ave telarun@telarun.com Morristown, NJ 07970 1-800-835-2786 Hoy's Sports 1632 Haight St San Francisco, 94117 1-800-873-4329 Holabird Sports 9008 Yellow Brick Rd Baltimore, Md 21237 1-410-687-6400 Fax: 1-410-687-7311 ================================= Marathon --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Increasing your mileage (Jack Berkery berkery@emmax5crd.ge.com) There are many good, professional, books and articles on how to train for whatever distance you choose. More for the marathon than others I think. Get one or two and mull them over. The following recommendations are a distillation of having read and digested most of these and more than a decade of experience. Let's suppose you are beginning with a base load of about 20 miles per week over a long period. First I DO NOT recommend that anyone who has been running for less than 3 years should run a marathon. Running is a long-term game and it takes time for your body to become adjusted physically to the demands, not only of the marathon itself, but also of the heavy training mileage required to build up to it. Next, you should always keep in mind that your build-up should not exceed 10% per week. 10% doesn't sound like much but it's actually a big adjustment for your system to make. Not only muscles, but bones and connective tissues must be strengthened to take the increased load and running marathon mileage is a lot of pounding. Remember 10%. That is not to say that if you ran 20 miles last week, you cannot go more than 22 next week, but over a period of 3-4 weeks the rate of increase should not exceed the 10% slope. After 4 weeks then, you should be doing just under 30 miles, but not more. If you go from 20 to 24 in the first week thereby exceeding the 10% rate, then doing 24 again the second week will bring you back on track. You can continue to build up mileage for about 6 weeks when you'll reach 35 miles. Then you MUST BACK OFF for a week or so. Drop back by about 25-30% for one week. Take two or three days off in a row. Get some rest to gain strength before beginning the climb again. How much mileage is enough for a marathon? I have known people to run marathons on 25 or 35 miles per week. Don't try it. How they got away with it is not important. It is only important to know that it simply ain't smart. You can get away with 40-45 per week if you are doing a regular long run of 15-18 each week. It is better to be doing 50 or more for 6 to 8 weeks before the marathon. This means you have to have the time necessary to build to 50 at that 10% rate (with 1 rest week out of every 6) and then sustain that 50+ mileage for 6-8 weeks as well. This is a heavy schedule. Never doubt that. When you listen to the mega-mileage people talk about 70 or 80 or more, they make it sound as if everyone should be able to do that. Well we CAN'T all do that. We all have a break-down point and for the great majority, it lies somewhere below 50 or 60 miles per week. You'll know where yours is only after repeated tries to exceed it result in an injury. So how do you build the mileage? Suppose you are doing an even 3 miles a day, no more, no less. You must begin by building the long run. In a marathon training schedule, the long run is everything. Start the first week of the build-up by just lengthening one run. All other days should remain the same. Make one, usually Sat. or Sun., a 5-6 miler to get your 10% increase. Take the next day off from running. Rest is important after the long run to allow your system adjustment time. The next week of the build-up, increase the one long run again while still holding the normal daily runs the same. As a rule of thumb, your long run can go to 3 times the distance of your daily average run. So while still doing regular 3 milers, you can build up that Sat. morning run to 9 miles. Don't do a 12 miler though until you have made your daily run 4 miles. This means keeping the long run at 9 miles for a few weeks and increasing the daily runs until your average is 4 or 5 a day. Then you can return to increasing the long run. Toward the end of the build-up you may be doing something like 6-8 each weekday plus an 18-20 miler on the weekend. It might also be a good idea to alternate long runs of 15 and 20 miles every other week. As you get close to the date of the marathon, run your last long run 2 weeks before. DO NOT do a long run one week prior to the marathon. In fact for the last week you should taper down to do only about half, yes half, the mileage you have been doing. DO NOT run the day before and 2 days before the race you might only do 3 miles just to get the legs loose and the blood flowing. You MUST be well rested for the big race itself. Now assuming you do everything right there is still no guarrantee that the marathon is going to go well. Many things might prevail to make it hurt, hot or humid weather, getting caught up in too hard a pace, not drinking enough water before or along the way (THE GREATEST SIN). You may even spend 3 or 4 months building your training only to come down with an illness or injury a few weeks before the race which will set you right back to square-one. If you want certainties, you're in the wrong game. What matters is not that you get to do that particular marathon on that particular day 5 months from now, but rather what you plan to do over the next 5 or 10 or 50 years. I did say running is a long-term game, no? Another note of caution. All the rules can be broken. You may get away with lower training, higher ramp-up rates or shorter long-runs. You might even get away with it more than once, but sooner or later it's gonna get ya. Take the more conservative plan and be safe. You're looking for a positive experience not an injury. ------------------Major Marathons & partial World Marathon Schedule http://www.coolrunning.com/marathon/list.shtml http://joedom.home.mindspring.com/evt03.htm Boston Marathon ================== Boston Athletic Association P.O. Box 1996 Hopkington, MA 01748 Tel: 508-435-6905 Fax: 508-435-6590 The Boston Marathon is held on Patriots day (3rd monday in April). Starting time: Noon Boston Marathon qualifying times. Age Men Women Wheelchair Divison 18-34 3:10 3:40 CLASS MEN WOMEN 35-39 3:15 3:45 1 (Quad Class) 3:00 3:10 40-44 3:20 3:50 2-5 2:10 2:35 45-49 3:30 4:00 50-54 3:35 4:05 55-59 3:45 4:15 60-64 4:00 4:30 65-69 4:15 4:45 70-74 4:30 5:00 75-79 4:45 5:15 80+ 5:00 5:40 Note: Qualifying time based on age on the day of the Boston Marathon. Example: You run a qualifying race at the age of 44 in 3:22. You then have a birthday before the Boston Marathon, making you 45. You qualify, because your required qualification time is 3:25. Chicago Marathon ========= 101 W. Grand Ave. Ste. 600 (Carey Pinkowski) Chicago, IL 60610 (312) 527-2200 [VOICE] (312) 527-9901 [FAX] London Marathon ======== PO Box 3460 London, England SE1 8RZ 44 71 620 4117 fax: 44 71 620 4208 UK entrants: In Oct. get *proper* form from London, fill in, enclose cheque. You should find out before Xmas if picked in the lottery. . If you've run a sub 2h40 (men) or sub 3h10 (ladies) no need for lottery as you qualify for the national championships (held in conjunction with London). Non-UK entrants: Get on "official" trips to come to the UK to run London from sports travel firms. If you book with sports travel firm you will definitely get an entry. Going it alone then write: Los Angeles Marathon March ====== 11110 W. Ohio Avenue, #100 Los Angeles, CA 90025-3329 (310) 444-5544 AGE 18-59 60+ Marine Corps Marathon ======= Box 188 Quantico, VA 22134 (703)640-2225 New York Marathon ====== NYRRC P.O. Box 1766 GPO New York, NY 10116 (212) 860-4455 For U.S. residents: Send a self-addressed #10 business-size envelope (about 4" x 9.5") and a check or money order (no cash) for a $5.00 non-refundable handling fee. Make the check payable to: NYRRC. Send AFTER midnight of "set start date." All requests must be posted "start date" or later. The NYRRC sets a "start date" for accepting requests for applications, about May 15-20. Prospective applicants must send a SASE and $5, postmarked ON OR AFTER this date, to a PO Box in NY. They send a blank application, with no guarantee of anything, fairly promptly. Fill it out and return it ASAP. A caveat: You must be a member of UST&F, the USA's governing federation of running, to run in the NYCM. You can apply for entry along with your marathon application; instructions and UST&F application are sent with the blank NYCM application. Applications accepted on the following basis: Slots are reserved for non-USA runners (don't know how they are allocated). 12,000+ applications are accepted "first-come, first served" basis. The NYRRC claims this is not a tough thing if you act promptly - i.e. send request for ap on "Opening Day", and mail back the completed app. within a day or two. X,000 slots remain. Once above criteria filled, all applications received go (figuratively) into a big, big box. In late July or early August, NYRRC draws out the X,000 lucky envelopes. These entries are accepted. They draw a few hundred more, I guess, to set up a waiting list in the event of cancellations. NB: the rest of the applications are returned with refunded entry fee. San Francisco Marathon ==== City of San Francisco Marathon P.O. Box 77148 San Francisco, CA 94107 (415) 391-2123 Honolulu Marathon )====== Honolulu Marathon Assoc. 3435 Wailae Ave. #208 Honolulu, HI 96816 808-734-7200 Many tours to the large national & international marathons are organized by: Marathon Tours 108 Main St Charleston MA 02129 (617) 242-7845 Marie Frances Productions 7603 New Market Dr Bethesda, MD 20817 301-320-3363 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Miscellaneous Pulled this chart out of Marathoning by Manfred Steffny. ( pub 1977). (Robert Davidson davidson@maricopa.edu) Max. possible Realistic 10Km marathon time marathon time ------ ------------- ------------- 27:00 2:05:00 2:08:30 28:00 2:10:00 2:14:00 29:00 2:15:00 2:19:30 30:00 2:20:00 2:25:00 31:00 2:25:00 2:30:30 32:00 2:30:00 2:36:00 33:00 2:35:00 2:43:00 34:00 2:40:00 2:49:00 35:00 2:45:00 2:55:00 36:00 2:50:00 3:00:00 37:00 2:55:00 3:07:00 38:00 3:00:00 3:15:00 39:00 3:05:00 3:20:00 40:00 3:10:00 3:25:00 42:30 3:22:00 3:42:30 45:00 3:35:00 4:00:00 47:30 3:47:30 4:20:00 50:00 4:00:00 4:40:00 -- Austin "Ozzie" Gontang, Ph.D. TEC International 2903 29th St San Diego, CA 92104-4912 hm/off. 619-281-7447 fax 619-281-9468 email <gontang@electriciti.com> Chief Executives Working Together http://www.teconline.com User Contributions: |
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