Huge Gains

Meb Keflezighi

At the end of week five I am still seeing huge gains in my training.  It is these quantifiable results that motivate me and push me to go farther in my training regimen.   This week the largest gain that I noticed was in my running.  Once I figured out my Max Aerobic Heartrate (MAHR) and started doing all my training at or below that threshold I have had a very steady progression in performance.

My very first long run, which are usually 1 hour and 30 minutes, was at a blistering 16:44 pace.  I clearly remember that I couldn’t go slow enough to keep my heartrate down.  I was being passed by walkers, but I set my jaw and stuck to the training.  The week before thanksgiving I had another long run, but that time I ran it with a 14:12 pace.  As you can see that is a 2:12 per mile improvement in two weeks.

Yesterday I did another long run and once again, to my great joy, I saw another huge improvement.  The run was ran at a 13:00 pace representing another 1:12 per mile decrease in pace.  In five weeks my pace has dropped a total of 3:44 per mile.

Obviously as time goes on the pace decrease will be on an exponential curve with a slower decrease over time, but when I see numbers like this I cannot help but get excited about my training.  At first I used to feel guilty for feeling so fresh after a long training session.  That guilt has turned into elation as I have seen the huge gains I have made.  I don’t dread doing my daily training sessions because I am never miserable during or afterwards.

As I progress through this training, I become more convinced every day that an Ironman is not only attainable, but an event I could finish with a decent placing.  I am resolved to spend no less than a year of doing pure Heartrate training before considering the possibility of some lactate or interval sets.

Why would I spend a year doing such “slow” training?  I am convinced that many people bonk on the endurance races, not due to their “nutrition” but because they don’t have adequate endurance.  Go read any number of marathon race reports and you will see that many of them start having the same issues around mile 18 – 20 regardless of what nutrition they took in.  The only exceptions that I have seen consistently break this pattern have been strict heartrate trainers.

Let me close by saying that no I don’t believe that all pace trainers will bonk at that point.  There are plenty of successful pace trainers that do just fine, however it is the general pattern that worries me.  Because I see that pattern, then I have decided to respond accordingly by creating an aerobic base that is so monstrous that a pitiful little 26.2 won’t even register on my radar.