100 Mile Weeks
Overview
I thought I peaked for my marathon time but I believe I plateaued due to not putting in the hard work. I reread 80/20 running which discusses a volume based strategy to improve performance. I decided to put in the work with the goal of capping off my first marathon of the year with 100 mile weeks. This is a review of my journey.
Research
My training was inspired by 80/20 running by Matt Fitzgerald. I recommend giving it a read, but here are the principles:
- Running a marathon isn't about being fast. It's about keeping some percent of your max speed for 26.2 miles.
- Just increasing volume improves your ability to maintain a higher speed for a long period of time.
- Easy runs are slower runs where you can keep a conversation. You should be able to run at this pace for extended periods of time. These allow you to easily increase volume while keeping risk of injury and overtraining low.
- Speed work is important at helping you improve, but is demanding and increases injuries.
- Given the information above, research in the book and the author's experience is that doing 80 percent of volume at an easy pace allows an improvement of endurance while keeping a model amount of high intensity running helps speed.
I picked 100 miles for training because it would be well outside of my comfort zone. If hard work is the limitation, this will help me move past it. If it isn't, I can look at other means to improve.
How's it going?
As of 3/16/2025, not as planned. I did have a PR with a 5K though!
I reached 90 miles at the end of February but this came with inflammation on one of my ankles. I took a light (40 mile week) and then ramped up my mileage to 70 and 80 miles but I'm taking rest again.
The cause? I've been experimenting with a shoe rotation and I think some of the shoes I've been wearing aren't quite right for my neutral stride. I'm now experimenting with some simple support shoes and low results.