The Science of Marathoning

This is a really cool article talking about the science of marathoning. Basically, they have shown the progress of winning times in the World Marathon Major races (Chi, NYC, Boston, Berlin, London) - for the flat courses (London, Berlin, Chi), the winning times have progressively gotten faster but there isn't much variance on the hillier venues (NYC, Boston). But the winning times in marathons in 2009 have shown that ultimately the times are getting faster! Britain is looking at the American ways of training in their hopes of pushing their athletes. Hilarious spoof article on Meb's NYC victory. Here is a letter from Meb's brother Merhawi that he wrote talking about Meb's preparation for the race. And finally, Letsrun.com did a nice follow up on the New York Marathon.

Last night, did my scheduled track work. Weather was a little breezy but overall gorgeous outside. Did a quick warmup on the track, then hit up the reverse ladder. Mile went pretty well - first couple laps, was cruising waaaay too fast, so pulled in the reigns on the last half. Definitely could feel myself working on the 3rd lap, but totally slowed it down to save some energy for the later reps since I wanted to hit faster splits. Tried not to take longer than half of the previous rep time in between splits, so sort of slow jogged/walked after the rep. The 1200 was eh - legs were getting more tired, and my quarter splits weren't as consistent as I would have liked. The 800 was ok - first quarter, had the dead leg feeling but took off on the last lap. And the 400 was pretty nice - forced myself to get into the zone, hit an aggressive pace that was fast but manageable. Stride felt really loose, and finished on a high note. Did quick cooldown and quick stretch, then went home and tacked on a couple more miles. Total mileage: ~6 miles - splits on the reverse ladder were: Mile: 5:37, 1200: 4:13, 800: 2:38, 400: 1:14.

Speed is slowly coming back, and I am pretty happy with where I'm at considering I haven't really gone at it too much. So the XC 5K is coming up this weekend, which should be interesting. I know the course pretty well, so that isn't the issue - it is the massive hills and the lack of hillwork I have done over the last few months which will ultimately destroy me. So will probably go out a lot more conservative in this race, and not push it too much. I looked up times for people running about the same ability as myself, and noticed the variance in times to be about 1-2 minutes slower on this course than a roadrace 5K, so I hope to run sub 20 on Sunday and I will be pleased. Tim is back this weekend as well, so looking forward to some good running and some good times!