micke-midlife on January 23rd, 2009

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The average daily amount of km went up from 10k after 100 days to 11km now after 150 days. In a brief estimation for the total project length, we won’t come out much higher. I.e. the initial idea was that the total run distance in 400 days would be about 4000km, now it looks like going more towards 4400 - 4500km. Still, that’s not more than 11,xkm a day. It’s really funny to break it down like this. Running 4500km in a bit more than a year, sounds just crazy and not really doable for most people. But running 11.x km a day isn’t that an extraorbital number and many can relate to going out and doing such a run, right?

With the marathon training for Rotterdam (on April 5) now underway, the weekly (and thus also daily) kilometers will increase in the next weeks but not dramatically anymore. It’s the speedwork, i.e. the overall intensity that will make the difference when the objective is to run anything below 2:50. We can see this very well at the top right now. In the 80’s and early nineties Marathon Runners were a separate breed, they hadn’t been before running marathons popular athletes on the 3000m, 5000m, or 10.000m. Then Paul Tergat and nowadays Haile Gebreselassie came along and improved the marathon world record substantially. I don’t think it’s because they train so much more. How much more can you train than any African marathon runner already does? Some go out three times a day and do up to 240km a week. It’s the speed this new breed brings along from the shorter distances, that’s the difference. Hence speedwork, down to 400m intervals is essential in a good marathon training program.