Week 10 of Boston Marathon is nearly a wrap with today's workout including stretching, foam rolling, core and a 30 minute spin to help my legs recover from yesterday's 22-miler. Race day is 4 weeks from tomorrow and I am hoping to make the most of the next 3 weeks and train as hard as I can while still allowing for a taper starting about 10 days out from the race on April 18.
As I've mentioned in my other blog posts, the last few weeks of training have been light on actual running mileage but heavy on core muscle strengthening (for balance) and aerobic volume as well as a ton of PT (dry needling, ART, fascia stretching, alter-g treadmill, etc.) due to a strain of my lower leg tendon (peroneus brevis) which happened in January while running track intervals.
The focus of this week's training was on executing a pain-free 22 mile long run. I had two 60-minute runs of higher intensity on an Alter-G treadmill on Tuesday and Thursday which stretched my HR into Zone-4 which for me is critical as I typically race in mid-Z4 when I am in optimum marathon racing shape. Much of my lower intensity aerobic volume has been with my HR in upper Z1 and lower Z2 which is great for burning fat and weight loss, but nonetheless leaves a hole in my otherwise typical training which would include 6 miles of varying length strength intervals every Tuesday and an 8 - 10 mile tempo run at marathon pace every Thursday.
After talking with my sports chiro on Wednesday about how I was fueling my long runs (he was preparing to run a 50K ultra this weekend), he mentioned that he'd found a new product called Vitargo S2 which had dramatically transformed his carbohydrate intake efficiency on long endurance events. Apparently, Vitargo S2 is a much faster source of glycogen (re)fueling than other micro-nutrient fuel sources claiming up to 1.7x faster than maltodextrin.
When I am training for a marathon, I typically use gels for any runs 16 miles or less (the speed of the run will determine whether I take any gels at all or fuel every 4-6 miles for faster runs). For runs above 16 miles I will carry two 10-oz water bottles mixed with some form of carbohydrate micro-nutrient. For the past several years I've relied on EnduroMAX by Max Muscle which has worked just fine. Each scoop of EnduroMAX is 120 calories and 23 grams of carbs and includes BCAA's, etc. In comparison, the Vitargo S2 product is 140 calories per scoop (slightly larger scoop than EnduroMAX) and 35 grams of carbohydrate.
Yesterday's 22-miler was a major confidence booster as I was able to get through the entire distance pain free (including after the run) as well as covering the course in 3:05:00 (PR for this route is 3:01:00 before the 2014 Portland Marathon where I ran 3:27:30) at 8:25 pace and a comfortable average HR in low Z4. I negative split each 11 miles going 8:27 and then 8:23 over the final 11 with mile 21 at a comfortable 8:12. I took 22 grams of gel at miles 4 and 12 and consumed 8 oz of water mixed with 1 scoop of Vitargo at miles 8 and 16. While it's impossible to say whether the Vitargo had anything to do with my strong performance yesterday, it's remarkable that after 4 weeks of basically no tempo runs nor interval work I was able to roll a 22 mile run that just within a few minutes of what I'd otherwise run on a full marathon training cycle with all the tempo and interval work. It may be that losing 15 lbs of extra weight is also a major factor in yesterday's run (figuring each extra pound is 2-3 seconds per mile of speed loss -- especially above mile 16).
The Vitargo is a bit more viscous and thicker than other micro-nutrients I've worked with which made the intake of the fluids a bit more challenging, especially at mile 16. However if this product continues to perform well on my runs of substance over the remaining 3 weeks before tapering for Boston, it may find its way into my race bottles in Hopkinton on April 18.
The beauty of racing marathons is not just running the race itself, it's all that one has to manage over the course of 14-16 weeks to even get to the starting line. Hopefully the next 4 weeks will be more straight-forward as I feel like the last 10 weeks have thrown me some hard curveballs I've had to navigate to stay on track.
As I've mentioned in my other blog posts, the last few weeks of training have been light on actual running mileage but heavy on core muscle strengthening (for balance) and aerobic volume as well as a ton of PT (dry needling, ART, fascia stretching, alter-g treadmill, etc.) due to a strain of my lower leg tendon (peroneus brevis) which happened in January while running track intervals.
The focus of this week's training was on executing a pain-free 22 mile long run. I had two 60-minute runs of higher intensity on an Alter-G treadmill on Tuesday and Thursday which stretched my HR into Zone-4 which for me is critical as I typically race in mid-Z4 when I am in optimum marathon racing shape. Much of my lower intensity aerobic volume has been with my HR in upper Z1 and lower Z2 which is great for burning fat and weight loss, but nonetheless leaves a hole in my otherwise typical training which would include 6 miles of varying length strength intervals every Tuesday and an 8 - 10 mile tempo run at marathon pace every Thursday.
After talking with my sports chiro on Wednesday about how I was fueling my long runs (he was preparing to run a 50K ultra this weekend), he mentioned that he'd found a new product called Vitargo S2 which had dramatically transformed his carbohydrate intake efficiency on long endurance events. Apparently, Vitargo S2 is a much faster source of glycogen (re)fueling than other micro-nutrient fuel sources claiming up to 1.7x faster than maltodextrin.
When I am training for a marathon, I typically use gels for any runs 16 miles or less (the speed of the run will determine whether I take any gels at all or fuel every 4-6 miles for faster runs). For runs above 16 miles I will carry two 10-oz water bottles mixed with some form of carbohydrate micro-nutrient. For the past several years I've relied on EnduroMAX by Max Muscle which has worked just fine. Each scoop of EnduroMAX is 120 calories and 23 grams of carbs and includes BCAA's, etc. In comparison, the Vitargo S2 product is 140 calories per scoop (slightly larger scoop than EnduroMAX) and 35 grams of carbohydrate.
Yesterday's 22-miler was a major confidence booster as I was able to get through the entire distance pain free (including after the run) as well as covering the course in 3:05:00 (PR for this route is 3:01:00 before the 2014 Portland Marathon where I ran 3:27:30) at 8:25 pace and a comfortable average HR in low Z4. I negative split each 11 miles going 8:27 and then 8:23 over the final 11 with mile 21 at a comfortable 8:12. I took 22 grams of gel at miles 4 and 12 and consumed 8 oz of water mixed with 1 scoop of Vitargo at miles 8 and 16. While it's impossible to say whether the Vitargo had anything to do with my strong performance yesterday, it's remarkable that after 4 weeks of basically no tempo runs nor interval work I was able to roll a 22 mile run that just within a few minutes of what I'd otherwise run on a full marathon training cycle with all the tempo and interval work. It may be that losing 15 lbs of extra weight is also a major factor in yesterday's run (figuring each extra pound is 2-3 seconds per mile of speed loss -- especially above mile 16).
The Vitargo is a bit more viscous and thicker than other micro-nutrients I've worked with which made the intake of the fluids a bit more challenging, especially at mile 16. However if this product continues to perform well on my runs of substance over the remaining 3 weeks before tapering for Boston, it may find its way into my race bottles in Hopkinton on April 18.
The beauty of racing marathons is not just running the race itself, it's all that one has to manage over the course of 14-16 weeks to even get to the starting line. Hopefully the next 4 weeks will be more straight-forward as I feel like the last 10 weeks have thrown me some hard curveballs I've had to navigate to stay on track.
No comments:
Post a Comment