Coach Jeff's Marathon Training Lingo

Lactic Acid Threshold: Your Lactic Acid Threshold is the point during your workout or race when your body starts producing excessive amounts of Lactic Acid. Lactic Acid, when produced in excessive amounts slows down your muscle contraction, making your legs feel heavy and sluggish. This can occur while walking or running. During Track Workouts: Faster paced trainings are meant to condition your body and create a “higher” threshold until it starts producing the excessive amounts of lactic acid. Think of it as acclimating your body to maintain a more intense pace. Hence, increasing your Lactic Acid threshold.

Pacing: is important to every runner/walker. We each must find our comfortable pace that we can maintain over an extended period of time. Track Workouts: allow you to understand and feel the difference between your slower and faster paces, giving you a better understanding of what pace you can actually maintain. With pacing we will also encourage you to find someone or a group to help with your pace and discover how much easier it is to run with a group.

Turnover: is used to describe how often your feet are touching the ground. Or how often your legs are turning over.

Track Workouts: are used to concentrate more on a faster turnover. A faster pace can be obtained by either a faster pace or longer strides. For the majority of runners/walkers it much more efficient to gain this faster pace by a faster turnover.

When a Workout on the Calendar says: 5 X 3 minutes at 10K pace with 2 minutes in-between.

This is what it means: You are going to run/walk at a faster pace for 3 minutes. This faster pace we want you going at a pace that can be maintained for around 6 miles (10 Kilometer pace) under race conditions. At the end of 3 minutes slow down for 2 minutes. After taking this two minute slow break, pick up your speed again, 3 more minutes at the same faster pace. Again take two minutes slow. Continue doing this until…in total you complete 5 faster paced intervals for 3 minutes each. Taking 2 minutes of rest after each. If this still isn’t clear, imagine yourself on a treadmill increasing the speed for three minutes, then slowing it down for 2 minutes. Repeating this 5 times. Always start and end your workouts with a 10-15 minute warm-up and cool down.

When a Workout on the Calendar says: 1x10min. at 15K pace, 90sec. rest, 1x10min. at 15K pace.

This is what it means: You are going to run/walk for 10 minutes at a pace you could maintain for 9 miles aka 15 Kilometers under race conditions. Then take 90 seconds to rest aka going slow. Upon completing your rest, start picking up your speed again to your 9 mile pace.

Distance Gauge:
5K = 3.1 miles
10K = 6.2 miles
15K = 9.3 miles
Half Marathon = 13.1 miles
Marathon = 26.2 miles

Most races are distanced off in Kilometers. Get to know the 5K to miles ratio. It will make your future math calculations that much easier.

Dehydration: A condition where there is an excessive loss of water from the body or from an organ or body part that can be caused by intense or extensive exercise. Being well hydrated before, during and after a workout or race is very important. Especially in hot weather. Symptoms are light-headedness, dizziness, loss of focus, loss of energy and slowing down.

Hyponatrimia: Occurs when sodium concentration levels in your blood fall to abnormal levels due to lack of sodium intake or excessive water consumption. The possible detrimental result is increased fluid build up in your brain and a feeling of nausea, vomiting, headaches and/or malaise. Marathon runners and walkers have to be aware of Hyponatrimia. Especially on hot days, fluid intake is important, but sodium intake is just as important. In marathons or any long distance event it is recommended that proper hydration/electrolyte levels are at a optimum level going into the event. In addition, carry a salt packet or sodium/electrolyte supplement with you to take with water half way through the marathon. This will maintain healthy sodium levels. Gels and Sports drinks that contain Electrolytes are essentials throughout your race, as they too help maintain proper levels and hydration.

Bonking: A condition where your body is depleted of glucose which is the fastest and most easily assimilated form of nutrition. Beginning the workout or race with your glucose supplies at a maximum will help deter bonking. For a long workout/race there is a need to take gels or sports drink during the time frame to re-supply the glucose level. Bonking symptoms are a severe lack of energy and a feeling like you can’t continue.

Cramming/Tapering: Marathon runners/walkers, come the last couple weeks before race day, often feel the intense need to make up for lost time. The result is cramming in long or fast runs right up until race day with the belief they are better preparing themselves. Wrong! It won’t! Within the last couple weeks there is nothing you can do to increase your fitness or performance in regards to training, but there is a lot you can do to hinder it. The last few weeks should be a time of tapering till race day. The runs should be easy, with the exception of possible semi-hard tempo or interval workouts. Come race day, you should be well rested, and ready to jump out of the box. For those that think they have not trained enough, it’s much better to go into a race 20% under-trained than go into one 1% over-trained.

Hand Form: You should pretend you are holding an egg in each palm with your thumb lightly resting on the side of your pointer finger.

Arm Swing: Your arms should be at a 90 degree angle with your hands sweeping by your hips while keeping your shoulders relaxed.

Posture: Be a puppet (strings pulling/holding you up). Think upright. Everything should be in line. Chest should be up, but not leaning forward. Head should be looking forward, not down. Hips up and Shoulders relaxed. Core muscle strengthening is important to maintaining good running posture. Sit ups, lower back exercises and side-bends are recommended.