PodiumRunner: A Short Marathon Build-Up?

The Case for a Shorter Marathon Buildup

The uncertainty of racing makes it hard to plan 4–6 months out. Take heart, 8–10 weeks might be a better marathon buildup. 

Sep 4, 2020/RICHARD A. LOVETT/PodiumRunner 

If you’re looking for candidates for the type of runners who’ve been most severely impacted by COVID-19 restrictions, marathoners are probably top of the list. After all, it’s fairly easy to do a virtual 5K or 10K — or give the mile or the 800 a go on a track or measured road. 

But a virtual marathon? With no aid stations and no other runners to keep you focused during those long, later miles? That’s a different beast, entirely. 

Which means that once COVID-19 restrictions on road racing start to ease, there’s going to be a big clamor for marathons. But, when a marathon finally becomes possible, that will raise another question: how far in advance do you need to start training for it?

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Outside: The Marathoner's Achilles Heel

How to Strengthen Your Ankles and Run Faster 
Alex Hutchinson/Outside Online, Sep 13, 2018

New research zeroes in on an unlikely culprit for why running gets less efficient as you fatigue.

Anyone who has scrolled through their own marathon race photos knows that the keen-eyed high-stepper who shows up in the early photos bears little resemblance to the pathetic hobbler of the final miles. Fatigue changes your running form, and yet the vast majority of biomechanics studies involve a few minutes on a treadmill at a comfortable pace. There are some exceptions (like this recent field study of marathoners at the World Championships), but much of our knowledge about running form assumes that we never get tired...

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Runner's World: From Sickness to Grand Slam

Once Drained by Multiple Sclerosis, She Is Now Headed for the Grand Slam of Ultras

Melissa Ossanna’s doctors told her exercise could help. So she started with a marathon—and has never looked back.

Taylor Dutch/Runner's World, Feb 17, 2019

Melissa Ossanna has a nickname among her community in Bar Harbor. To her friends on the island off the coast of Maine, the ultrarunner is affectionately known as “Smiley,” because when she logs miles around the town, she smiles from ear to ear.

Even at the finish line of a grueling 100-mile race, she can always be counted on to smile through the pain.

Ossanna has a lot to smile about...

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Runner's World: Dog Is My Training Partner

Who Rescued Whom? Dog Adopts Elite Athlete
An abandoned mutt, who can handle 6-minute miles, turns up on a running trail and encounters a 2:32 marathoner.
Sarah Lorge Butler/Runner's World, Jan 30, 2019

Dog works in mysterious ways.

How else to explain the mystery of an abandoned dog that found the single best runner in Ocala, Florida? Stephanie Pezzullo was running in mid-December along the Santos Trail, a paved route winding out of the city. There were no other people in sight. No runners, no walkers, no cyclists. It was the middle of the day, a cold one by Central Florida standards.

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Runners World - Whoops.

Hardrock 100 Leader Disqualified for Taking Water Outside of Official Aid Station
Andrew Dawson, Runners' World//Jul 23

Less than 10 miles from the finish line, the race leader for the Hardrock 100—a 100-mile endurance race throughout steep and evolving elevation—was disqualified after receiving aid outside of an aid station.

 Xavier Thévenard, 30, of France, was leading the grueling race when he accepted water and ice from friends on the course outside of a designated aid station, according to the The Durango Herald. The race’s rule state that, there is “no stashing of supplies along the course and no accepting aid except within 400 yards of a designated aid station.”

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CTS: Seven Steps Less Than AA

ADAPT: A 5-Step Plan for When Everything Goes Wrong
Jason Koop, CTS

If you do one single thing at a high enough intensity for long enough, every once in a while everything goes wrong. As much as you have trained and prepared, you will eventually get punched in the mouth, so to speak. Your legs will feel like lead, your effort will feel unreasonable, you will start tripping over roots and rocks, and your stomach will be in knots. If you are especially unlucky, these in infirmities will all happen at once. And for many miles. Maybe not in your next race, or the one after that, but if you remain in the ultramarathon game for a long enough time, lady luck’s evil doppelgänger will eventually find you...

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Citius Mag: Extreme Beer Mileage

I Ran A Beer Half Marathon in 1:43. Here’s How It Went 
Emmet Farnan, via Citius Mag Staff // APRIL 12, 2017

13 beers and 13 miles is no joke. Together and consumed in under 2 hours is even crazier. It was brought to our attention that a reader completed a beer half marathon in an hour and 43 minutes so after coming across the video, more information was sent our way into the accomplishment. Here’s how Emmet Farnan completed the Holy Half in South Bend, Indiana.

In the past few years, the running world has been buzzing with interest in the Beer Mile. Some good and some bad. While most people reading this are likely familiar with what this means, for those of you that are not clear on the specifics – the Beer Mile consists of drinking one full can of beer before each lap of a mile. I recently had the inspiration to apply the same concept to a half marathon. I know…The idea of drinking a beer before each mile of a half marathon sounds insane, something I have been reminded of by a myriad of people since, but I figured it was worth giving it a shot...

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