Now stress fractures?

I've always said the toughest part of marathoning is getting to the start line. By that, I mean it's so difficult avoiding the minefield of injuries, sicknesses, weather calamities (hurricanes come to mind), and anything else that forces you off your training schedule. Downtime is especially deadly to a goal time.

Kurt is a perfect recent example. He's already suffered through a kidney stone and suspected chronic shinsplints, although we now have a correct diagnosis after a bone scan -- four stress fractures along both tibia bones. His orthopod recommends eight weeks off the roads, two of which are completed. He can't run until early June, at which time he'll be fitted with a custom orthotic and hopefully that fixes the biomechanical problem causing the fractures.

So what now? Six weeks off the road, with this 3:59 time goal looming, is tough to overcome. So do we give up Chicago (Oct 9)? Move to another marathon down the road -- NY (Nov. 8), Palm Beach (Dec. 4), or Disney (Jan. 8)? A later run makes a lot of sense to sensible people, just ask Kurt's orthopod -- but my first question is, is Chicago salvagable? And still run 3:59.....

Maybe -- and a wild and fascinating experiment it could be. The first key is that Kurt spins on the bike like a maniac for the next 6 weeks (improving his oxygen uptake, effectively substituting the bike for hard speed runs), then acclimates to the road during June (run and walk on soft surfaces, continues spinning) , then starts a 14-week program in July that builds to three 18-22 milers and includes two weekly speed and marathon pace runs. Total mileage tops off in the high 30s to 40. Doable?

"I have to be perfect," Kurt says this morning. "There's no margin for error."

True enough. Of course, any hope of success rides on the custom orthotic. Kurt's body is not efficiently distributing the stress of his footplants, hence the fractures. But I'm optimistic. I had a suspected stress fracture a year ago after not wearing my custom orthotics. After months of battling what I thought was a shinsplint, I took a couple months off, then trained and ran Chicago in my orthotics without another problem. Good chance a custom orthotic for Kurt will do the trick too.

No, it's anything but an ideal situation, but if successful, Kurt's second marathon will be that much more powerful. And I'll have someone to run with.

Spinning to a sub-4

Kurt is officially chronic with another bout of shin splints, and heading to a sports physician next week, probably ending up with a new pair of $300 custom orthotics—but in the meantime, more downtime. So now what? Kidney stones, shin splints, he can’t get out of the blocks. Schedule is going to hell. Well, he’s hitting the weights and took his first spinning class. Can you get there with X-training? Consider

Back in 1996, the year Roy and I ran the 100th Boston, his knee was acting up badly during training and he headed into the gym and skipped a bunch of running, focusing instead on strengthening the knee with weights and increasing aerobic capacity on the bike. I did my normal running, building longs, up to 24 miles for the first and only time in training. No speed work to speak of, just racking up miles.

Flash forward to race day: After a few jammed up miles early, we settled into running 9s, threw in a couple 8s to make up some time, and kept the pace until mile 21, Heartbreak Hill, the fourth of the Newton hills. Lots of people were walking, but Roy and I ran up it. About two-thirds the way, however, I began to lose it. After 4 hills, I just didn’t have the strength to maintain that pace, and Roy shot ahead. His weights work and biking obviously gave him an edge that I couldn’t match. So I fell behind, finishing at 4:05, short of our goal for a sub-4. At the finish line, Roy was waiting. I looked at his watch. 3:59:52.

Up Missouri Hills/Florida Bridges

Hills (for me, bridges over the Intracoastal and I-95) start this week on our schedule. Here's suggestions from Jeff Galloway, for sub-4 guys. Run these hill workouts, once a week, over the next 4 or 5 weeks; maybe we try to run 4 of these during this six-week session:

4-6 hills in a 5-7 mile run
7-8 hills in 7-8 mile run
9-10 hills in 8-9 mile run

Pick a hill 400 to 800 meters long, gentle grade and run at 10K speed or a little slower (8:50 to 9:00's is probably reasonable), don't sprint. Run up and over, and walk down.

He insists hills build leg strength that weights can't duplicate (static vs dynamic), and that hills should be done early in the schedule (he's scheduled hills 23 to 28 weeks before race, which is where we are now, taking out the rest weeks) and before speed work starts.

Cement legs antidote: Tempo runs

You know that feeling at the end of a marathon or long runs where your legs tighten and grow excessively fatigued, like you're running in cement? Blame it on lactate acid, a by-product of burning sugar for energy in your leg muscles. Is there a way to prevent this from happening? So they say: It's training at a "lactate threshold" pace.

What's that? It's more or less your 5K pace, plus 20 to 40 seconds a mile, or your 10K pace, plus 10 to 20 seconds. Top coaches believe you should regularly do 20- to 40-minute runs at your LT pace (tempo training), to increase your body's ability to transport lactate out of the muscles and prevent cement legs. For example, yesterday I ran 4 miles at 9:00 pace (36 minutes), a pretty good tempo run at this stage--and jogged home another 4.

In our schedule, I built in intervals (3rd session) and time trials for speed work, but not enough tempo runs. Tempo runs should be another option to mix in. The upcoming Marathon Pace runs (we have two 4-milers this session, at 8:40 pace) will serve as rather quick tempo runs for this session. (See Runners World, May 2005.)

Obviously, if tempo runs help the body become more efficient at moving lactate, the last 10K shouldn't be as stressed.