Category Archives: Marathon

Recap of an unfinished 2026 Vancouver Marathon

Long time no see. Let’s go ahead and talk about what happened.

I DNF’d this year’s Vancouver Marathon a bit after 25K. Circumstances have KO’d me from this marathon for the third time (2018, 2022, 2026).

Conditions were dangerously warm for this time of year, reaching 78°F (26°C) with suitable humidity for a 50°F dew point. While I was certainly in shape to run the marathon, I was not heat-acclimated to these race conditions after a winter of training in Seattle. During training I had one or two runs in similar heat that lasted 6-7 miles.

I wore a sun top and a hat to protect my skin from burning and diffuse some of the heat. I had two 18oz flasks with water and Maurten 160 in each on a belt, plus Maurten 100 gels to take every hour. I walked through all available fluid stations and took water at each. Hydration and fueling were no problem and done according to the plan that I had practiced in training. My heart rate was mostly in the high 140’s, higher than I was hoping to hit early on but in line with my desired intensity.

I took it easy (any pacing ambitions I threw out the window pre-race) and felt fine until 11K, right after climbing the Camosun hill (which I managed just fine). Suddenly I struggled quite a bit to keep running, my heart rate began sitting 150’s, so I decided to walk a bit under shade to regroup. I was able to resume and continue running through the forest into UBC, so I presumed that was just a rough patch… though 11K is rather early to have one of those.

I began to drag a bit before the big downhill in UBC at 18-19K, though I safely took the big downhill with no problem. However, I eased up at the bottom and then I once again struggled to run. I took fluid at the 21K station and walked a bit extra, but resuming running felt no better this time. Jogging Sunset Beach to the 23K turn, I began to assess whether or not finishing was safe and do-able.

I took the 2nd hill in West Point Grey as everyone around me was walking it, but I had to give in and walk myself halfway up. Once I made the turn into Kitsilano at 24K I removed my sun top to get some air circulation and cool off. I walked some more, essentially deciding then and there to surrender soon, just figuring out a good spot to step off the course. As if 2nd-hand validating my decision, multiple people along W 4th were sitting on the sidewalks getting medical attention.

Cheering crowds at 4th and Alma made that a poor spot to drop, so I resumed a run out of respect, got around the corner and a couple blocks out of sight on Alma, then stepped off at the corner on W 2nd and removed my bib.

I took a long, reasonably relaxing walk east under shade through Kitsilano back downtown, with occasional glimpses of the nearby course as struggling runners continued. I felt relieved and not all that disappointed. That was the correct decision.


I spent an active but otherwise relaxed week in Vancouver enjoying the city, and had a good time anyway. I didn’t give this year’s marathon a ton of thought. I knew even before the forecasted hot weather that despite my best training efforts I would not be 100% trained to run it, and I ran it to enjoy the course and see where I was at fitness-wise for the distance.

It was disappointing to see the forecast shift to hot, abundantly sunny weather as the day approached. I knew I wasn’t heat acclimated and this was at best going to be a calculated struggle to finish. I know I’m fit enough to run a marathon in optimal conditions, and not terribly far away from being heat acclimated and fully trained for the distance. (Plus, one silver lining from dropping out early is that I recovered more quickly and could safely resume training sooner)

Road marathons shouldn’t be run in these conditions, especially in the spring after most runners have spent the winter training in much cooler conditions. Faster runners, visitors from hot climates, people who did all their training on treadmills in warm rooms, colder blooded leaner runners who do well in hot weather, all had a great day. The rest of us struggled.

Looking back, though this year (after waiting three years to once again run the marathon distance) there was no way I would have done so… the best decision in light of the forecasted heat would have been to drop down to the half-marathon distance. Despite all distances being sold out, RunVan did allow registered runners to switch distances at the Expo, and in fact there was a huge line at the change counter for people who wanted to drop down from the marathon to the half.

Going forward, if registered for the marathon, that’s probably what I will do. While it’s a crowded race, especially in the finish line area, the half marathon also starts early at 7am, which diffuses problems with hot days… plus of course it’s only half the distance, which is easily do-able in hot weather.

I seriously considered nixing my annual tradition of doing this marathon, since climate change is going to make this hot weather in May more typical for Vancouver (this is the second straight year they ran the race under warm abundant sunshine). RunVan should consider breaking tradition and moving the marathon back at least to April, but they probably won’t unless there’s multiple heat-related casualties at a future marathon. RunVan is great at learning from mistakes, but unfortunately history has shown they have to stubbornly experience the mistakes first before they can learn to avoid them.

However, I’ll probably register next year. Obviously I really like this marathon, and if the conditions are suitable it’s one I really want to run. You never know how the weather will turn year over year, even given that Vancouver got hot in back to back years for the race. It could well be overcast and rainy next year, which (while I can’t speak for others) I would gladly run in. It’s not a big deal for me to register, book hotel, confirm days off from work… and just cancel/defer out the week before if the forecast once again calls for hot sunny weather.

Also, RunVan hosts other races throughout the fall and winter (e.g. The First Half, The Great Trek, Granville Island Turkey Trot), and I can travel to Vancouver for those whether or not I skip the marathon. Plus, I can always drop in for a weekend just to do a long run if I desire. I’ll get to visit and run there no matter what.

The Marathon Shape Estimator Tool

First, I want to thank reader Goran for contacting me out of the blue and asking about the Marathon Shape tool I had been developing.

While life and circumstances have once again kept me busy (hence yet another extended radio silence from me), I have periodically worked on developing this Marathon Shape tool to help estimate marathon shape. I’m currently training for another marathon myself, so I’ve found use in continuing to refine the tool(-in-progress).


 

For those who don’t know, the very helpful training dashboard site Runalyze has a metric called Marathon Shape that estimates your ability to race a marathon based on your Estimated VO2max and its records of your prior training.

Your Marathon Shape is shown as a percentage: A 100% marathon shape indicates you can race the marathon to your potential (Runalyze has a race time projection calculator), and lower marathon shape numbers indicate a potentially slower finish, if not a risk that you cannot finish your marathon. Obvious caveats apply: You need to properly train for a marathon (whatever that means to you the end user), and so on.

If nothing else, over time I have found marathon shape remarkably telling in why I’ve fallen short in some marathons but done better in others. There is a direct correlation between my marathon shape and the results I’ve noticed. So have many others who use Runalyze, as indicated by Goran’s interest in where I’m at with this tool I have mentioned working on.

An obvious issue is that while Runalyze is great at showing metrics for all your prior training and racing, it does not really allow you to project future training and show what your metrics will look like afterward. Other than the aforementioned race projection calculator, you have to separately do that on your own off the site.

I’ve always tracked my training separately on a Google Doc, as well as planned future training and racing, and tinkered over the years with building functions that can project those key metrics, like marathon shape, as well as workload ratio. (Training monotony is so complex that I’ve for the time being given up on trying to project that and often just research that separately.)

There was an old Runalyze forum post where the proprietors in answering a reader’s question spelled out the formula for calculating Marathon Shape, but I cannot find it now so perhaps it was deleted. After verifying with my training data that the function was accurate, I made some adjustments (the function measures kilometers so I had to convert to miles) and plugged the function into my Doc. I also had to create a variety of other functions to project my Shape in real time for today while projecting Shape for the future date of my marathons. To this day I still have to constantly adjust functions to make it currently accurate for myself (so don’t expect an end-user-friendly doc that can do the above from me anytime soon).

However, because erasing and re-entering my planned training in my Doc is such a pain, I’ve gradually developed a separate Marathon Shape Estimator workbook to allow me to plug in mileage for different plans and estimate what kind of marathon shape it will leave me in.

And so, here we are.

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Debriefing Vancouver 2023, what I have learned, and summer training plans

I had a full week in Vancouver after the marathon before heading home and made a point to enjoy the vacation. While in town I probably didn’t set in front of a laptop for more than an hour at a time before flying back to Vegas. Plus, this week at work was somewhat busy, as I not only had to catch up after a week away but we also had a plan to execute this week and that always requires considerable work. So there wasn’t much time to debrief or really write out how I felt about the new training process and how I handled the marathon, before now.

Having just switched my entire training approach two months before, I was as curious as anything how my body would handle the marathon. I threw out any sense of racing or pace in advance, and just set out running easy with the plan to enjoy the scenery and adjust as needed. Thankfully, my sleep had been better than past years and I was better rested for this marathon than any of the prior ones.

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The Hadfield Advanced Marathon Training Plan: Who’s It Good For?

I’ve previously brought up Jenny Hadfield’s Advanced Marathon Training Plan. Hadfield is a coach and a writer for Runner’s World. I found the structure of Hadfield’s plans to be very accessible and up to speed with the base training centered approach I currently want to follow.

If you provide an email address, Hadfield’s website allows you to download this and other training plans. Each plan includes a detailed Page 2 explanation of any terminology on the Page 1 schedule.

Obviously, Hadfield is available for personal coaching, and this would lead to a more personalized training plan. The described plan is a template, but can be followed to the letter as-is.

The various plans Hadfield offers vary which midweek workout goes where by day. So to simplify, and because it’s probably the best fit for many experienced runners, I’ll cite the Advanced Plan’s schedule. The easier plans do have more cross training days and do switch some workouts around, though the schedule layout is mostly similar.

The Basics of the Hadfield Advanced Marathon Plan, in a nutshell:

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The Working Class 21 Day Training Cycle

After a few weeks of training daily, lots of strength training, lots of 45-60 minute cross training sessions, several short treadmill runs and work break runs… I’m feeling pretty worn out, clearly needing a break from what I’ve been doing, but obviously not wanting to take a full training break after having just come back from a long training break following Vancouver 2022.

Motivated by Kevin Beck’s 21 day cyclic training approach, though obviously not wanting to mirror high volume that I’m obviously not running nor in the condition to run… I decided to borrow from both him and Budd Coates to create my own 21 day cycle.

The Working Class Runner 21 Day Training Cycle

In Running On Air, Coates built training schedules using a 3 day alternating easy-medium-hard workout pattern. Similar to this, I patterned this 21 day schedule around big workouts every 3 days, the surrounding days easy, and a relatively easy strength workout coupled with easy training on days after the toughest, longest workouts.

Long Run: However long your longest workout needs to be, that’s the long run. I’d like to get this to a minimum of 2 hours. But it can be 60 or 90 minutes if that’s longer than my midweeks.

Notice that there’s only long runs every three weeks, and on that week they happen on back to back weekends within six days of each other. Then there’s not another long run for 15 days.

This patterning combines a bunching of long workouts with an extended break from long runs for a couple weeks while focusing on more medium-long workouts and strength training.

60-90min workout: These can be regular 60+ minute runs, or quality workouts like intervals or tempo work, or any mix of the above. But they need to be runs and they need to be 60-90 minutes, the sweet spot for aerobic endurance fitness growth.

Initially, they should just be regular easy runs, and if you can’t go 60 minutes then go however reasonably long you can at first, until 60 becomes do-able.

easy: These are either very short runs, no more than 30 minutes, or can be easy aerobic cross training for 45 minutes or more.

If an easy day falls on the weekend, you can go long on cross training, 2+ hours. On weekdays, keep it to 60 minutes.

But even on weekends, easy runs cannot go longer than 30 minutes. This is meant to be an active break, and the runs are best done as recovery runs, perhaps light work on technique or hills.

strength + easy: Here in addition to easy runs or cross training, you do strength training, no more than 20-30 minutes. I have two designated 20 minute workouts I can rotate between.

On the 2nd week, with three strength workouts, I actually would split into three separate 15 minute workouts, to make sure I do every exercise once per week. But it’s no problem to just rotate through two separate workouts and have them flip flop in order every 3 weeks.

I would keep weekday cross training to 45 minutes rather than 60 minutes, to keep the workout at about an hour. On weekends (or any day with more free time) it’s okay to cross train a full 60 minutes if desired.

Again, keep any running to 30 minutes or less, and that remains true with the strength workout. This will make these training days a bit longer than the other easy days.

When races and life intervene: If on a given day or weekend you have a race and it doesn’t line up perfectly with planned workouts, go ahead and turn the 2 days before and after the race into easy days. Don’t strength train within 3 days before the race, but feel free to strength train the day after the race or beyond if you’re up to it.

If an event in your life comes up and it interferes with a workout, it’s no problem to skip it. If you want to try and do a workout off-schedule the day after (leaving only one easy day before the next workout or long run), keep it to 60 minutes max.

The next easy day, you are allowed to skip the run or cross training if desired. If the next big workout is a long run, you can also skip strength training and just make the next one. If it’s not, it’s optional whether or not to make up the strength training displaced by your postponed workout. However, if possible, you are also allowed to switch your strength training to the day of the event postponing your workout.

If you need to take multiple days off in a row: Just do it, and don’t worry about it for now. If it creates a problem, it would have created a problem on any training schedule. Usually, though, a couple or few missed days shouldn’t derail you badly. Just get back to the schedule when you can.


So this 21 day cycle is the training template I’ve settled on going forward. Barring any random lumps in my schedule, I can follow this cycle without an issue through summer into fall racing season.

The goal with this was to refine everything I’ve been working on into a sustainable routine of training, demanding enough to build my fitness but not so demanding it burns me out.

Along with this cycle, I’ve also been focusing on adjustments for training monotony, but that’s another post for down the road….

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Final Descent Into Vancouver 2022

23 days until Vancouver 2022.

I have finally settled into a 3 day weekly training pattern, all brutal workouts on the treadmill. I ran 100 minute workouts on Tuesday and Thursday in a fairly humid Planet Fitness gym. These modified workouts come out to 9+ miles, and meant I was returning home shortly before 8pm, right around when I typically head to bed.

Given that, and given my trouble sleeping after these workouts (after last night’s workout I got maybe 6 hours sleep last night despite heading to bed at 9pm), I’ve decided that while I still want to aim for 10 miles on these days, the treadmill workouts no longer need to be this long.

On non-training weekdays I’ve been taking one or two work break runs during the day, which has helped quite a bit with recovery and feels much better overall than taking those days completely off. Because of this, I didn’t actually end my run streak, which is now at 39 days and counting.

What I can now do is take one or two work break runs, most likely a 2 mile lunch break run. Then after work, even if a bit tired from that lunch jog, I go to the gym and knock out an 8 mile workout, which I’ve done quite a bit in the parks during cooler weather. It might be cooler next week and allow for this, but I can easily do these on the treadmill at the gym if it’s warm.

I had aimed for 10 miles and the 100 minute workouts because Runalyze metrics noted you experience a long run specific training benefit at 9+ miles (marathon shape’s long run effect does begin measuring at 13K, 8.07 miles, but the impact on marathon shape in the 8-9 mile range is near zero). So I initially wanted to try and nail some midweek 10 milers to boost that. However, the marathon shape benefit from these long, brutal single sessions was also negligible, though measurable.

So I saw much more benefit in shortening the midweeks back to 8 and boosting the mileage total plus shaking out with work break runs earlier in the day to get 10 miles on the day, even if it doesn’t count in metrics as a 10 mile run (The miles still count in the metric in different fashion). This, along with making those evening workouts shorter and easier, also allows me to leave the gym by 7pm and get home at a better hour, perhaps making sleep a bit easier as well.

During yesterday’s brutal 100 minute session I went ahead and made it an Easy Interval workout, a warmup followed by six 1000m intervals at goal marathon pace (which effort-wise on the warm indoor treadmill converts and requires an effort closer to lactate threshold), each followed by a 1000m jog cooldown with walk breaks.

This not only got me running some faster interval work, but some much needed practice physically running goal pace, which should be easier at sea level in cooler weather after practicing it in short bursts in these more difficult, higher altitude conditions.

Pretty much the last workouts that will specifically benefit my marathon effort will be the midweek of April 21-22. Anything after that simply serves to maintain existing fitness and avoid fitness loss, while engaging energy and hormone pathways enough that I don’t lose sleep from lack of exercise. I’ve never had any problems with “taper madness”. By the time the taper arrives, I usually find the lack of volume welcoming.

The goal this weekend is to finally, by hook or by crook, get to 20 miles on the long run, as well as pace the treadmill workout to loosely match the timing and demands of the course’s first four hours. While obviously I won’t run the full 26.3 miles (Vancouver is a slightly long marathon course), the timing of my slower easy pace will follow a written schedule where I’ll not only slightly change the speed and incline at defined points, but also take fuel and fluid at points where I expect to cross aid stations.

The paces were converted per my last post, to account for the air conditioned room temperature and my gym altitude versus the high end temperature expected in Vancouver along with the sea level altitude (… okay, actually about 33 meters, which is the average altitude for the rolling course). I will vary the incline between 0 and 3.0% (the incline along Camosun Street), though downhills obviously can’t be simulated on a gym treadmill so those sections will just be done slower with a conscious forward lean to simulate downhill running pressure on my legs.

From experience with the paces… yes, this workout’s going to be hard, though it should all be do-able. The interval workouts and other faster sessions should help bridge the gap on this.

Marathon shape right now is still just coasting at 44%, largely because the metric takes a 26 week sample and most early weeks (pre-marathon-training) were very light on mileage. As the next few higher mileage weeks replace these 10-20 mile weeks, and I bank a couple of 17-20 mile long runs, that number will go up and I expect it to hit 70-72% at about 10 days out from Vancouver. For comparison, Vancouver 2019 training peaked at 68% (extreme cold weather and the flu derailed much of that), and Chicago 2018 peaked at 71% (great shape but hiccups blew me up). However, my VO2max is such that at 100% it would estimate a sub-4 hour marathon. So my 4:15-4:30 goal should still be in reach at 70%.


If this approach works out great, and Vancouver goes great… this opens the door to summer training, and the possibility of a 2nd marathon this year.

I had previously intended to just strength train, cross train, and do shorter workouts throughout the hot Vegas summer. But this template creates the possibility that I can stay stretched out with my long run and aerobic endurance.

I’m inclined to just run shorter races and maybe a half marathon in the fall (I haven’t run a half since 2019). Most good-fit races would require travel, which would get expensive, and with pricey marathon travel plans I have in mind for 2023 I’m somewhat averse to spending a bunch for a December marathon. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, the marathon I’m currently planning to run is now a bit over 3 weeks away. I don’t like getting excited before I’m physically there and it’s clear it’s about to happen. So right now I’m just focused on continuing to work on training and getting ready.

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Vancouver 2022 Training Midpoint, Rambling About Recovery and Training Volume

Today my sister, brother in law, soon to be sister in law, and I ran out an over-long 12K that was more like 13K. I had considered racing this full out (and not knowing the course was long I’m glad I didn’t), but eventually settled on running this as a marathon-effort run. I had no trouble maintaining the necessary run power over the entire run, and even went a bit harder/faster in the last mile.

After taking it easy on long runs the last couple weeks ahead of this (longer than) 12K, focused instead on maintaining longer midweek runs, I’m now focused solely on Vancouver 2022. I spent the last few weeks looking at how I responded to different combinations of midweek runs, weekend running, long runs against other runs vs rest days, running daily, etc.

Speaking of that last bit, I generally avoid run streaking, having made a point to take more rest days. But after March started, I decided to run every day, doing easier recovery running instead of days off, and seeing how I handled that. The answer: At this point, I actually handle everyday running fairly well, and I’ve run somewhat better doing work break runs or shorter runs instead of a full day off from running.

It actually started because after taking a full day off following my last 16 miler two weeks ago, I could not get to sleep. This was despite having slept much better in the last couple months since starting this training cycle.

As has happened before, my body had gotten so used to daily activity that if I finished a day without exercise I basically had energy “stored up” and I could not easily get to sleep. My body expected to end the day having some sort of exertion to recover from. Without it, my hormones basically sensed no real need to get to sleep.

I had to make sure then to get some sort of demanding exercise every day, even if as simple as going on a long walk or going on my work break walks.

The easy way to ensure this exercise was done was to do some bit of running everyday. It started as an experiment, thinking if I was having a hard time or hurting at any point I would just not run that next day. But that next day hasn’t ever come. Even after tougher, longer runs, I’ve been able to at least take work break runs, and those have gotten easier, faster, stronger.

Runalyze advises me that my rolling estimated VO2max has improved somewhat, and my individual workout VO2max estimates have been quite strong, a product of not just running faster/stronger but with a lower average heart rate and along rolling terrain to boot.

I did have a tough time with a long workout last Sunday, which I cut short after an hour and filled in with an extended walk, followed by strength training. I felt rather good the next day, and after filling that day with work break runs the following longer Tuesday run went quite great.

A common mistake in marathon training is to fixate on the long run, without paying mind to the aerobic quality of the midweek runs. Often a runner will kill themselves on a brutal long run, at the expense of subsequent midweek workouts that get ditched for rest days and recovery from a long run that was overextended.

It would often be a better idea to run at least into the 2 hour range at an easy effort, and if it’s getting to be too much then cut the long run itself short, then chase it with some easy low-impact effort like walking, or if available cross training, to comfortably extend your body aerobically and neuromuscularly. You may not get the full impact of the desired long run, but you still derive some long distance endurance impact from continuing your “workout” in some lower-impact aerobic capacity. It can help set the table for a subsequent long run attempt at the desired longer distance.

But this digresses a bit from another important point, that by stopping short of substantial damage or exhaustion from a long run that’s beyond your capabilities you avoid derailing your ability to complete quality midweek workouts that are just as if not more important to your training for the goal race distance. Your endurance for the long run in no small part depends on the volume and quality of your midweek workouts. And if you’re falling short on those long runs, then the solution lies in improving your ability to nail longer, endurance specific midweek workouts.

This is not to say turn your midweek workouts into 2-3 hour long runs. Unless you have all the time in the world and can comfortably handle that (a la the late Ed Whitlock or the still alive Jonathan Savage aka Fellrnr), this is not practical. However, observing the optimal midweek endurance workout length of 60-90 minutes, you can still substantially improve your endurance by summiting the peak of this endurance bell curve in your midweek runs.

But if you go too hard in your long runs when your body’s telling you you’re not ready and need to stop, this becomes difficult to consistently do.

Yes, eventually a marathoner’s got to power through and max out the long run. But base building remains a valuable phase and component of marathon training. And if struggling to get through 16 miles, you’re often best off becoming more consistent at completing 7-10 miles during midweek. I struggled with my last couple long runs because my ability to complete 8 in midweek still needed improvement.

Now, all of that said, recovery remains important. And one of my issues was that I was cramming too many 8 milers together without providing space for recovery. I either wasn’t doing enough midweek quality volume, or I was doing too much at once. This coupled with my issue of not being active enough on rest days meant that, while I usually shouldn’t run 8 miles the day after an 8 miler or long run, it’s still a good idea to run at least 2-4, whether broken up as work break runs or as a shorter, maybe fast-finish 3-4 miler after work. This way, I’m still building quality endurance volume, even if it’s not a full 8 miles or 90 minutes.

So now I think I have a good weekly training template in place. Of course I want to do a long run on the weekend… probably Sunday, as I find when I try to do it Saturday morning I’m often somewhat tired and could use an easy training day with my day off before attempting a long run. Of course, I want to do multiple 90 minute midweek runs if possible. But instead of doing a bunch back to back, or just doing one between a bunch of shorter running, I can pencil in Tuesday for a 90 minute run, bookend Monday and Friday with work break runs totaling 2-4 miles as recovery days, and then let Wednesday and Thursday be “swing days” where I can go easy (4ish miles) or a full 8 miles if I’m feeling great. If Wednesday is easy, then Thursday will be a full 90 minutes. If I feel feisty and go 90 minutes back to back Tuesday and Wednesday, I can go easy Thursday and Friday, or if it turned out I’m feeling really great in peak training I can go 90 minutes on Thursday too and just take Friday and Saturday easy.

Saturday can be a shorter, easy run, and strength training as needed. Sunday can be the long run day, with Monday once again being an easy day to facilitate active recovery. Plus, as I previously mentioned, I wanted to avoid heavy fatigue on both weekend days from training, and an easy Saturday will minimize fatigue will providing enough training stimulus to avoid sleep problems.

This should make a 16+ miler on long run days more do-able, easing any midweek fatigue as well as buffering Saturday as an easy day to set it up. Fatigue made the last one real difficult (and admittedly it was an impulse decision to run that last one on Saturday).


So now we enter the long final descent into Vancouver 2022, and it’s time for some consistent serious training. Plus, I now have a 12 day run streak, and like Chicago 2018 I think I’ll try and take it all the way into race day.

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