Saturday, January 23, 2010

Gotcher's Marathon Breakthrough

A lot of it was the same, but one thing that really stuck out was the marathon-specific tempos that we were doing. We ran anywhere from 15- to 18-milers out on a road just going one way. That I think helps simulate what you can expect from a marathon, both in the terrain and how you feel.

How often were you doing those tempo workouts that you indicated were so important for your marathon? And when relative to your taper?

I was doing them about every other week. I would do a long tempo one week and then a long run the next week. The last tempo workout I did was about two weeks before the race and that was a 15-mile workout. I got some really nice tempos and some really solid long runs too.
-Brett Gotcher, who ran 2:10:35 at Houston last weekend

-Anatomy of a Breakthrough


MY COMMENT: Consistent high weekly mileage, altitude, the occasional tempo run, and a little track work all added up for Brett. He says he was training at 10,000 feet, much higher and more difficult than at the 7,000 foot threshold considered ideal by most experts.

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