Marathon Training Schedule: Deep Water Running

It's probable that at some point during your training, you will be sore, a bit achy, or have some nagging pain that is telling your body to slow down for a few days. While complete rest is often the prescription of choice, another more active alternative is deep water running.

Deep water running means requires a pool of at least chest deep water, and while a flotation belt is helpful, it is not absolutely necessary. Most gyms and YMCA's will have flotation belts that they use for water aerobics class, which are available for member use.

Deep water running can be a great workout to include as part of your marathon training schedule, because it has zero impact, yet it gets your heart rate up, and mimics the motion of running. It's important to concentrate on perceived effort since distance won't be comparable. Use a stopwatch to do intervals of hard/easy efforts. A good workout is 2 minutes hard, 1 minute easy, repeated 5 times. Then rest for a few minutes, and repeat with 5 more sets.

Some people actually use old running shoes in the pool. It may give you a better feel for your running stride, and it will definitely act as additional resistance. Deep water running is great for rehabilitating muscular problems (torn or pulled hamstrings for example), since you can work through a range of motion very slowly, without any quick movements. If you are using it for rehabilitation, gradually increase your range of motion over and make sure you don't feel any twinges of pain in your injured muscle. The purpose of deep water running in this case is to stretch and strengthen your muscle gradually. Any aerobic benefits are a second priority.

I personally like this book for good water workouts:
Water Workouts: A Guide to Fitness, Training, and Performance Enhancement in the Water

Does your Marathon Training Schedule make the most common mistake of all?

Almost all novice marathoners make the same mistake in their marathon training schedule. I made it while training for my first half-ironman triathlon and ended up with a knee injury that prevented me from running for two years. A teammate from my rowing team can't run without pain to this day because of a mistake he made in college while training for a marathon.

The mistake is only natural. In fact, it's part of our value system as Americans. It's the idea that if some is good, more must be better.

Do you like ice cream? Then get a double scoop! Do you like french fries? Then supersize them! You want a large house? How about a mansion?

The one place where "more is better" definitely does not apply is in training. The most common mistake a first-time marathoner makes is overtraining.

When training for a marathon, avoid the urge to increase intensity or mileage too quickly. Increase your mileage by no more than 10% a week.

During my freshman year of college, I made up my mind to run a half-Ironman triathlon. The half-Ironman finishes with a half-marathon. No big deal, except that I had very little running experience at the time. With proper guidance and an intelligent training schedule, I could have been fine, but instead I opted for the "more is better" philosophy.

Having no concept of how difficult it would be to run 13 miles after a 1 mile swim and a 56 mile bike, I decided to push myself really hard in training. I figured that if I could run 20 miles in training, then 13 miles at the end of a triathlon would be no problem. I was in great shape from rowing and biking, but I hadn't been running at all. To up my mileage to 20 miles, starting from ground zero, meant that I would have to increase my mileage nearly 30% a week. So I did.

The shin splints I could handle, but it was the knee injury that really took me out. My knee became so inflamed that it couldn't support my weight anymore. I had to stop running, and even just walking around campus my knee would buckle and give out under me. I didn't run again until the actual race, with I completed only with the aid of painkillers.

That was the summer before my sophomore year of college. It took four years before I was ready to run another race.

When I began training for my first marathon, I resolved not to let the same thing happen. I searched for resources like The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer that would allow me to train smarter. There's no excuse for sidelining yourself for months because you didn't take a few hours to learn how to train correctly.

Another good friend of mine seriously injured himself in college while training for a marathon. Again, he overtrained, with a "more is better" marathon training schedule. One of the fundamentals of marathon training is giving your body enough time to recover between runs. A typical marathon training schedule involves one long run a week and several shorter "recovery runs" in between.

My friend decided to rely more on sheer willpower and determination, rather than thoughtful planning and did a long run every day. He actually lasted a couple months before completely blowing out his knee.

Correct marathon training is intelligent marathon training. It's easy to get excited about your race and want to overtrain. Don't attempt to fly by the seat of your pants or rely on your intuition. There are millions of people who have run marathons already and millions who wanted to, but got injured. Don't reinvent the wheel. Find a resource with a marathon training schedule that lets you run without injury. Personally, I like The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer. It's a fun read and gets great reviews.

Marathon Training Schedule Tips: Dealing with an Injury

Injuring yourself is easiest way to interrupt your marathon training schedule. When you are pushing your body to its limits, as you undoubtedly will be doing during your training, it's very easy to over do it and have a nagging injury stop you in your tracks.
There are many ways to prevent getting injured, such as correcting your running form, buying the right shoes, running on soft(er) surfaces, and not increasing your mileage too quickly.
However, all preventative measures aside, how do you deal with an injury once it has already presented itself? The simple answer is... it depends. Learning to read your own body is a huge part of any endurance sport, and this is no exception. Muscle soreness, while painful, is not debilitating, and a simple procedure of massage, easy stretching and backing off (meaning at least 1-2 days of non-impact exercise, if any exercise at all) should usually do the trick.
Other injuries, that are ligament or bone related, are more serious. Often these injuries present themselves as muscle soreness at first, because your muscles will try to work to correct whatever imbalance or stress that you are placing on your legs. This is the basis for shin splints, which are caused by a swelling of your shin muscles, which in turn pushes on your flat shin bone, causing pain.
Therapeutic massage can aid in recovery, as well as ice and elevation. Using the old R.I.C.E. acronym for Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation is the best way to treat most acute running injuries, in the first few days. Be very cautious about running after taking anti-inflammatory medication, or any pain-relievers. Often they will enable you to mask the pain, but lead to further injury later.
Deep water running is also a great way to train and keep your fitness while injured. I'll cover it in detail in another post.
Of course, the best way to deal with injury is not to get injured in the first place. Keep yourself healthy with a marathon training schedule designed by professionals. I like The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer.

Your marathon training schedule is wrong

What if your marathon training schedule was totally flawed? What if building endurance for months and then picking up speed right before the race was exactly backwards?

Runners World and top marathoners say that's the case.

In the great majority of marathon-training plans, runners try to accomplish this by first building endurance with long runs, and then, as race day approaches, by "sharpening" with shorter, faster intervals.

However, many top runners and coaches think there's a better way. They say the standard method doesn't train you to become highly efficient at burning glycogen at marathon race pace. "The physiology of the marathon is completely different from the physiology of shorter races," says Renato Canova, who coaches many top Kenyans, including former Boston and ING New York City Marathon winner Rodgers Rop. For these shorter events, says Canova, "the goal of training is to improve the power of the human engine" so that you can run faster. Because you're not going to use up your glycogen stores even in a half-marathon, "there's no need to pay attention to fuel consumption," he says.

For the marathon, however, "the goal of training is to reduce the consumption of fuel at race pace," Canova says. When you become more efficient at marathon pace, you burn less glycogen per mile and theoretically have enough to maintain your goal pace to the finish. That's certainly how it has worked out for Rop, along with U.S. champions Alan Culpepper, Scott Larson, and Steve Spence.

So what does this mean for your marathon training schedule? Well, if you're planning to walk the whole race, probably not much. But if you're planning to push yourself a little, don't think you're going to pick up your speed with just a couple weeks of speedwork right before your marathon.

Begin with the shorter, faster workouts. Get comfortable running at a faster pace. Then build your endurance. And make sure you have the right guidance when you're designing your own marathon training schedule. I like The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer.