What calculator would this be?
I use the Hansons race equivalency calculator (
link). It's based on the Peter Riegel formula and the Hansons philosophy on pacing.
I am currently training to try and break 4hrs in October but am worried I am not training fast enough. What would your calculator recommend for tempo pace and long run pace?
So a person with a current fitness of a 4 hour marathon would train at the following paces:
A couple things to keep in mind:
1) Make sure that you choose the training paces based on your current fitness and not a goal pace (not necessarily just aimed at you, but I know others will read this advice). You can make this determination using the race equivalency calculator. Your goal is a 4 hour marathon. For example, let's say in May 2017 (so about 2 months ago) you ran a 5k in 25:52 as your PR. But you really really want to break 4 hrs in the marathon in October. My advice is to train at a 25:52 5k, not a 4 hour marathon pace. This means your pace chart would look like the following instead:
The pacing isn't
that different, but it really can matter. Can you survive training at 4 hour marathon pacing when your 5k is 25:52? Sure. But it puts you at a higher risk for injury because you'll be pushing the limits on physiologically based pacing. The better long term gains will be made with consistent training at where you are and not where you want to be. Where you can really start to see the overlap is the Marathon Tempo (9:09) of where you want to be and HM Tempo (9:06) of where you are. If you try and do a 9 mile M Tempo run, then in reality your body would perceive it as a 9 mile HM Tempo run. A 9 mile M Tempo run is reasonable, but a 9 mile HM Tempo run is really pushing it too far to be a useful training run. So you can see why training where you are can really matter in the big picture.
Now during the course of the training you may hit certain benchmarks that can suggest you can move the pacing up because your current fitness has improved. Only then would I consider moving the training paces faster. For my first Hansons cycle in Summer 2015, my HM PR was a 1:49:24 (occurred in April 2015). I chose pacing based on a 1:49 HM (race equivalent of 3:47) and went with 3:45 (because back then the Hansons calculator only went in increments of 5 min until I cracked the code and wrote my own Hansons calculator). I trained at a 3:45 M goal pace. I ran a 1:45 HM about 6 weeks prior to race day (which predicted a 3:41 marathon). On race day, I ran a 3:38. So just because you train at a current fitness slower than your desired goal pace (like 4:08 instead of 4:00), you might very well still run faster if you've put in a good training cycle.
2) In my experience, it's usually not someone not training fast enough, but training too fast. About 80% of your total training should be at long run pace or slower. So for someone whose current fitness is a 4 hour marathon, that would be 80% of the training at a 9:53 min/mile or slower. The remaining 20% of the training would consist of M Tempo and maybe some 5k/10k interval training. This is because the marathon is a 99% aerobic event which means the slow running will build the endurance necessary to complete the race fast and comfortably. Pacing beyond M Tempo can help some, but not nearly as much as the pacing that's much slower.
3) Lastly, for someone with a current fitness of a 4 hour marathon and is a continuous runner (not sure whether you are or not) I recommend capping the long run at 15 miles. I follow and make training plans for others that maxes the long run at 150 minutes (2.5 hrs) for continuous runners.
For a 4 hour marathon that would be 15 miles. Seems too short, but there are a lot of good reasons that I cover in several links as to why it works. Check out all of the links for more information on why these philosophies work (
link).
Hope this helps!