I met the wanderers for a long run in the wissahickon this morning. Getting to the start at 8:00 meant running from my house at 7:45. Rain was in the forecast and with the rainy weather of late I kept waiting for it to come but it just never materialized. In, fact it was not only nice all morning but all day.

We started easy on a hilly route along the western side of the park. On the way we stopped at a new to me water fountain in the park. This is like finding gold, especially at the beginning of the summer. I am sure I'll hit this thing many times. I needed it this morning, although it was nice the humidity was high. I was drenched after an hour but felt great. 1 hour and 33 minutes for an unknown distance.

I've continued poking around the internet for solutions to my declining marathon times over the last two years. I was listening to a Podcast by marathon guru John Ellis and he was discussing base training. That 8-16 week period that many runners do over the winter to just run slow and build an aerobic base. The key is slow on almost every run. No tempo runs needed, no track workouts and no hills. In fact these hard workouts take away from the point of base training. Which is to build your aerobic system, grow new capillaries, make mitochondria and get stronger. You come back with a bigger and stronger engine so you are ready for speed work as you approach your goal race.

As John was describing all of this I was thinking I haven't done that type of training in a loooong while. It's been three to four years since I've made a concerted effort to run slow on every run for a couple months. It sticks out in my head because in the spring following this winter of slow running I killed my Broad Street PR and had a great spring of running. I remember being amazed at being able to run so fast (relatively) off of such slow running.

John went on to describe a friend who trained for Boston in a very similar fashion to the way I trained for the previous marathon and he crashed and burned at mile 18. Hmm sounds familiar. He also stated that if you can run much faster in shorter races than the predictors indicate for the marathon than you are most likely lacking in this type of training. My 5 mile race time several weeks before the marathon indicated a 2:54 marathon, I'll remind you all I ran a 3:13 or 3:11 when you adjust for the fact that I finished the half-marathon and the full marathon.

Now I haven't been running all speedwork in training, that is obvious from my 8:30 pace morning runs over the winter but I did have 2-3 faster workouts every week and I wasn't running a ton of miles. This type of training will help you progress to a point but then it only provides diminishing returns. I noticed this in my training. The track workouts in December went much better and faster than those in February.

I'm walking the dog, listening to this guy and everything is clicking in my head. It seems I have a reason for the poor races of late. I also have a plan of action for the next marathon, go slow to go fast, at least for an extended block of time before training fast. I know the idea for this type of training isn't a revelation, its been practiced and shown to be effective for years and years. Maybe I just need to get smacked in the face with it to realize my error.