See how former London Marathon winner Mike Gratton advises a cluster of RW members about moving their training to the next level
TRAINING GENERAL • Do I need to take an "easy week" when my average mileage isn’t that high? • Should you try and break through ‘the wall’ in training? • Is it just the cold weather, or am I getting fitter? • How do I overcome sluggishness at the beginning of my long runs? • What exactly causes a reduction in resting heart rate? • Do I need a rest? • Is this tiredness a result of working hard, or over-doing it? • How hard does hard training need to be? • Routines and periodisation • Why train twice a day? • Is it better to train twice a day or run further once a day? • I take ages to recover - how can I improve? • How can I get faster with minimal speedwork? • What time of day should I run/twice-a-day runs? • Multiple runs and time management • Can I train for a 10K in summer then run a fast marathon? • Form/running style • How do you run over 100 miles a week?
TRAINING COMPONENTS • Should I skip the "easy week" if I’m still feeling strong after a hard block of training? • I can’t get my legs to go fast enough in speed work • Should I squeeze in some more speed work? • How long should my longest run be? • Threshold runs - how fast? • Pyramids/mixed-distance speedwork • How often would you include a 'long run' in your training? • Hills • Cross-training
MARATHONING • When to move on from base training in a marathon build-up? • How Janice Moorekite jumped from 3:10 to 2:48 • I've run 3:12 - how long should I wait to run sub-3? • How often to race in marathon training? • I missed 2:45 in spring. how can I hit it in autumn? • Female, high-mileage: advice on getting from 3:26 to sub-3:15 marathon
NUTRITION • What do elites drink in a marathon? • Nutrition: carbo-depletion/carbo-loading
MISC • Should I race a 5K and a half in the same week? • Can low expectations lead to a better performance on race day? • Should I try to change my running style? • Elite hard training and the will to succeed • Hard training, the old days, and full-time work • 'Whatever happened to...' • On hindsight
If you want to see how ordinary runners can move their training to its next level, this section is for you. You'll probably have a number of races under your belt, are ready to train five or more times a week - and right now, are possibly stuck on a plateau.
Last spring, 1983 London Marathon winner Mike Gratton (right) got chatting on an RW forum thread about just that, and forumites aplenty soon asked him for training advice. (See the Q&A panel to the right for the highlights of that thread.)
He figured the best way to help was to coach three real forum readers live on the forums, so that everyone could see.
His advice to them will work for you, too - and you're welcome to join the forum threads and ask for clarification if you don't understand something Mike says. The aim: to help people move to their next level.
(Small print: Mike's doing this because he loves running. He has a full-time job running a sports-tour company, so please don't be upset if he can't answer something you ask.)
Former London marathon winner Mike Gratton has been a serious runner from the age of 13. He won an English Schools track title at 5000m. At college, despite the impact of beer, three years of running 1500m with Steve Ovett at Brighton & Hove AC brought some success on the track.
Mike's track racing was halted in 1977 when he was run down by a fork lift truck (fact!). Six months later, he returned as a road runner, running his first marathon at Essone, near Paris in 1979. There, he finished 11th in 2:21:22. In 1981 he was third in the AAA Marathon (2:16:40), then third in London (2:12:30) and third in the 1982 Commonwealth Games (2.12.06) before winning London in 1983 with a PB of 2:09:43.
Mike has been organising training camps and tours to overseas races for 20 years. You can see his company website at www.209events.com.
