To the Track or Not, That Is the Question

A current topic of conversation on the marathon boards at Runningtimes.com and Runango.com is the value of speed work intervals at the track. It's almost universally accepted that interval work of some kind, usually 800 to 1600 meter repeats and usually on a standard 400 meter track, is necessary to decrease marathon times. A running club friend of mine swears his huge improvement in marathon times was caused directly by running 10 and 12 x 1600m repeats, a very difficult workout!

Obviously, there are many benefits to track intervals, if they are tough enough to train your body to run faster through fatigue. But the big danger is that all the turns on the track, or even just the sudden stress of constantly taking off at a fast pace will cause injury, especially knee injury. Coach Brian doesn't like track work because of the risk of injury, and I just don't like track work, period. He has started to add strides to the end of the shorter, easy runs, and I like how he has me picking up the pace at the end of my long run, that is incredibly challenging. He likes phone contact, and he is very encouraging. I do think he's experimenting on me with this training method, but I am quite willing to give it a try, after my experience with Coach Joel last summer.

I now think Coach Joel ripped Karen and me off. I get upset when I think back to the "speed work" he gave us, it was really crap, workouts like 4 x 800m, then cool down, or 6 x 400m-- for the marathon distance! I would never recommend him to anyone who wanted a marathon coach. To give him the benefit of the doubt, he was so cautious because he was afraid of us getting injured (which Karen did anyway). But candy-assed workouts don't do the trick in a 26.2 mile race.