Workout of the Day: 2 x 1 Hour
2 x 1 Hour
Intensity — 1/2 Marathon pace
Recovery — 2 miles walk/jog in 15- 20 minutes
Exertion — 9/10
Context & Details
When many people think of intensity, they think of effort or rate of perceived exertion. I don’t. I think of intensity in terms of power. Such as “how much power does this athlete need to generate to do the exercise?” The more intense an activity means the more power is required. Like any athletic quality, if you aren’t regularly conditioned to it, you’ll perceive it as hard. A lot of runners are not adequately conditioned expressing power, so they find this type of work highly difficult when it really shouldn’t be.
There are three main types of power I use as guides in training:
neuromuscular power
explosive power
aerobic power.
Power is governed primarily by the brain as well as the complimenting bodily systems. Neuromuscular power is the brain/muscular system, explosive power is the brain/fascia (elastic) system, and aerobic power is the brain/cardiovascular system.
The marathon should be treated as a power race by competitive runners, not merely a test of endurance, as it has become popularly known as. But many don’t. There is an idea that long, slow distance runs will improve one’s speed. That might work for the grossly unconditioned novice new to running, but not the seasoned runner. The competitive marathoner trains to bolster their running economy, lactate-threshold velocity, resistance to fatigue, and in this case, aerobic power.
Aerobic power is classically thought of as synonyms with VO2 Max, but I’ve found this to be a limited interpretation. Instead, I think of aerobic power as how much force a runner can express aerobically for a given period of time at a given speed. There is High-End aerobic power (like VO2 Max/3K pace running) and Low-End aerobic power (like marathon/half-marathon pace).
This 2 x 1 hour at half marathon pace is not a great lifter of lactate-threshold velocity, but it is useful to advance the running economy, resistance to fatigue, and low-end aerobic power. Volume is a stressor. And in this case, 2 hours of half marathon tempo is a stressor that closely simulates marathon race conditions but without the wear and tear of running 26.2 miles at your current best effort.
Sometimes people read these workouts and think they are really hard. They are. That’s the point of workouts — work very hard. The backbone of effective training includes regular exposure to very hard work, so the stress of race day is not as difficult. The point is not to complete workouts and post them on social media. The point of training is to stress your current condition, embarrass the body, signal the need for growth, rest to adapt, and repeat. Some sessions you’ll be able to complete, some you will not. That’s OK. What matters is being ready on race day, not showing off an impressive training log online.