DISTANCE TRAINING

By Paul Slovic

      On Feb 24, 1973, 541 runners started the Trail's End marathon at Seaside, Ore.  In the preceding 54 days since the first of the year, this group had run more than 100,000 miles in preparation for the event.  The runners' training programs were as varied as their backgrounds and abilities.  Whereas some had run close to 900 miles during this time, averaging 17 per day, others had done virtually no training.

    The casual, unprepared runner is atypical, however.  Most marathon runners are quite concerned, if not obsessed with training.   Although only a few of them entertain visions of finishing high in the standings, almost all have personal goals: to achieve a certain time, or perhaps just "finish the distance."  Training proceeds with these goals in mind.

    The amazing thing about this tremendous expenditure of time and effort is that most of it fashioned without the benefit of factual evidence.  Intuition and hearsay, mixed with imitation and eventually modified by personal and sometimes painful experience, serve to shape the runner's program.

    This study is a first step in the examination of the relationship between a runner's training program and his performance in the marathon.  It reports the results of runners at Seaside, in which their answers to questions about their training were systematically related to their intermediate and final times in the run.

    The Trail's End race is a particularly attractive setting for such a study for several reasons:  It draws one of the largest fields of participants in the US, and the runners cover the entire range of experience and ability, from national and international class to novice.

    The survey questionnaire was enclosed with the packet of materials distributed to each runner on the morning of the race.  Questionnaires were returned at the post-race dinner and by mail.  Out of 441 finishers, 178 men and six women returned the questionnaires.  (There were not enough women respondents to warrant analyzing their replies separately, and their results were combined with those of the men.  There were only a few returns from non-finishers and they were not analyzed.)

    The survey questions provided over two dozen items of information about each runner.  Table One presents some basic descriptive statistics on each of these items for the 184 individuals.  Included are maximum and minimum values in the group, the average value, the median, and the 25th and 75th percentile values (denoted P-25 and P-75).

Table 1:  Descriptive Statistics Of Entire Sample     One hundred eighty-four runners responded---178 men and six women.  Only 148 of them reported a fastest mile time.  Note that "ponderal index" is height in inches  divided by cube root of weight, and is a measure of leanness (higher the value, leaner the individual).  All training information, plus injury/illness statistics, apply to the January/February period.   Minimum P-25 Median Average P-75 Max Final Time 2:20 2:57 3:24 3:28 4:03 5:20 Age 13 20 28 30 40 65 Height 4'10" 5'8" 5'10" 5'10" 6'0" 6'4" Weight (pounds) 74 140 148 149 160 209 Ponderal Index 12.0 12.9 13.1 13.2 14.1 14.5 Years Running 0 2 4 5 7 24 Prior Completed Marathons 0 0 1.2 2.5 3.0 24 Miles Run (January) 0 100 170 181 237 510 Miles Run (February) 9 100 150 160 200 420 Miles Run (Jan. + Feb.) 9 215 328 340 433 890 Miles Run (week prior to race) 0 24 36 37 48 120 Maximum miles (one week) 9 45 62 63 77 133 Weeks since last Maximum Week 1 2 2.5 2.7 4 7 Longest Training Run 3 14 20 18 21 40 Runs Over 20 Miles 0 0 .9 1.7 2 10 Days Trained Per Week 0 5 6 6 7 7 Fastest Mile (past year) 7:00 5:40 5:07 5:16 4:48 4:12   Illness or injury 47% Having A Coach 8% Flu 19% Self-coached 74% Foot or leg injury 24% Coached & Self-Coached 18% First Marathon 35% On H.S. or College Team 56%

 

    Each of the 184 respondents was assigned to one of eight categories, according to his final time at Seaside.  The implications:

·         Ponderal Index:  Runners who finished under 3 1/2 hours were markedly leaner than those who finished after them.  Those who finished above 4 3/4 hours had particularly low values on the ponderal index.  The average heights in each of the eight groups were quite similar (three-fourth-inch range from the shortest to the tallest average), but average weights varied from 137.4 pounds in the 3:01-3:15 category to 163.8 pounds in the slowest category.

·         Prior Completed Marathons:  The fastest runners had considerably more experience marathoning than did the slower runners.  Fewer than 20% of those under three hours had not completed a marathon before, whereas over 90% of those in the slowest category had no prior completions.  (The average high in the 3:31-3:45 category is primarily due to one runner who had completed 24 marathons.)

·         Miles Run:  As one would expect, the fastest runners logged considerably more miles than the slower runners, regardless whether the period under consideration was a month, a week, or a single run.  The slower runners ran a higher percentage of their total miles in February and had the maximum mileage week closer to the marathon than did the faster runners.  Both of these results are indicative of a relatively late start in the training programs of the slower runners.

·         Training Days Per Week:  There is no surprise here.  The faster runners, who were covering much more ground in training, were also taking more training days to do it.

·         High School Or College Experience:  Eighty-five percent of the runners who finished under 2:45 had experience on a college or high school track team.  The percentages are lower for the other groups, and there is no systematic change from one time category to the next as final time increases.  About half of the runners over 2:45 had running experience in high school or college.

·         Fastest Mile:  It's also no surprise that the fastest marathon-runners had the fastest mile times in the past year.  Of interest, however, is the generally fast level of times in all categories, and the fact that the average mile times in the two slowest categories were as fast as those in the 3:46-4:00 group.

·         Illness and Injury:  Of particular interest is the finding that the percentage who reported that their training was interrupted by illness or injury did not differ systematically  across the time categories.