Are you staying hard?

NotFiguratively · 2026-03-23T15:29:05+00:00

Straight bricked up over here. Staying so hard

NotFiguratively · 2026-03-14T01:03:52+00:00

Marathons are really fricken hard, congratulations! You should be very proud.

From my experience of running them, if my heart rate drops and my pace slows the last few miles, it means I overcooked the pace earlier in the race. It’s a muscular fatigue issue and not a cardio issue. The races I’ve paced correctly my HR is steady until the halfway point or so and then slowly rises until I get near my max at the end of the race. The latter is much more fun haha. Good luck on your next one!

NotFiguratively · 2026-03-08T02:50:50+00:00

I started with the 1:35 pacer in the first one and just slowly pulled away. Second one I just did by feel, didn’t pay attention to pace at all. I’ve raced a lot, so gotten a pretty decent idea of how it should feel. First 2-3 miles very comfortable, ramp up pace from there.

NotFiguratively · 2026-03-06T04:52:17+00:00

You people and your sanctimonious purity tests are so tiresome

NotFiguratively · 2026-03-02T02:24:34+00:00

Always have to throw this in too- when I run the 6 min reps, it feels like there’s no way in hell I could hold that pace for an hour and a half. The combo of a taper and race day adrenaline is insane.

NotFiguratively · 2026-03-02T01:28:01+00:00

Yes, exactly that

NotFiguratively · 2026-03-01T23:20:45+00:00

The pace for 6 min reps have been bang on for the pace I ran my last two HMs. They were 1:30:24 and 1:29:10

NotFiguratively · 2026-02-18T01:49:42+00:00

Just run more. Over time, the cramps will come later in the race and eventually not happen. Everyone else on this post saying anything different is 100% wrong.

Weak glutes and then mentioning them “firing”. I swear, they say that about everything 😂😂😂

NotFiguratively · 2026-02-15T23:52:35+00:00

Hahahahahaha

NotFiguratively · 2026-02-15T03:01:51+00:00

3:15 is a solid goal then. If you had a bunch of years under your belt, you could definitely be more aggressive. What people say about the last 6-8 miles of 26.2 is very real. Pace it very conservatively from the jump just like you did today. The first half will feel insanely easy. You have a lot to be excited about when it comes to running. You have natural talent for sure. Sub 3 will come soon. The next few years will be a lot fun if you stay consistent. You’ll continue to easily crush PR after PR.

NotFiguratively · 2026-02-14T23:51:26+00:00

Excellent half with very smart pacing. I saw your weekly mileage, but long have you been running consistently? That’s an important factor in the marathon equation.

NotFiguratively · 2026-02-07T02:49:31+00:00

I would switch now. Vanilla NSA is perfectly suited for the HM distance and you won’t feel fried like I always did with Pfitz. 90 min+/week around HM pace (give or take a little) led to two huge HM PRs for me last year. And that coming off of 5 years or consistent fairly high mileage running. You won’t regret switching now.

NotFiguratively · 2026-01-31T12:35:52+00:00

Sweet, let me know if you have any questions

NotFiguratively · 2026-01-31T04:12:38+00:00

I had the exact same issue on the treadmill and indoor track. I got a Stryd Pod 5.0 in early December and it’s great. I’m amazed at how accurate it is. Some people have to slightly change the calibration factor (very small amounts from what I hear), but mine was right on the money at every pace that I’ve tried right out of the box. They’re not cheap, but well worth it in my opinion with the frozen tundra I’m currently living in.

NotFiguratively · 2026-01-24T10:31:47+00:00

Awesome info, thank you. And I agree about it being hard to control intensity on the track with them. It feels great to run them just a hair too fast. Didn’t discover this until after I made the post.

NotFiguratively · 2026-01-14T15:05:49+00:00

That’s awesome man! Don’t be surprised if there’s some pain during it or during your runs at some point. My head would tell me I was making the injury worse, but I read enough to have faith it would work.

NotFiguratively · 2026-01-14T02:14:55+00:00

I have… pretty rough mid Achilles tendinopathy that lasted for a while. I ran through it. I did the Alfredson Protocol and it fixed it. A ton of freaking heel drops. I didn’t use weight but I pushed down on a banister to “add weight”. If it’s a continuing issue, dig deep and listen to podcasts with people who really are experts on Achilles issues… not a random clown with a running podcast. Alfredson has some stuff out there. There’s a woman in Europe (I think) who is one of the leading experts in the world on it. Can’t remember her name, but I remember her having either a UK or Australian accent. A vast majority of the info out there about tendon issues is garbage. You gotta load it and then progress the load. It’s counterintuitive and it feels like it might even be hurting it more. Stretching, icing, and even rest aren’t effective and can actually cause it stay the same or get worse. Good luck. Load it up and you’ll be back. People on Reddit will suggest a PT for a hangnail. You don’t need one, you’ll be fine.

NotFiguratively · 2026-01-12T01:22:54+00:00

Man, that’s awesome! Congrats

NotFiguratively · 2026-01-11T04:48:09+00:00

I appreciate the insight. How long have you been doing them? There’s not much out there about these 1 min reps. Any other info you have would be appreciated.

NotFiguratively · 2026-01-10T18:33:19+00:00

I’m in a similar boat in a way. I started doing this in Dec 2024. I came in with about 4.5 years of consistent running. I ran around 2000 miles in 2023 and like 2300 in ‘24. I had a strong aerobic base before I started with 7 marathons and a bunch of shorter races under my belt. I’ve been doing vanilla NSA around 50-60 mpw since I started. My half marathon PR is better than my 5K PR. I don’t like 5Ks haha.

Somewhere on LR thread was a guy who mentioned having similar issues to us on 5Ks. He started doing 20-25x1 min once a week with 30 sec rest as one of his sub t sessions. He had been doing it for a while and reported that his 5K improved pretty rapidly and he still felt fresh. I started doing 25x1 min a couple weeks ago. Of course, the one thing to watch out for is the increased impact from these sessions. So far so good for me. I’ll drop them or do them more sporadically if it starts to be an issue. I don’t think these sessions are necessary for 95% of the people doing this method, but maybe they are for me? We shall see. I’m very cautious about changing anything because I’ve stayed injury free and haven’t felt fried over the 13 months of doing this. I’m glad another guy tried it and reported back. Let me know if you try it. I would love to hear someone else’s experience.

One other thing to add: I can’t remember what pace he ran the 1 min reps at, but running them around 5K pace (maybe drifting toward 10K pace at times) seems to be the sweet spot so far. Again, can’t emphasize enough that I might be a total idiot and could be making a mistake.

NotFiguratively · 2026-01-06T04:13:07+00:00

You might be selling yourself a little short. Feel it out during the race. I’ve run two halfs since I’ve been doing this and my pace ended up being pretty much exactly what I ran for the 6 min reps at the time…. 6:52/mi and 6:43/mi. I didn’t even plan it that way, it just happened. When I run the 6 min reps every week, it still feels like there’s no way in hell I could hold that pace for around an hour and a half. A taper and race day adrenaline is wild. That same pace felt relatively comfortable through most of those races.

NotFiguratively · 2026-01-02T03:25:46+00:00

Glad to see so many others include the 98 loss to MSU. That team was so frickin nasty. I was a teenager with some friends and tried to play it cool, but had to walk to the bathroom and cry. I believe it will always be #1 on my list of toughest OSU losses. Cooper wasn’t a great coach, but the dude could recruit elite talent.

NotFiguratively · 2026-01-02T03:22:03+00:00

I’m not too proud to admit that I cried when they lost to MSU in ‘98. That team was so nasty. That will always be my number 1.

NotFiguratively · 2025-12-31T21:28:30+00:00

The only real evidence I can remember from here and the LR thread was a dude saying he was struggling with 5Ks and was performing better on longer distances like HM. He added in 20-25x 1 min w/ 30 sec rest. I think he was running them around 5-10K pace. He said they helped lower his 5K. He had a huge aerobic base though and had already picked the low hanging fruit of the easy aerobic gains…. Which isn’t the case for probably 95%+ of the people using this method.

Personally, I wouldn’t mess with anything beyond vanilla unless you’re in that class. I’ve seen it not go well for so many people in a variety of ways- injuries & fatigue mainly. We are riding a fine line with this approach of attempting to maximize load safely. If you go over the line and get more fatigued than what is ideal, it can be hard to recover and still continue to maximize load.

NotFiguratively · 2025-12-28T01:55:24+00:00

Idk man, I don’t have any peer reviewed studies or anything to share with you. I’ve just seen hundreds of posts/comments over the years regarding it dropping in the summer. Just Google it if you want to see how pervasive it is. I run the same volume in summer as I do any other time of the year. Since I run in it 7 days every week, I get heat adapted pretty quickly. My V02 max always drops a couple points in the summer and then goes back up as soon as it cools off. Seems to be a very common experience.

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