My First Success as a Coach-Winner of Atlanta Marathon

My first success as a coach came yesterday at the 2009 Atlanta Marathon, when Nathan Tew ran 2:34:24 winning and beating second place by close to 6 minutes. Nathan quit the Georgia Tech cross country team because he was burned out at the time, but after about 10 days off he started running again. He didn't lose much fitness over those 10 days, as he rides bikes all the time-mountain biking, cross country biking, biking on the road and doing 360's at skate parks on his bmx. After his second or third day back running we had a conversation that went like this:
Nathan: "What if you trained me to run the Atlanta Marathon?"
Me: "I am 90% confident that if you stayed healthy through the training I would give you that you would win."

A couple days later he told me to write up a schedule for him. He was going to run the Atlanta Marathon. Now let me explain why I was 90% confident he would win the Atlanta Marathon if he stayed healthy through the training. The average winning time is around 6 minutes a mile. I knew his talent level, how he is a one of the few pure distance runners-a guy that is so efficient that he just gets better as the distance increases. Out of all the teammates I have ever have he is the only one to convert perfectly as the distance goes up. This was why I was so confident. I was not speaking out of my ass. I believed I could get him to run faster than 6-minute miles.

I had 9 weeks to get him to the line ready to win the Atlanta Marathon. I had a schedule down for all the workouts over those 9 weeks. But as any good coach will tell you, you can't plan ahead for 9 weeks. You have to come up with a plan and adjust that plan according to how your athlete is doing. At first Nathan was nailing workouts, so I made the schedule more challenging, knowing that he would be able to handle the workload. Then there came a point where he could not handle when I dropped the rest on the interval days so I just kept it at equal rest. The point of the interval days was just to make marathon pace more comfortable.

Here are the workouts that Nathan completed before the Atlanta Marathon:

Week One of Workouts:
-12 mile long run at Kennesaw

Week 2
-3 mile tempo on lake loop in 5:35's
-14 mile long run @ Kennesaw(ran the final 11 miles @ 5:54 pace)

Week 3
-4 x 800 in 2:28-2:29 w/ 2.5' rest
-4 mile tempo on lake loop in 5:30's
-16 mile long run @ Kennesaw(final 13 miles in 6:03 pace)

Week 4
-6 x 800 w/ equal time recovery in 2:27-2:28
-5 mile tempo on lake loop in 5:30's
-18 mile long run at Kennesaw(final 15 miles 6:10 pace)

Week 5
-4 x 1200 on oval at piedmont park(ran 3:47-3:344-3:51-3:59 w/ 2' rest)*this workout showed me that i needed to give him equal time recovery. I really wanted him to be running 5:00 pace during these intervals rather than dying and falling off 5:00 pace.
-6 mile tempo on lake loop: 32:53
-20 mile long run at Kennesaw (final 17 miles in ~6:10 pace): ran 3 mile warmup, 16 mile loop, and a mile up the mountain

Week 6
-3 x mile at the river with 5' rest: 4:58-4:52-4:56
-8 mile tempo on lake loop: 5:33's
-23 mile long run at Kennesaw (16 mile loop w/ additional 7 mile loop)-ran final 20 miles in ~6:10 pace

Week 7
-6 x 800 on oval with equal rest: 2:27's
-10 mile tempo on lake loop: 5:24's Comfortably
-20 mile long run at Kennesaw(final 17 miles at ~6:10 pace)

Week 8
-18-mile long run at Kennesaw(final 15 miles ~6:10 pace)

Week 9
-8-mile tempo on lake loop: 5:25's (felt easy)
-16 mile long run at Kennesaw real easy~7:15 pace

Week 10
-Monday: 10 mile workout which consisted of 4 miles on lake loop at goal marathon pace~5:48's
-Tuesday: easy 6
-wednesday: day off(get that glycogen stored up)
-Thursday: 2:34:24 Atlanta Marathon

So as you can see from Nathan's training. he put in some serious work, but I know of a lot of runners that put in some legitimate workouts. What seperates Nathan from other runners that put in serious workouts is what Nathan does the other 22 hours of the day, what Nathan does on easy days, what Nathan would eat, and when Nathan would sleep.

First let me talk about what Nathan ate. He worked on increasing the number of carbohydrates he would eat at meals. this gave him fuel for his training, and taught his body how to store higher amounts of glycogen. Too many runners eat too much fats and proteins. They never give their body a chance to recover because they never replenish their carbohydrates.

Then there was how Nathan ran his easy days. We had him run them as slow as he needed. Easy days are just that. They are supposed to be EASY! You run them as slow and as comfortable as you need for two reasons. First, it allows you to recover for your next workout and it takes nothing out of you for the next workout. Second, running slowly allows you to burn less carbohydrates and more fats, so that you have the much needed carbohydrates(glycogen) for your next workout.

Sleep is critical to success. Nathan would sleep at least 8 hours a night during the school week and more on the weekends. The latest Nathan ever stayed up was 1:00 a.m. and that was rare.

The final key and probably the most important was that Nathan never drank alcohol once during the 9 weeks leading up to the marathon. He took care of his body.

It was a real honor coaching Nathan. His dedication to his goal of winning the Atlanta Marathon was something to admire. Seeing him run the race and drop the other two runners that were with him by mile 13 showed his confidence in his abilities. He ran physically strong, mentally tough, and supremely confident.