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MY PERSPECTIVE—BY MARIANNE DICKERSON
In 2009, Running Times magazine wrote, “Marianne Dickerson is a good candidate for the title of the Marathon Medalist That History Forgot.” The only American woman ever to win a World Championship marathon medal, she took the silver in 1983 in 2:31:09. It was only her third marathon. Now retired from road racing, Dickerson prefers competing in Ironman triathlons as a sub-twelve-hour enthusiast.
In 1974, as a fourteen-year-old freshman, I began running as a member of my high school track and cross-country teams. I quickly excelled as a middle-distance runner competing in the half-mile and mile events. The improvement I made during my four years of high school competition was dramatic, primarily driven by high-intensity interval training during the competitive season. I continued my track and cross-country career as a college scholarship athlete training year-round. During the course of my college career, I migrated toward longer distances, competing in races up to ten kilometers. As a result, both my weekly mileage and intensity continued to increase. My training paid off as I achieved collegiate all-American honors in both track and cross-country.
Following graduation in 1983, I decided to train for the marathon with ambitions of making the U.S. Olympic team in 1984. My training intensity and mileage continued to increase, with my typical training week consisting of over 100 miles with two days per week dedicated to intense interval training on the track. My improvement over a six-month period from January 1983 to August 1983 was nothing short of miraculous. I competed in the 1983 Avon Woman’s Marathon Championship in May of 1983, placed third, and qualified for the USA Track & Field team to compete in the first ever World Championships of Track & Field. Ten weeks later, I competed in the World Championships in Helsinki, Finland, and placed second (quite an accomplishment for a twenty-two-year-old newcomer to the sport of marathoning!). I was literally “on top of the world” after signing a contract with one of the leading running shoe companies, thinking this was just the beginning of a promising career as a world-class distance athlete. After all, the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics were right around the corner.
Little did I know that my Cinderella story was about to end. A mere six weeks after the World Championships, I sustained an injury to my lower back. I was out for a long run and noticed sharp pain in my sacroiliac joint. I saw numerous orthopedic doctors over the course of the next twelve months to no avail. After months of getting cortisone injections into my sacroiliac joints, taking anti-inflammatory pills, and getting chiropractic adjustments, I was still unable to run without pain. I did however continue to maintain a high-fitness level through cycling and swimming.
I met Dr. Phil Maffetone in August of 1984 at an event we both appeared at, and the experience was life-changing. Dr. Maffetone told me my problem was due to adrenal stress caused by too much “anaerobic” training. At first I was skeptical, but Dr. Maffetone had me go to the nearest track and run a mile with a heart-rate monitor set to my aerobic threshold. I was shocked to see that I could not run a mile under eleven minutes aerobically: this was unbelievable given the fact that twelve months prior I had run over twenty-six miles consecutively at an average pace per mile of 5:48!
Naturally, I was a bit suspect of Dr. Maffetone’s diagnosis, but at that point I was willing to try anything. Over the next eight weeks, I followed a structured dietary and training plan that he had laid out. The dietary plan basically consisted of incorporating good fats into my diet, eating lots of good protein such as eggs, and avoiding sugar and hydrogenated fats. My training plan consisted of “building an aerobic base” with all workouts (forty-five- to ninety-minute runs) conducted wearing a heart monitor with a focus on keeping my pace to a level where my heart rate would not exceed my aerobic threshold range. Each week, I noticed my pace became quicker as I was able to run faster within my aerobic limits. After eight weeks of base building, he had me enter a 10K race. I was shocked at how easy the race felt. And my finish time was a personal record of 33:02. Miraculous, I thought, given that a mere eight weeks ago, I could barely run a mile under eleven minutes aerobically and now I was running 6.2 miles at an average pace of 5:18 per mile!
I had a few more successful years of running but then decided to return to college and focus on my career. I retired from serious running in 1988, though I’ve continued to be a participant in endurance. Despite working a demanding full-time job as a business consultant that involves extensive travel and long hours, I’ve completed three Ironman triathlons in the last five years. I still follow Dr. Maffetone’s training philosophies religiously in preparation for these events, conducting all my workouts under my aerobic threshold level and have finished all of these Ironmans under twelve hours—and feeling great!
Comparing the first mile of your MAF Test, for example, and running race times as noted above reflects normal aerobic and anaerobic functions. If these relationships are not balanced, it could indicate an imbalance between the aerobic and anaerobic states. Consider the runner whose mile one MAF Test is seven minutes per mile and who races a 10K with an average mile pace of 5:45 per mile; this may actually reflect an imbalance between an overactive anaerobic system and aerobic deficiency. In other words, this runner may be in the early stage of overtraining, where “over-performance” appears at the expense of an unhealthy aerobic system. While these situations may not seem so bad since the athlete is performing relatively well, they most often reflect a significant imbalance associated with early stages of overtraining. When this type of athlete retrains and builds a good aerobic base, he or she very quickly returns to this same level of competition—but with much lower heart rates—and quickly improves beyond it.
The MAF Test is a very important assessment tool for all athletes to monitor the progress of the aerobic base. It also helps indicate potential training and competitive imbalances such as the earliest stage of overtraining, aerobic deficiency, and other common problems that can lead to injury, ill health, and poor performances. Additionally, the MAF Test can provide a prediction of your race performances—the better your MAF Test, the better your racing will be.
