20 miler in marathon training -- what's your take? (Read 1327 times)

interesting question... I just did 12 (hilly 2029 ascent 1890 descent) at marathon pace... yesterday an my marathon is may 18th.

So, now we're trying for normal? Longest run to date?...little over 32 1/2 hours, more than 20 miles. there was snow. it was pretty. the hallucinations were nice

People like us aren't considered normal... I prefer special

Oh, well, if we are talking taper, I think I tapered too long for my last marathon, but I am not sure. I hit my goal, so in the end it didn't matter. Meh, I didn't peak either, so no biggie there.

That would depend totally upon your fitness level and how appropriate your goal pace is to your fitness level. Personally, I wouldn't do a 16 miler at goal pace a week before hand. Then again, before my last marathon I did a 10.5 miler at tempo pace or a little quicker since I needed to test some new shoes and determine whether they were going to work for the marathon or not. (Mar 30 marathon @tempo was 6:50 pace, Apr 26 10.5 miler @6:37 pace, May 4 marathon at 6:15 pace) So not quite marathon pace but not 16 miles either. I only ran 6:15 pace in the marathon, but my AMP runs in the weeks before that were at 6:00 pace which is what I wanted to run.

I take it AMP runs are Anticipated Marathon Pace runs? What do you attriibute the 6:15 pace (my hat's off to you on that!) versus your AMP of 6? My last marathon was my hometowner and it has some, for me, brutal hills starting at mile 13 and ending around mile 16. So I did this 16 miler (I did several 20milers so 16 I thought should be easy) over the hilly part of the course at my 'AMP' pace, 7:28, to give me some confidence that I could hold the pace during the race. So I did the 16 AMP run on Saturday, then pretty much rested till the race. I ran the race in 3:14:44, goal was 3:15, so I did OK. But for future races, I'm wondering if that was too much - maybe I was worn out from that effort?

I take it AMP runs are Anticipated Marathon Pace runs? What do you attriibute the 6:15 pace (my hat's off to you on that!) versus your AMP of 6?

First, I was pretty scared of the 6 minute pace and went out for what I figured would wind up being around 6:10 average. My training didn't go exactly to plan in the 5 weeks between the marathons and I hadn't gotten in as much 6:00/pace work as I had wanted to really instill it into me. Second, I had somebody to run with for the first 16 miles that was hoping to run that same pace as I was going, so I didn't have any motivation to pick it up until I could tell that I was only hurting his race by giving him somebody to keep pacing off of. (He was a 1st time marathoner looking for 2:40 and ran a 2:55 - still pretty damn good!) Third, I basically had nobody running with me from 16 through the end. I had 3 miles of looking up and gaining on 1st place, but passed him around mile 19 and after that it was just me, a couple cops ahead of me, and a bunch of bikers behind me. Fourth, while I really enjoyed the course and it certainly wasn't as difficult as some of the races that I ran, it did have a few good climbers in there that contributed to a couple of slow miles in there. And yeah, Anticipated Marathon Pace / At Marathon Pace is what AMP stands for.

Yeah. That sucks. Try harder.

Don't worry, I will. But first I need to break the 16 minute barrier in the 5k. After that, I'll probably aim for running my first 50 miler (next Spring?) and then next Autumn aim for mid-2:30s in the marathon. That's the general game plan right now, but isn't set in stone yet.