I believe that 2 or 3 long runs should last as long time wise as it will take you to run the full marathon. I believe this to be very much needed for the first marathon and not really so important for the following marathons. For the first marathon, you should be prepared to run for a long time. I don't recall how long my longest run was before my first marathon, but I think it might have been greater than 5 hours. I was a sub-5 hour finisher my first try and I was mentally prepared for that situation. Now, after you have done the distance once, maybe the time issue is not so important, but that first time is a bitch. Now, after you try one marathon to finish, we can worry about how to fix tired legs late in a race. Oh, and this assumes that the person in question is like I was for my first marathon, not out to win, not even very good, just there to get it done and see if it can be done by someone like myself at the time.

Not how far out should the last of these longest runs be? That one totally depends on how long you have been running and how much recovery time is needed. If you never stopped running after HS/college the answer will be much different than someone like me who took nearly a decade off from running competitively. The answer will also differ if you are a seasonal or single goal runner bound to hit a goal and then take weeks or even months off at a time.

Meh. Did that answer anything or just add to the confusion?

zz, you could complete a marathon right now without hurting yourself too badly. The rest of this is just convincing yourself you can.

5:26:39 Wow. There we go, my longest long run ever. Time wise anyway. How far? 20.2 miles, on 9/17/2006.


Yeah, I'm crazy.

Interesting stuff.

I know tapering more than 7-10 days does nothing for me. I'm very curious about the rest of their ideas. I think I'll try this in the fall, with a few minor modifications. Thanks, Bell.

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

So, now we're trying for normal?

Longest run to date?...little over 32 1/2 hours, more than 20 miles.

A 3 week taper won't cause you to lose much in the way of fitness as long as you do it properly. If you cut your mileage in half each week then that won't help, but if you run 90% the first week, 80% the second week, and then let yourself get some good rest the last week (with a good tempo workout each week including one 6-7 days before the marathon) then you should be fine.