20-miler in prep for marathon (Read 1075 times)

I totally subscribe to the long runs being slower...to get your body acclimated to the time on your feet. Absolutely use speedwork and hillwork (specific to target race) for leg turnover and strength. Keep in mind that I am by no means a sub-3 hour marathoner, CAUTION, CAUTION! You can use middle distance runs to help with "tempo", or race pace. For example, if you're scheduled for a 12 miler, do a 1.5-3 mile warm-up, throw in 6-8 miles of race pace and then cool down in the remaining distance. Good luck and keep us posted...really looking to see you break the 3 hour barrier! Lynn B

I was wondering pretty much the same thing last night. If I am doing my long runs slower than my goal pace run how it is that for the marathon I will run this long run at my goal pace? It's doesn't really seem logical to me. But of course I only realise this one month before my actual marathon...so now what? My plan: Running 20 tomorrow, friend is cycling it with me, keeping track of split times, how I feel, etc. I will see how I do and change my marathon goal accordingly. I'll try Lynn B's suggestion next weekend...that makes sense! thx.

Hello all However, at one point this book suggests doing those 20 mile training runs in the same TOTAL time as my goal marathon time (that would be 20 miles in approx 3 hours, or 9 min/mile). The rationale given for this is that it is good to get your body used to running for the total duration of time it will take you for the marathon... an interesting idea... However, it seems to me that when running 3 hours at 9 min/mile you will use very different posture/muscles than running for 3 hours (or a shorter duration) at 7:30 min/mile. So does this approach makes sense? (The counter-argument to this may be that you use speedwork to build muscle and use long runs to build bone-strength?)

I'm a big fan of the long run and do believe that it is beneficial to go really long and really slow. The main reasons are to teach your body to convert fat stores into energy, which is essential for the marathon especially in that last 10k when all your glycogen stores are depleted. I'm not an expert on this but I've read a lot on the benefits of the long run. Here is a link that I think explains it pretty well: http://magstraining.tripod.com/training.html#The_Long_Run:

I'm a big fan of the long run and do believe that it is beneficial to go really long and really slow. The main reasons are to teach your body to convert fat stores into energy, which is essential for the marathon especially in that last 10k when all your glycogen stores are depleted. I'm not an expert on this but I've read a lot on the benefits of the long run. Here is a link that I think explains it pretty well: http://magstraining.tripod.com/training.html#The_Long_Run:

Thanks mbotti.. that's a great link. There's a lot of good information in there.

I know there is a lot written about not going much over 20-21 miles in prep for a marathon, BUT, I suggest a long training run (at least one) of 26 miles if you are preparing for your FIRST marathon. Reasoning here is to mentally check off that you know you CAN run the distance and you know more about what to expect at mile 22,23, etc. Now, for the longer distances, there are lots of different schools of thought. The longer the run, the less likely you are to run the actual distance of the target race for a long training run. For my first 50 miler, I probably didn't run over 50k (31 miles) in any one run, but rather broke the distance up into long back-to-back runs of say 20/15, both slow long runs on back-to-back days. I would push this distance up to 30/15 in prep for the 50 miler. I took a totally different approach for the 100 miler. The longest single run I did was 62 miles and that was in a race. The summer of 2005, I decided to move up to the 100k distance (62 miles), and targeted a "destination" race in Virginia called the Great Eastern Endurance Run (GEER 100k). I was able to successfully finish that in September, 2005, then thought running an ultra a month sounded like a good idea, so I did a 50K race in October, a 50 miler in November and was going to do another 50 miler in December, but had to skip it due to conflicts at the last minute. In January, 2006, I did another 100K race and decided almost immediately to enter a 100 miler in February. So basically, I raced my way up the ladder to the 100. Keep in mind when I say race, I AIN'T RUNNIN' NO 3:10 MARATHON PACE! I love to run, so I train to be able to jump into a 50K or 50 miler without much notice...a hunnerd is another story! Take care and train to stay injury free so you can make the race! Lynn B

"if anyone else has $0.02, ante up!" That has me wondering... If everybody throws in their $.02...but it's a "penny for your thoughts" ...somebody's got to be making some money on this deal... Eric??? Can you tell I'm tapering for my 50 mile race this weekend??? Lynn B

Lynn: which 50 miler is this?

It is the Ouachita (pronounced wa-she-taw) Trail 50 miler held just outside of Little Rock, AR. It is actually run on the Ouachita Trail near the point of origin in Maumelle. The trail runs southwesterly from just west of Little Rock over into Oklahoma. Some pretty good single track! Only issue is the turkey hunters also in the woods Lynn B