When training for a marathon, what benefit is there to long runs of 22, 24 or even 26ish miles?  Galloway recommends this.  Serious discussion...

When training for a marathon, what benefit is there to long runs of 22, 24 or even 26ish miles?  Galloway recommends this.  Serious discussion...

 None. 3 --- 20 miles. Galloway also recommends walking. To tired to find the quotes.

But Mikey, you have 24000 lifetime miles, with well over 2000 a year.  That's not enough?

Bobbie, for a beginning marathoner, it will take many weeks to gradually build up your mileage and long run and allow your body to adapt to them. Although it is tempting to think that you should do a 26-mile long run, few beginners have the base mileage to recover from a training run this long or the biomechanical integrity to do this without risking injury. So longer runs should only be done by experienced marathoners who are running more miles and are willing to put in the extra time and risk to improve their performance.

A 20-mile run at a proper long-run pace (about 80% as fast as your per-mile marathon goal pace), will put you on your feet for about the same length of time it will take you to do the marathon. This is adequate to develop the long-term energy metabolism you need to complete a marathon and to get used to running for the duration of the marathon.

Patti and Warren Finke are RRCA-certified coaches who have helped
runners and walkers for over 25 years. They are the founders and
directors of the Portland Marathon Training Clinic and authors of Marathoning, Start To Finish.
Patti, M.S., is an exercise physiologist and the Chairman of the RRCA
Coaching Committee. Warren is the webmaster of a number of
running-related websites, including rrca.org.
They have both completed over 170 events at the marathon distance or
longer and teach coaching-certification seminars. For more information,
visit teamoregon.com. 

I decied to seach

I'd suspect that it depends how long of a marathon you're interested in. Seems like you do some of the longer ones, sometimes.

As for me, I suspect the main problem with my long runs is that they aren't nearly long enough.

I think, as we've covered ad nauseam on this board, the long run is way over rated.  Most people would do better to worry about all the other aspects of their training (i.e. the other 6 days of the week) than to do longer long runs.  But hey, to each his own.

This.

I've got limited use for anything over 20 miles.  If a 22-miler takes about as much time as racing a marathon, why do I need to run over 22 miles in practice?

Given the training mileage of the average marathoner today, I think they need to justify to me why they think they can even benefit from 22+ milers.

I'm not sure why Galloway recommends it, and I don't have any desire to read his advice.  (I'm pretty unscientific when it comes to training which I'm sure will sneak up on me someday and derail any serious aspirations, but whatever.)  However, our local marathon star does his training based on time with his longest run being as long as he plans to spend running the actual race--2:30 or 2:40, I assume.  At his pace, I'm sure that works out to beyond 20 miles. 

I can only imagine that it is some kind of psychological thing.  I know the 20 mile wall has been built up to scare people (and maybe it should, but I don't know because I've never run a marathon).  Maybe getting people to go beyond that wall breaks some kind of psychological barrier in the mind?

MTA:  I see this has been covered by those above.