Congrats Dave! The progression on your marathon times has been very nice. A 12 minute drop from April of this year is really nice. As you know I'm a Hanson fan but the coach I worked with also had me doing negative split and true fast finish long runs. I think they are very helpful in working on preventing fades at the end of marathons.

 

Congrats again. Nicely done.

Thanks! You are of course at a much different level than me, but did you do one or the other of these every week? (I guess I can look at your log.) All my LR's were actually negative split, just because of the time it takes me to warm up & get into a groove, but maybe not as formal as they should be. I would be interested in any useful reference info on how best to structure these kind of runs (short of getting a coach).

 

Thanks! You are of course at a much different level than me, but did you do one or the other of these every week? (I guess I can look at your log.) All my LR's were actually negative split, just because of the time it takes me to warm up & get into a groove, but maybe not as formal as they should be. I would be interested in any useful reference info on how best to structure these kind of runs (short of getting a coach).

I probably do one fast finish about everything third week. This was a tough one if you are doing two other speed workouts per Hansons each week. Negative split the others. They tended to be aggressive negative splits where I would run the first half at a pace that was 70-80 seconds slower than MP and the second half at 30-45 seconds slower than MP.

 

I'm using a McMillan plan and he likes to alternate these with a traditional long run.  I've found them kind of tough.  Like 18 with the last 8 at GMP or faster.  About the best I have managed for this is around GMP-10 secs per mile but his article on this suggests getting closer to tempo pace toward the end.  At what pace do you run the faster portions?

For my fast finish long runs (say 16-20 miles) I won't do more than about 4-5 miles. I'm doing two speed workouts during the week and much more than that during my long run would be too much for me I think. I will do those miles at as close to MP as I can.

 

I'm pretty sure that's what I'll do.  You can do Rock CF with LRB and I in late March if you want too.  That's timed pretty well.

What happened to your plan to pace Heidi at Bayshore?

Funny I was just looking for any March HM's, and the only ones that popped up were that one & Ann Arbor, both on 3/29, 4 weeks before Toledo. Done AA twice and don't like the hills.

Dave, here is the link to Quinn's Avenue of the Giants report.

He used modified Hansons and absolutely effin' blew away his A goal.  Check out his thoughts on % of training done at GMP or faster.

 

While that would scare the living shit out of me, oddly I would not be adverse to trying it.

Try Pfitz, where he has you do 18 w/ 14 (gels )

For some reason I didn't think it would be that hard.  But I was wrong. And it certainly didn't give me any confidence going into my marathon.

The end result will be the race itself, so for now the jury is still out.  The fact that you have done it would have to have helped more than hurt though.