long run compared to marathon pace

He's going well.

Sounds a little quick to me. 7:20/ave might be more appropriate, but getting down into the 6:50/mi range at the end.

dcs wrote:

For those of you running at/under 3hr, what does your long run look like compared to marathon pace in a well executed race setting?

Goal time for the marathon is right around 2:50, long run today was 22 mi, on the marathon course, ave pace was 7:03mi, he said it was a relatively easy run, cruising, not super easy but not hard either.

thoughts?

7 weeks till race day.

Fast but not unreasonable. Some people can kill long runs and can't do well racing, some people just slog through long runs and kill the race. I do my long runs starting slow and progressing, average pace isn't a big concern. How I feel the last few miles going MP or faster can be.

I was hitting my long runs around 7 when I ran 2:50. Was probably a bit fast in hind sight.

Just for a bit more detail.

This is one of my athletes (i'm normally coaching shorter distance runners/triathletes, do this is a bit newer to me).

He is 7 or so weeks out from the goal race fo the race. two marathons under his belt last year (started running two years ago this oct), first was after a few weeks of training in 3:26, the oter was at the end of last season in 2:58 (ave around 55-60mpw for that one).

Has currently be sitting on the higher 70 and mid 80mpw for a while, after a few months sitting around 50.

he is now doing a cruise interval and marathon paced workout per week in addition to the longer run.

The orig goal when I talked to him and started working with him was 6:45 pace. In light of where things are right now, that may change though. He didn't go out and kill this one, I saw him after and he was fine, not sore, etc. I know him well as a friend and know when he is beat up/tired.

He also raced a half two weeks ago, or rather paced a friend through it, in 1:20 at the end of a 84mi week/no taper and didn't bury himself.

dcs wrote:

Just for a bit more detail.

He also raced a half two weeks ago, or rather paced a friend through it, in 1:20 at the end of a 84mi week/no taper and didn't bury himself.

He's dead on. As long as he remains healthy he should be right where he wants to be.

EZ10Miler wrote:

dcs wrote:

Just for a bit more detail.

He also raced a half two weeks ago, or rather paced a friend through it, in 1:20 at the end of a 84mi week/no taper and didn't bury himself.

He's dead on. As long as he remains healthy he should be right where he wants to be.

The half sounds like a 13.1 mile tempo effort and a tempo that long at that pace suggests a marathon finish closer to 2:40 than 2:50.