Holding marathon pace

Impressive workouts are not the goal of marathon training. Preparing yourself for the marathon while keeping the risk of burnout and injury at reasonable levels is the goal of marathon training.

What do you think going 18 or more miles at marathon pace is going to get you? Do you think you can get that in another less stressful and risk inducing way?

Your golden! Training for my last marathon I did all of my long runs at goal pace for the entire duration (20, 21 and 22 milers). I guess according to the experts thats a bad idea...I ended up running the actual marathon faster then goal pace.

The long run at pace can be a killer be careful.

Running 13 miles or longer at pace is hard on hour body. I’d Figure out a way to get somewhere load but with maybe a little bit less abuse. Maybe do one hour of cross training into a nice 10 miler.

When and how did this long MP run idea make its way into training?

So what did the average sub3 runner do for his long runs in the 70s, 80s and 90s? Where they just steady efforts?

Marathonseptic wrote:

Marathonskeptic wrote:

Well I did 18.. 10@7:11, 8@6:55 lol

Can't wait too see this epic bonk on race day, do come back with the sob story.

Indeed, looking forward to that.

Banner. wrote:

So what did the average sub3 runner do for his long runs in the 70s, 80s and 90s? Where they just steady efforts?

I've always used MP paced long runs but usually no longer than 14 miles at pace (2 - 3 mile warmup). That is with no taper or rest days to prepare for the long run.

Obilisk18 wrote:

No one should be doing 18-20 miles at MP before race day so I don't know how to even answer this question.

It's one thing to weigh in on a side of a debate, but it's another to confidently suggest that there is no other side (when in fact your position is probably the minority). 18-20 mile runs at MP are pretty standard practice these days, for a lot of good reasons. First, if you can't do 18-20 miles at MP, you have no chance of doing 26.2 at MP. I don't care that you're in the middle of a heavy training week. The difference between heavy training and tapered racing isn't as big as people want to believe. Second, if you can do 18-20, but it's so stressful that you're not getting a useful training stimulus, then you're seriously undertrained for the marathon. Of course, if you're undertrained, you're undertrained, and you shouldn't pretend otherwise. But you also shouldn't pretend that your training is ideal when it's actually a severe compromise that's unlikely to help you to your potential.

This is super duper wrong.

800 dude wrote:

18-20 mile runs at MP are pretty standard practice these days, for a lot of good reasons. First, if you can't do 18-20 miles at MP, you have no chance of doing 26.2 at MP.

I don't know anybody who tries to do 18 miles at marathon pace. Nobody. And I have run and trained with Olympians.

I don't think that I have ever disagreed with you more than I disagree with you on this post.

I don't know how common it is for people to go 18 or more miles at marathon pace, but I do not personally know anyone who does that, and I have never done it, and am pretty sure that I could not do it in a training setting, despite being well prepared for all 3 of my marathons. There is simply a huge difference between training and race day.

More importantly, I would ask again: what are people looking to get out of these very long runs at marathon pace?

I think the main reason I do these 20-22 Mile MP long runs is to build confidence that this pace is sustainable over the full marathon distance of 26.2 miles. I do these long runs without taper at the end of 90-120 Mile Training weeks. I am able to continue with my training after one day of easy/recovery pace running usually. I only do these 3-4 of these long runs (once every 2 weeks) in a 18 week marathon training cycle. The rest of my long runs are at a slower pace (MP+30-60 seconds) and shorter (12-18 miles).

I will schedule three marathon paced runs of 13 miles each, with a two mile warm up and a two mile cool down. In all 3 of my marathon cycles, one of those 3 runs was cut short - 6 miles one time, 10 miles the other two times. They will typically be 9 weeks, 6 weeks and 3 weeks out.

Bruin, while I don't want to discount the psychological benefit that is derived from feeling prepared on race day, I would submit to you that at your age, you need recovery more than you need confidence building; especially if you have been though a few marathon cycles to know that your training has otherwise left you prepared, you can get a sense of relative perceived effort from your workouts, and if you can compare your training to prior cycles.

I at least can come nowhere near my race paces during training.

I ran half-marathons in a marathon build-up, with extra miles before to make it 20

But for sustained just holding marathon pace, it was never anything I ever did. I don't think I could hold my marathon pace for 6 miles outside of a race situation.

2:49 marathon off of 1:19 half

Smoove wrote:

More importantly, I would ask again: what are people looking to get out of these very long runs at marathon pace?

They're extending their specific endurance, which is pretty much the objective of training. Anyone can run 13-15 at MP. In fact, pretty much everyone does when they race their marathon. But the overwhelming majority of runners are incapable of running even or negative splits in a marathon because they haven't done enough specific endurance work.

At any given pace, a huge number of physiological parameters are interacting to determine how long you can run. We don't know what all of them are. But we do know that when you "embarrass" your physiology, you trigger protein synthesis that leads to adaptations that make future embarrassments less likely. Running a lot at race pace is the best way to ensure that whatever your limiting factors are, you're moving the needles.

Personally, I'm not sure what the purpose of a 13 mile MP run is, except as a stepping stone to a longer run. If your body is capable of running 26 at MP, then 13 should not cause any significant adaptations. I suppose an exception would be if you go into the run with significant pre-fatigue. But I don't subscribe to the notion that people should be routinely exhausted during marathon training (and I'm even a pretty high mileage guy), so that would have to be something that's carefully built-into the schedule.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying everyone should do 18-20 mile MP runs. Lots of people aren't ready for it. If you hit 90-100 a couple times a year, then you're probably not there. 100 needs to be a down week, and 110-120 needs to feel pretty normal. From what I've seen, however, when someone only peaks at 13 for their MP runs, they either (1) positive split and fall off their pace or (2) if they do hit their goal, it's a goal that was extremely conservative when compared to their credentials over shorter distances (e.g., a 14:50 5k guy who runs 2:29).

To the extent that there is a half marathon available during my marathon cycle, I will always rearrange my training schedule to try to make the half marathon work for getting in my marathon paced run. Of the 5 or 6 or so successful marathon paced runs that I did in my 3 cycles, 3 of them were done in half marathon race setting. I had 2 other guys help pace me on another.

I think to some people, phrases like "extending specific endurance" can get confusing. I understand what you are saying, which is that the goal is to be able to run at goal pace for longer periods.

I would submit to you that there are various ways to get to that point. As you know, I'm a pretty big Daniels advocate. He would suggest that we extend our ability to run at marathon pace by the dressing other specific limiting factors (in particular improving our lactate threshold so that we can stay aerobic at faster and faster paces). I think that taking alternative approaches and not trying to run 18 or 20 miles at marathon pace can achieve the desired goal with less stress on your body.

The limited amount of marathon pace work that I do is intended to achieve two things: 13 miles at marathon pace is long enough to have a lactate threshold effect even though it is significantly slower than lactate threshold pace. The build up is slower, but it is appreciable over the duration of a 13 mile run. Secondly, I want to have some degree of muscle memory (familiarity with what that pace feels like) before I get to race day. Then there is the psychological benefit that Bruin referred to earlier.

Run 20 miles at faster than MP. This will make the marathon seem easier.

My best marathons have come after doing 3-4 25 milers averaging about 30 seconds per mile slower than marathon pace, with miles 18-23 of those runs faster than marathon pace. That helps me get used to running that fast while fatigued, and gets me plenty of beneficial effect.

This is Kipchoge's training log leading up to Berlin last year. He never runs even close to marathon pace on his long runs or long tempos. He averaged 5:20 pace for 40k on his longest, hardest tempo. That is 30+ seconds slower than his marathon pace. Granted, it is at altitude and probably hilly, but that doesn't change the fact that he runs much slower than marathon pace on long runs.

http://www.sweatelite.co/eliud-kipchoge-full-training-log-leading-marathon-world-record-attempt/

I think the faster you are, the more difficult it is to run marathon pace for long distances in workouts. It beats you up to much when you are running 5 minute miles or faster.