Holding marathon pace

I will chime in (not trying to pile on) with respect to the "The desired goal IS stress on the body." comment, because I think it is an important point with respect to all training.

Not all stress is created equal, and more stress is not always better. The desired goal of training is not to stress the body, but to stress the body as much as needed to prepare your properly to achieve your goal. 10 x 1200 at 5k pace with 3:00 rest stresses your body a lot more than 5 x 1200 at 5k pace with 3:00 rest, but which of those would you prefer to see an athlete perform 3 to 6 weeks out from a 5k race day (assume 70-80 miles a week of training)? Do the additional 5 intervals leave that athlete more or less likely to perform well on race day? I would submit that whether you look at the one workout in isolation, whether you look at only the one workout and the increased risk of injury, or whether you look at the workout, the increased risk of injury and the impact of this workout on the ability to perform other workouts during the training cycle, the conclusion you would reach is that the additional reps do not add enough additional value to warrant doing them.

To add to this discussion, I’m going to agree with one of the posters who said that we (Americans) need to go back to the kind of training that worked well for our guys in the 70s and 80s. Personally, I think Canova is the modern Lydiard and on the plus side more people are willing to lay aside their biases to listen to Canova rather than to Lydiard. We need more high volume, steady running.

Not trying to turn it into anything universal, just making a probabilistic statement, which I'm mostly inferring from others' experiences. I didn't mean you specifically, but anyone reading this post--and "completely ruined" was too strong. But I think the majority of runners could not do 20 at their actual marathon pace (assuming that run is around 2 hours) without it putting a big dent in their training for awhile, and don't think it advisable for most; not disputing it might work for some, yourself included.

If someone is converting a recent 5k or 10k and has never run a marathon, I'll agree it's probably too optimistic. But I also have seen a fair number of recent college grads get intimidated by the distance and set their sights too low.

Looking back at my log from 2007, the 20 miler was only 5s/mile slower than the marathon I ended up running, so a little closer than I'd remembered. The first few days after were ugly (e.g. "9 miles VERY slow," and only that far because it was my commute), but I was feeling "okay" six days later, and was able to do an easy 17 on the trails. Overall the two weeks following the 20 miler were pretty mediocre in terms of volume without any real quality.

This, to me, seems such a key point. Very likely anyone running around 3 h, or anyone who hasn't come close to reaching their optimal fitness level---that is, anyone who is not an elite or subelite---who is in a general sense increasing/improving their training will actually be running their "MP" LRs at, say, 85-95% of true MP (revealed in the actual marathon).

Fine, I'll give you all of 2017. 40 American men ran sub 2:20, 38 under the current women's AR (that's American Record). I'll take 193 v 40. Keep racing your training runs and keep under performing. The U.S. Should have more than 10 sub 2:20 runners by January 15th ( let alone June 25th) on any given year despite hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, typhoons or any other natural disasters.[/quote]

Where in the hell are you getting your numbers? There were 44 men with US hometowns running under 2:19:36 just at CIM 2017.

You're also confused with my training philosophy. You'll note above that I said doing a 20MP training run was wrong. "Super duper wrong" in fact.[/quote]

OK, I was disputing the current training philosophy of doing long to moderate long runs at or near marathon pace. Sounds like you don't support that so I am not disputing you personally. As for the numbers, I used Track and Field News and they consider CIM as an aided course (Boston too) but in fairness the 1983 numbers obviously included Boston so if we take all of the aided and non-aided US sub 2:20's in 2017 the total is 94 so I'll still take 1983's 193. I also doubt the runners in 1983 were comparing themselves to runners who competed 34 years before them.

Far Out West wrote:

OK, I was disputing the current training philosophy of doing long to moderate long runs at or near marathon pace. Sounds like you don't support that so I am not disputing you personally. As for the numbers, I used Track and Field News and they consider CIM as an aided course (Boston too) but in fairness the 1983 numbers obviously included Boston so if we take all of the aided and non-aided US sub 2:20's in 2017 the total is 94 so I'll still take 1983's 193. I also doubt the runners in 1983 were comparing themselves to runners who competed 34 years before them.

Your point may or may not hold...however, your comparison is statistical malfeasance.

zoo_manimal wrote:

Far Out West wrote:

OK, I was disputing the current training philosophy of doing long to moderate long runs at or near marathon pace. Sounds like you don't support that so I am not disputing you personally. As for the numbers, I used Track and Field News and they consider CIM as an aided course (Boston too) but in fairness the 1983 numbers obviously included Boston so if we take all of the aided and non-aided US sub 2:20's in 2017 the total is 94 so I'll still take 1983's 193. I also doubt the runners in 1983 were comparing themselves to runners who competed 34 years before them.

Your point may or may not hold...however, your comparison is statistical malfeasance.

This was my point exactly. There may some credence to the argument but you lose all credibility once you start using obviously misleading information or suspect comparisons. For example, I suspect there's a reason you picked 1983 instead of 1982 or 1984...or a more round number like 1980. Care to share the values for those years?

Am I oversimplifying this when I say that in the 1970s and into the 1980s, we were just generally a lot more active as a nation and running became a phenomenon, which resulted in a significant portion of an already active population taking the sport up, and many of those who took up the sport went with a high risk/high reward approach of running tons of miles because that was en vogue at the time, and because we didn't realize the downside of that kind of training, with the end result being that we basically through a huge basket of eggs at the wall and while huge numbers of eggs broke, a huge number also made it through unscathed?

If that is the case, then there are a few possibilities to consider, although we will never really be able to reach any decisive conclusion:

- one possibility is that while the huge volume, hard running approach of that era might be good on a macro basis in that it will produce a greater volume of success, it is very risky on a microlevel in that any one runner is likely to suffer injuries or burnout;

- one possibility is that if we could get as many people running competitively today as we had running competitively then, we might have even more high performers (while road racing participation numbers are up, I suspect that those numbers don't necessarily mean that we have more people out there looking to max out their ability, but rather we have more people who will run a race just as a social event or as part of a more generalized desire to be somewhat fit);

- and another possibility is that Shorter and those guys could have been even better had they been able to combine the volume that they put up back then, with the knowledge we have today about physiology;

and another possibility, which seems unlikely to cannot be ruled out, is that despite knowing more than ever about how our bodies work, the training approach of yesteryear was superior to today's training approach.

Injuries and burnout are a part of the sport even when you are following a low volume approach. HIIT and zone-based training is in vogue these days but whenever someone mentions how physiology has come a long way I’m always left wondering how exactly. Running is very simple. To be good at it, you have to be talented and you have to run a lot and run hard on occasion. Recover as needed. If you want to find out how good you truly are, you’re going to have to take risks along the way as I see it.

No one is saying that you have to avoid all risk. The question is one of cost benefit analysis. What is the likelihood of the risk actually occurring? What will the cost be if it does occur? What will the benefit be if it does not occur? What is the likelihood of a risk actually occurring with a less risky path? What is the benefit there?

None of us sit with a pad and paper and calculate these risks, but they are an inherent part of the mental calculus associated with any training plan.

I've gotten it right sometimes, and I've gotten wrong sometimes. No approach is perfect and even the right approach carries risk. The key is to handicap the risk and return profile.

Mental calculus? We overcomplicate things which is part of my critique of the modern approach.

Summing up:

If you can hold your MP pace for 18 to 20 miles you will prob. beat your marathon goal pace by a mile (or at least a few hundred meters).

Maths is hard wrote:

zoo_manimal wrote:

Your point may or may not hold...however, your comparison is statistical malfeasance.

This was my point exactly. There may some credence to the argument but you lose all credibility once you start using obviously misleading information or suspect comparisons. For example, I suspect there's a reason you picked 1983 instead of 1982 or 1984...or a more round number like 1980. Care to share the values for those years?

My error was unintentional, I looked up the list of top US marathon times for 2017 and didn't realize that they separated "aided" courses from unaided courses. I absolutely picked 1983 for a reason, it was the year with the most sub 2:20 US marathon runners. If the information was easy to gather I would get you any of those other years and they would support my argument which is that male American marathoners were much better in the 1980's than they are now and it is in large part because the training in the 1980's was more effective. It's not a knock on today's American athletes, they are more talented, have just as much drive and have plenty of resources and training groups.

One piece of information I did find was about the 1984 Olympic Marathon Trials:

Sat May 26, 1984 Buffalo, NY

Standards: 2:19:04

Qualifiers: 201

All I am saying is that what we are doing now isn't working and I would like to see one training group take 10-12 semi talented (28:30 -29:30 10K) guys and train them in a similar fashion to the way those 201 1984 Olympic trials qualifiers trained and see what happens.

Yes, mental calculus - the unspoken process of analyzing a situation. That doesn't mean overthinking things, it means giving thought to things. What's so bad about being thoughtful about something that is important enough to us to dedicate 8-10 hours to it each week?

You've seen my training. It is thought through (even if is is an inferior approach in your opinion), but there is nothing complicated about it. In fact, I basically run three paces for 12 weeks straight, with one of those paces only being run 3 times. About as simple as it gets, really.

too hot wrote:

Injuries and burnout are a part of the sport even when you are following a low volume approach. HIIT and zone-based training is in vogue these days but whenever someone mentions how physiology has come a long way I’m always left wondering how exactly. Running is very simple. To be good at it, you have to be talented and you have to run a lot and run hard on occasion. Recover as needed. If you want to find out how good you truly are, you’re going to have to take risks along the way as I see it.

Did I say anything about hiit or zoned based training? All I said is a 20 mile marathon pace training run carries undue risk and is likely to affect surrounding workouts in a detrimental way, and therefore is not a typically preferred method of training. No one has mentioned hiit. I think it's very rare to find someone who thinks a true hiit program is viable for the marathon in the last like...20 years.

The second thing I said is there could be some merit to the golden age of running theory, but if you're going to make that argument don't pick the best year ever to compare to a 5 month period or even solely just the most recent year, especially if you're going to eliminate CIM and Boston vs. keeping those I for the best year ever. All I'm asking for is logical analysis of the facts....rather than incidental obfuscation.

So, let's compare the 2016 men's marathon standard of 2:19 to the 1984 marathon standard of 2:19:04 when 201 men qualified just to get a second data point for fun. Oh look! 211 men qualified for the US Olympic marathon trials in 2016 when the standard was 2:19. Total failure of American distance running! Shockingly bad compared to 1984 for sure.

Since this is a hobby for me, I would still like to be able to do my hobby when I am 68. I do not see 20 mile marathon pace runs OR hiit being the path to continuing my hobby as long as I can. Volume will be a part of it. Risk will even be a part of it. The workout 800 dude was advocating will not.

To get back to the original question of the OP: you're in good shape. Proceed with confidence.

Agree that we should give thought to our training but my point is that we’ve become too cautious and too measured these days.