Is 40x200 a good Marathon Training Session?

This can work. Depending on how you structure rest it's basically a tempo.

Old school training, but still valuable for some.

Lisa Ondieki did something like this before her NYC course record in 1992. Her then husband the great Yobes Ondieki was coaching her and she said the training nearly broke her. She was running high mileage though I don't recall the pace of the 200s.

I mostly agree, but your point about atp is incorrect. ATP takes 3 minutes rest to rebuild, you will not be using alactic anaerobic energy for a 1/4 of each rep with rest that short.

As others have said it isn’t very specific. It’s fine to do early in a training cycle as some economy work, assuming it’d be around 5k-8k pace. It could be a bit of lactate work if the rest is short enough. If you’re within 10 weeks of the race your energy would be better spent on more specific work

Thanks! WIll stick to the more conventional 1k, 1600, 2k reps.

I have once seen a sub-elite swiss marathoner doing something like 4 or 5 sets of 7x200 at 10K/HM pace with 100m recovery at around marathon pace and a 400m jog between the reps. Basically, it is kind of a Fartlek and I think the purpose is to get some volume at threshold pace rather than doing "speedwork".

I'd do the following instead: 20x400m with 100m jog recovery in about 35-50sec. Your 400s should be at 10k pace and that would be a very solid and specific workout that will aid you in your marathon prep.

I liked the 10 x 800 with a 1/4 jog. It predicted my Marathon exactly. I averaged 2:37 for the workout and ran 2:37 at New York. 80 miles per week volume

Good for mechanical purposes but it shouldn’t replace anything important in the final specific buildup to the race.

OK, I had an answer in mind upon seeing the title. However, I see where the discussion went and will add this: There are quite a few of you who figured these would be pretty fast compared to marathon pace. This was naturally how I initially thought given how short the reps are. But several good posts point out how, without a lot of rest, a more continuous run can be created which becomes a fartlek or varying pace tempo. This gives you an excellent aerobic stimulus as opposed to the anaerobic and muscular stimuli that short reps normally would offer.

I admit I thought of ripping them off at goal 5k pace and ramping down to under mile pace the last few. This would require significant rest between each and would be very non-specific to the marathon but good for 10k or shorter goal events. So, all you saying this isn't where you'd go if you're gunning for a marathon weren't wrong exactly. But you others, who envisioned a more continuous, closer to marathon pace session reminded me of alternations.

The concept seems to be Australian originally. Canova has famously used it as one of the final marathon-specific sessions as 1k on/1k off.....but the 'off' isn't really resting, it's a little slower than marathon pace. The 'on' segments are, therefore, limited by overall fatigue and lactate accumulation so they're faster than marathon pace but not all that much - certainly nowhere near as fast as one of Renato's stars would do 1ks in a more traditional interval session. The overall average of the workout can be marathon pace if you're in great shape and have worked up to the 'alternator'.

Do 200 at half marathon pace then straight into a 200 'float' (as opposed to a true 'rest' jog. You get 10 miles at around marathon pace average (theoretically... maybe not the 1st time trying it) but you really did it the hard way. You can start with the same thing but close to10k pace 'on' and slower yet 'off'. Keep in mind you can't recover too much or it becomes simply an interval workout as opposed to being more continuous like a fartlek or tempo. You can progress to 400 and/or 800s. So, there is even room for maybe 3 of these sessions in a buildup. Read more on how these work:

This is what I was originally going to post before reading the whole thread and realizing '40×200' could really be a tough and very aerobic 10 miler with 200 floats. That's what I wrote about above. Here's another (my 1st) idea:

Is it a good marathon workout? It is if you run 20 miles before it. If you run moderately until you're tired and low on glycogen, this kind of thing is an excellent way to learn to burn fat and overcome muscular fatigue. In this context I refer to a session with meaningful rest between reps, as opposed to a continuous effort such as the alternator. Think of whatever workout you've done with 200s at 5k pace.

Here, you'll be doing well to nail 10k pace, and the rests may be twice as long as you'd normally use for an interval session. That's sort of the idea: you're running out of gas. Of course, not everyone will be able to survive much fast running after going 20. Well, start with doing 14 miles with the second half at marathon pace. Go straight into the OP's 200 workout. Then make it longer. The 200 pace will suffer - and again, you're doing intervals like you always do, not like in my previous post - but that means you're going long and hard enough in the 1st phase of the workout.

If you can do 20 with several miles at marathon pace then 8k worth of 200s, you should be ready for very marathon-specific work such as 13 miles moderate, 10 marathon pace, 3 all-out ('all out' in this setting is probably not 10k pace!) Any number of possibilities such as this exist for your final, very specific long runs. Squires 'Tiger In The Cat', Canova's 40k mixed pace runs, or simple (but hard) 25 to 27 milers progressing the whole way.

The longish run + 200s is a bridge to those. It can teach you to get through the late miles and avoid the 'wall'. Getting through this long version of the OP's workout a couple times should set you up for your last couple very specific and very hard marathon sessions. Just an idea.....

FWIW I did 32 x 300m on 100m jog rest (and an extra lap jog every 8) in the lead up to a marathon. Race didn’t go well.

40 x 200 is a good marathon-specific workout if you run it with no rest, around HM pace, but that's one set. 2 or 3 sets of "40 x 200" is even better. Maybe take 2-3 minutes of jogging between sets.

I think there is still a neuromuscular benefit though, since you are accelerating 40 times. Running is a skill, not an effort.

Instead of each lap consisting of running 200m with a jog-200m in between, you alter the distances slightly. E.g., just make it 20x385m with a 15 meter jog in between. Add a meter each week to the run portion (subtracting it from the jog-recovery, until you're doing 20x397 with a 3m jog recovery between each.

Best if done at a 1500m race pace.

Ask yourself "why" you think 200s would help you? What marathon problem are you trying to solve with this training? If you can't think of an answer, then this is not a good workout.

My buddy and I just did a variation of this workout though. Instead of 200s, we did 800m hard - 400m easy for 10 sets.

That gave us 12km of continuous running. We never stopped and our "easy" was still a normal running pace. The "hard" 800s were not all-out either. I think this was basically a Yasso 880 workout, right?

ATP system???? How the heck do you think you get ATP in the first place? It comes from aerobic metabolism (mostly). depending on how fast you run the 200m, you will probably finish a little bit more anaerobic, and maybe the first 1/3rd of your rest your mitochondria are working as hard as possible to pump out enough ATP to restock the muscles. This woerkout will end up stimulting aerobic development, its just that the training stimulus is happening partially in the first bit of the recovery intervals

if you think about it, this is basically a lactate threshold "yoyo" type workout. Depending on how fast you go, you build up a little bit of lactate on the 200, and then you buffer it during the rest. You are practicing jumping back and forth across that lactate threhold, cause that trains your body to use lactate as fuel more effectivly. Your cells actually get more permeable to lactate, and then they can burn it for fuel. This is an awesome workout to improve lactate clearance, with the goal that at marathon pace you are accumulating very very little lactate

please show me someone who can do 3x8000m at half marathon pace. 2 MAYBE, but 3x5 miles at half marathon pace is an insane workout