Marathoners should not hit long runs over 26.2 mi during base phase because ________ ??

[quote]Maniac wrote:

So true. Many of us in the Marathon Maniacs are able to run back-to-back or even back-to-back-to-back marathons. The adaptation doesn't happen overnight. It takes time, but it can be done.

http://www.marathonmaniacs.com/

The marathon maniacs are terrible. Everytime I see one of those jerseys at a race I just think "Well.. there's someone who will be losing to me." Of course it's easy to run back to back to back marathons when each one is 4+ hrs long. Balderdash!

HRE wrote:

Once your run gets past two hours the benefits begin to diminish and eventually reach a point where they no loner exist and can even begin to reverse.

Reference?

I've read this is about four or five different articles and never seen anything to counter it but I haven't bookmarked any of them and I'm not going to dig around for them. But the law of Diminishing Returns applies to most everything.

When Lydiard's training was catching on it made the weekend 20 or so mile run a staple for lots of people. In those days when runners were young and at least comparatively fast even the slowest trainers could knock off 20 miles in two and a half hours or so. As the years rolled on the sport caught on with people who were not even remotely fast. A lot of those people liked Lydiard's training and took it up. He'd meet many of them at his talks and some of them told him that they really liked his training but that 20 mile run was taking up 4 hours or so to get done. He didn't think it was a good idea for people to run for that length of time regularly. That's when he changed his base phase from running for distance to running for time and changed the long run from 20 or so miles to two to two and a half hours.

If I stumble across any of those articles again I'll post them here.

Only Zero Drop the Base wrote:

[quote]Maniac wrote:

So true. Many of us in the Marathon Maniacs are able to run back-to-back or even back-to-back-to-back marathons. The adaptation doesn't happen overnight. It takes time, but it can be done.

http://www.marathonmaniacs.com/

The marathon maniacs are terrible. Everytime I see one of those jerseys at a race I just think "Well.. there's someone who will be losing to me." Of course it's easy to run back to back to back marathons when each one is 4+ hrs long. Balderdash!

The sometimes you get a freak like Michael Wardian who run run back-to-back 2:30 marathons.

jjjjjjjjj wrote:

not at all. very significant muscle damage occurs with runs of a marathon and above, meaning that you need to back off quite a bit afterwards. your training runs should not radically decrease the quality of other runs for more than a few days at most. you should really be able to do a high quality workout a couple days later. if not, then the benefit from the run is not worth the drawbacks of lost workouts.

I disagree. Especially when training for a marathon, the race-specific long runs are probably the most important thing to do. You can argue whether they should be 26.2 miles or not- but a 24 mile long run is going to take quite a while to recover from too (assuming you run it fast enough). Why would you sacrifice a long run just to do more workouts that, while still important, are not as relevant to the marathon?

Fizz Whizzer wrote:

I think the difference here isn't time on your feet, just overall fitness. A 60 mpw hobbyjogger isn't as fit to handle, and recover from such efforts, as a 150 mpw elite. A hobbyjogger is going to be wrecked after running 25 miles in one go, but if you're running 150 mpw, sure, 30 mile run, go for it.

Hobby joggers run 25-45 mpw, maybe some build up to 60 mpw during peak training.

A friend of mine just ran 2:55 on less than 60 mpw.

I only scanned through previous replies so sorry if this has been addressed, but my problem with long runs is that for many they become the only form of training. What I mean by this is runners begin tapering 2-3 days prior to a training long run, and rest 2-3 days after. What does that leave? Not much, maybe a day or two for other training adaptations. Be careful that your training, whether 20-23 or 26+ long runs, does not become 'only' about the long run. I am thinking that the longer the long run the bigger chance of this happening.

A runner's individual physiology is a hugely important variable here. Slow twitch guys can get away with overdistance, but they still have to slow down enough that it's not very specific to the demands of the race. Fast twitch guys get destroyed by such long runs. I know this first hand. Even after averaging well over 100/week in a buildup, it takes 10 days or so after a marathon before I can go for a jog without limping.

ttc wrote:

what??? wrote:

capillary system? WTF?

Look up before ridiculing.

It's BS. Regardless of how great a coach he was.

I think it's fine (actually, good) to be well rested for your key training runs, and it's definitely important to recover from them too so you can actually run your next workout at a quality pace. This leaves "Only a day or two" if you try to do a long run every week. I would argue that if you can do your long run every week, you aren't running it hard enough. Consider that you are training to run a marathon at a certain pace. As your training progresses, you want to tend toward this pace for long distances. Say for example, fairly late in your training, your workout is 23-24 miles at ~97% of marathon race pace. How are you even going to complete this workout if 2 days before you did a really hard track session? Likewise, how could you expect to run a high-quality track session 2 or 3 days after doing this. It's not a marathon race, sure, but it's still going to take a while to recover from. And I don't think anyone could realistically expect to do a workout like this every week.

As for running more than marathon distance in training- I would say it's fine early in the season when your long runs aren't as fast (still, don't do them at your recovery run/easy run pace). The goal of training in the marathon is to toward a distance at a certain pace. I don't think it would be smart to essentially race a marathon as part of peaking for a marathon.

what??? wrote:

ttc wrote:

Look up before ridiculing.

It's BS. Regardless of how great a coach he was.

No. This is why wild animals that cover miles have all dark meat. The capillary network is far more developed.

I agree with you. However, it was stated or at least implied in this thread that it was a weekly long run. Maybe it was just implied in my head. If someone is running a weekly long run and tapering/recovering for each one, they are missing a lot of other key training as you state. We are on the same page.

Le Chapeau wrote:

what??? wrote:

It's BS. Regardless of how great a coach he was.

No. This is why wild animals that cover miles have all dark meat. The capillary network is far more developed.

I know what capillaries are. Running non stop does not improve capillarisation compared to interval work. That idea is just ridiculous.

opinionated guy wrote:

I only scanned through previous replies so sorry if this has been addressed, but my problem with long runs is that for many they become the only form of training. What I mean by this is runners begin tapering 2-3 days prior to a training long run, and rest 2-3 days after. What does that leave? Not much, maybe a day or two for other training adaptations. Be careful that your training, whether 20-23 or 26+ long runs, does not become 'only' about the long run. I am thinking that the longer the long run the bigger chance of this happening.

Runners need to be doing enough mileage during the week that they could usually do a decent workout the day after an easy long run or a couple days after a moderately hard one. What does this mean? If you're not running 100 mpw, unless you are training for a marathon, you probably don't need a 20 mile long run (and if you are training for a marathon under 100 you have bigger problems). The biggest problem is with marathoners who are doing 50-70 miles a week, yet still insist on 20 mile long runs. Peaking for a 10k or half is certainly acceptable. No one should be racing marathons until they are comfortable running 20 miles on the weekend and not having to cut back for more than a day to do so.

what??? wrote:

It's BS. Regardless of how great a coach he was.

It's called angiogenesis.

a hard place wrote:

what??? wrote:

It's BS. Regardless of how great a coach he was.

It's called angiogenesis.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15253894

Angiogenesis is stimulated by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a signal protein which creates

- new blood vessels during embryonic development

- new blood vessels after injury

- muscle following exercise

- new vessels (collateral circulation) to bypass blocked vessels."

Interesting thread. Maybe I'm missing where it's drifted to, but here are my thoughts...

I tried to limit my long runs to 22 miles max. Beyond that I thought it took too long to recover, and would require a couple of days recovery, compromising the framework that was effective for me.

My plan was built around the concept that consistent training was the best training. Given my time constraints that meant spending most of the 10-week pre-taper marathon training cycle at 85-105 mi/wk. I compensated by upping the quality of most of the running, including "making my long runs count" -- i.e., at a pretty solid pace. No taper (usually 12-13 mi the day before, and often intervals the day after).

Worked for me, anyway.

edward teach wrote:

Runners need to be doing enough mileage during the week that they could usually do a decent workout the day after an easy long run or a couple days after a moderately hard one. What does this mean? If you're not running 100 mpw, unless you are training for a marathon, you probably don't need a 20 mile long run (and if you are training for a marathon under 100 you have bigger problems). The biggest problem is with marathoners who are doing 50-70 miles a week, yet still insist on 20 mile long runs. Peaking for a 10k or half is certainly acceptable. No one should be racing marathons until they are comfortable running 20 miles on the weekend and not having to cut back for more than a day to do so.

Thanks, you took the point I was trying to make and clarified it. Mr. McVeigh also improved upon it. I agree with you guys. There are far too many people who are not comfortable or ready for true marathon training and think the long run is the only key. They taper, rest, and pretty much destroy the rest of their training for the sake of the long run then are not sure why they deteriorate.

Any mediocre ultra runner can easily run 30 slow miles and recover in a few days. If a marathoner cannot do the same he lacks one component of fitness. The question is how necessary that component is. If your legs use to be trashed at the end of a marathon, you definitely need to develop more robustness. And really long runs do that. However, that's not the only way of developing robust legs. High mileage or long and hard sessions do the same. I believe you should be able to run a 30 miler and recover in a few days, but it's not absolutely necessary to actually do it.