What are your BEST marathon workouts?

Yes, you're reading that correctly(had to check the logbook to confirm). This was a couple years ago while I was in my mid-30s running 32-low for 10K, but yes, I ran reps averaging 10:16 on a rolling 2M circuit with about a 30 foot elevation variance. My coach at that time was all about the long grinding intervals on limited recovery, typically targeting 8-12 miles of quality during the long interval workout each week.

PS, While I never did any specific workouts for marathons a guy I know who occasionally posts here once wrote about something Ernst van Aaken had him doing that I liked and might have tried. It was a weekend of running the full marathon distance at your hoped for pace stretched out over four runs.

If you wanted to run 2:37, that's six minute pace, you might start Saturday morning with a ten mile run in an hour, and 12 x 880 in three minutes each. Then you do six miles on Sunday morning in 36:00 , and in the afternoon something like 8 x 440 in 90, 8 x 220 in 45, then 16 x 110 in 22-23,

There was a Scotsman called Alastair Wood who'd done 2:13 in the late '60s. He had a session where he'd run at marathon pace for 26 minutes, half marathon pace for 13 minutes, six mile pace (it was the '60s) for six minutes, three mile pace for 3 minutes, two mile pace for 2 minutes, and one mile pace for 1 minute. It's a version of a progression run.

This weekend, 5 weeks out from race I’m doing 24 miles in my goal marathon time. Not goal pace. Works out around 90% of MP.

As others have noted, it doesn’t have to be complicated, and many different approaches can work. It’s not about that one epic workout; each is just a building block.

Here’s roughly what I did in 2019, which got me a 2:30 in Boston and 2:25 in Chicago. I can’t say it was optimal, but it’s what I wanted to do I was happy with the results.

-As many weeks as possible around 100 miles. Mostly pretty slow (7:30-8:30 pace) with a lot of 10 + 5 doubles. I think I had a 9 week stretch over 100 before Chicago.

-As many Saturday 20 milers as possible. If I felt good, either run at low 6:00 pace, or work in some Daniels-style tempo (1 hr. race pace) intervals. (Two 4 mile tempos in a 20 miler was good.) If I didn’t feel great or it was too muggy, I’d still get under 7:00 pace. With the mileage this was enough.

-Not a ton of planned marathon pace. Sometimes I’d just feel good on a random day and it would happen.

-A weekday workout, usually Daniels tempo (e.g. 4 x 3200), or something like 6 x 1600 at 10k. The toughest before both was a 4-3-2-1 Daniels tempo. I feel like I get more out of this stuff than the marathon pace runs. This pace in July became marathon pace in October.

-Every now and then a secondary workout, like 14-16 @ 6:30, or 16 x 30” hill sprints.

-Tune up races can be good workouts. 5ks, half marathons, beer miles, etc. Before Boston, I made sure to do a couple races with gnarly hills. Also good practice taking water, fuel, dealing with crowds and hoopla.

-I had a 2 week taper before Boston, but had a minor injury 3 weeks before Chicago and had to taper earlier and more steeply than planned, which I think helped.