How often should a sub 3hr 50-60mpw marathon runner do 20 mile long runs?

Long runs are overrated.

Just follow your Daniels plan and see what happens.

It really depends on the individual. Some endurance responsive runners do better with longer runs thrown into the training cycle. Some people don't respond as well and take much longer to recover from 2:30+ hour long runs, thereby dramatically impacting their training and injury risk.

You may want to follow Daniels' plan and see how you do. A Lot of other types of training stimuli in the training block are equally as important if not more important than the long run. The plan is written in such a way to account for all of this.

You can adjust training cycles in the future based on what you learn from following Daniels' plan.

Maybe 2 times total in a build up. 20 miles is a lot if you're only doing 50 to 60 in the entire week.

20 miles are definitely overemphasized in that range and even lower weekly mileage. Who can honestly say with a straight face that doing 40% of your weekly mileage in a single run is a good idea?

If you're consistently doing 100+ miles it's an entirely different story. Especially if you're fast as time on the feet is a huge factor. Anything more than 2.5 hours and you're sabbatoging you're fitness.

Daniels is a great coach, so if you follow his plan I think you're in good shape. But different things work for different people. I've done better with plans that have more, and longer, long runs.

What do you target? Imho a Marathon race is a metabolic problem. You need to train your fat metabolism to contribute to the energy you burn since you run out of glycogen.i had very good experience with 35k once a week, about the last 4mon before the race, last 2mon with progressively longer fast section in the end. No more "wall" after 32k

You need probably 8 runs in the 18-22 range in the 13 weeks leading up to a marathon and 6 in the 12 weeks before that, with most of the other weeks having at least a 15 mile run. You'd benefit a lot more from just increasing your mpw to the 80-100 range though.

Frank Shorter here wrote:

Long runs are overrated.

Just follow your Daniels plan and see what happens.

Disagreee.

For a 3:00 marathoner, you want to get very comfortable over 2 hours, with several runs 2:15-2:30+.

As a 2:55 runner, in a 3-month marathon build ALL of my weekly long runs are over 30k/18miles, and I would want to have at least 6 over 20 miles, probably 2-4 of them around 22 miles.

Don't just go long, though. You want ample marathon pace work within those and also in freestanding workouts.

If it were still 1985 I might agree with your plan and dependence on Daniels.

Remember all of that was written as a one size fits all, so bound to fail 1 in 3.

Based on your report you are far better off with medium effort runs of 75-90'.

Roughly 10-12mi at 6:50 -7/mile, effort somewhat hard.

Advantage is you will recover faster and have way more fun, your fitness and confidence improving w more specificity. Drop the harder "tempo" and add in 800m reps or speed play.

Zero long runs in the traditional sense.

dsrunner wrote:

If it were still 1985 I might agree with your plan and dependence on Daniels.

Remember all of that was written as a one size fits all, so bound to fail 1 in 3.

Based on your report you are far better off with medium effort runs of 75-90'.

Roughly 10-12mi at 6:50 -7/mile, effort somewhat hard.

Advantage is you will recover faster and have way more fun, your fitness and confidence improving w more specificity. Drop the harder "tempo" and add in 800m reps or speed play.

Zero long runs in the traditional sense.

Can you recommend a book or plan for 2022 marathon training?

The purpose of the 20 mile run is more familiarity with the distance than anything else. Only running 2 x 20 miles in a buildup is not a problem. The hard long run should build to 16 miles late in your buildup and this run does have a significant training impact

Makemegetfast wrote:

I've previously tended to push long runs to a minimum of 18 miles (weekly) for the whole build up; but that means I'm generally doing 2:10 to 2:40 every week, and it tends to leave me completely drained. If I can limit the extra-long efforts as above, in wondering if I may run better for it.

If you felt "completely drained" in your previous schedule, it's worth trying something different. it may or may not work for you, but you won't find it out unless you try.

Here's the model I would follow personally. It's similar to my 5k-10k training but with some more volume in each element, and it's highly similar to what the best marathon runners in the world do:

Monday: easy, high volume + core

Tuesday: threshold session + core

Wednesday: recovery, high volume + weights

Thursday: Interval session + core

Friday: recovery + core

Saturday: Long run tempo (I would do a full 20 miles for this every week. Start off easy and progress smoothly but quickly. By 4 miles you should be running a little slower than marathon race pace, hold that for the bulk of the run, and rock the last 3-5 miles at marathon pace or just a tad faster. This is Kipchoge's staple workout every week but his pace is a little slower because he does it at 8000 feet of elevation)

Sunday: recovery + weights

bugattiaron wrote:

Here's the model I would follow personally. It's similar to my 5k-10k training but with some more volume in each element, and it's highly similar to what the best marathon runners in the world do:

Monday: easy, high volume + core

Tuesday: threshold session + core

Wednesday: recovery, high volume + weights

Thursday: Interval session + core

Friday: recovery + core

Saturday: Long run tempo (I would do a full 20 miles for this every week. Start off easy and progress smoothly but quickly. By 4 miles you should be running a little slower than marathon race pace, hold that for the bulk of the run, and rock the last 3-5 miles at marathon pace or just a tad faster. This is Kipchoge's staple workout every week but his pace is a little slower because he does it at 8000 feet of elevation)

Sunday: recovery + weights

There's no way recreational runners can follow this plan.

Long tempo run every week? That's 3 hard sessions a week. Sure way to get hurt.

unambitious wrote:

Frank Shorter here wrote:

Long runs are overrated.

Just follow your Daniels plan and see what happens.

Disagreee.

For a 3:00 marathoner, you want to get very comfortable over 2 hours, with several runs 2:15-2:30+.

As a 2:55 runner, in a 3-month marathon build ALL of my weekly long runs are over 30k/18miles, and I would want to have at least 6 over 20 miles, probably 2-4 of them around 22 miles.

Don't just go long, though. You want ample marathon pace work within those and also in freestanding workouts.

This is the best answer. Gotta train long to race long.

Weekly mileage doesn’t matter as much as average run length.

Better to run 3 runs a week that average 18 miles (54 miles total) than run 7 runs a week that average 10 miles (70 miles)

Lenny Leonard wrote:

Weekly mileage doesn’t matter as much as average run length.

Better to run 3 runs a week that average 18 miles (54 miles total) than run 7 runs a week that average 10 miles (70 miles)

Interesting. I've never heard anyone say this before.

Let's compare a pro that runs seven days per week, averages 130 miles per week, but splits 4 days into doubles (11 total runs per week), to an amateur that runs three 18-mile-runs-per-week.

130 mpw pro = 130/11 runs = 11.8 miles per run

54 mpw amateur = 54/3 runs = 18.0 miles per run.

You're telling me that Three-18-Mile-Runs-Per-Week Guy will outperform the 11.8 mile per run, pro?

3 20s per marathon training cycle

I jump in to give some guidance. My best advice to a runner at around 3 hours marathon when it comes to quality long runs is ; Don`t do them! You don`t need them. Just do long easy sustained runs of 90 min - 2 hours 40 min at about 65-75 % of max heart rate pace. It`s more important for you to do your LT intervals separate and work up to a total of about 10 miles at LT . And this with marathon pace in a workout is also superfluous.........the only time there is a need of marathon pace is in the marathon race itself . )) Do this change and you won`t feel drained after your long easy runs. And do normally your long easy run around 2 hours and save the 2 hours 40 min at 4-5 weeks before your marathon race.

George run wrote:

dsrunner wrote:

If it were still 1985 I might agree with your plan and dependence on Daniels.

Remember all of that was written as a one size fits all, so bound to fail 1 in 3.

Based on your report you are far better off with medium effort runs of 75-90'.

Roughly 10-12mi at 6:50 -7/mile, effort somewhat hard.

Advantage is you will recover faster and have way more fun, your fitness and confidence improving w more specificity. Drop the harder "tempo" and add in 800m reps or speed play.

Zero long runs in the traditional sense.

Can you recommend a book or plan for 2022 marathon training?

2022 marathon training? Then I recommend JS and his effective modern Dancan plan.

unambitious wrote:

Frank Shorter here wrote:

Long runs are overrated.

Just follow your Daniels plan and see what happens.

Disagreee.

For a 3:00 marathoner, you want to get very comfortable over 2 hours, with several runs 2:15-2:30+.

As a 2:55 runner, in a 3-month marathon build ALL of my weekly long runs are over 30k/18miles, and I would want to have at least 6 over 20 miles, probably 2-4 of them around 22 miles.

Don't just go long, though. You want ample marathon pace work within those and also in freestanding workouts.

It depends in your total weekly mileage. If you're doing 80+ miles a week this might be true.

The sanctity of the 20 miler(even 22!?) for the barely sub 3 hour crowd is quasi-religious.

No way a 50 mile a week marathoner should be doing 22 miles. They are nowhere near fit enough to do that consistently. Obviously it can be done, but you're risking injury and sacrificing higher quality workouts just to check a box.