Year-round base training between Marathons and races?

Are you asking if you should be running base miles in-between races? Yes?

local sheep wrote:

Are you asking if you should be running base miles in-between races? Yes?

Right, of course, but is 25-40 enough for base or should I go higher.

Off-season mileage is hugely important, in my opinion. I used to drop my mileage way low between marathons, as low as 10-20 mpw, then build back up to 50-55 mpw for a yearly marathon. I was losing huge amounts of fitness. Since I've kept my off-season mileage around 40-50 mpw and peaked as high as 70 for a race, I've been able to take my marathon PRs from 3:59>3:47>3:13, with a recent half marathon of 1:26 (age 48). I've upped my mileage some more and I'm thinking sub-3:00 isn't out of the question.

Cumulative total mileage over months and years, matters as much as the 12-16 weeks leading up to a race. Mileage works. If there are any shortcuts, I haven't found them. Resting for a week after a big race is one thing. But don't kid yourself into thinking you can cut your mileage by 50% for half the year and stay in peak marathon form. You make still run acceptably, but not likely close to your peak form.

If you put the mileage in year round and pre-race, you'll get your BQ, no question about it.

I really like the five week "recovery" schedules in Advanced Marathoning. Marathon-->five week recovery block-->slowly build up to the next training block.

Thanks! I took a week off but the following week was at 38, then went back up to 50 before I got hurt for a week (Oct 24 to Dec 17, then down for a week or so before I did ART).

I'll keep my base higher than 25, probably 40-45 to be safe, then build to 70-80 in the summer to get the fall BQ hopefully.

Also, your story gives me hope. I ran my 1:33:45 split for the 1/2 and felt strong, I could have gone even faster, but the full was my main goal that day. Had I just trained to run the half, I may have gone 1:31 or faster.

jecht wrote:

local sheep wrote:

Are you asking if you should be running base miles in-between races? Yes?

Right, of course, but is 25-40 enough for base or should I go higher.

For the most part, the more miles you can run (without getting hurt, overtrained, burned out) the better.

I'd say 40 miles would be the floor. 50 would be better. 60 would be even better than that.

Probably yes wrote:

jecht wrote:

Right, of course, but is 25-40 enough for base or should I go higher.

For the most part, the more miles you can run (without getting hurt, overtrained, burned out) the better.

I'd say 40 miles would be the floor. 50 would be better. 60 would be even better than that.

Perfect, thanks!