Does classic Hansons still hold up in 2026?

Known amazing marathoner Sage Canaday will comment within the next hour to tell you

That's my hope.

"MMMBop" is one of the greatest feelgood pop songs in music history and still resonates with Gen Z:

Not just Gen Z. I'm a boomer, and I love MMMBop.

I come to this thread for musical talk and I get nonsense about running in the first few posts.

Can this site get its collective act together!

The Gong Show had its moments, including the performances of Gene Gene the Dancing Machine. Chuck Barris was crazy.

Their training is outdated. Simple as that. Way too many miles at way too fast of a pace on easy days. Workouts with too long rests. Poor nutrition: frozen pizza, beer, gummie bears. Frat culture—man children who don’t want to grow up.

better just to do it on your own:

-easier mileage is easy to do on your own and saves you for the workouts

-hard workouts with short rest ala Grant Fisher

-work on your career so you don’t work at Home Depot forever like Brian Sell

OR

Hansons

Your choice

Another good reason for checking out this thread. Hanson brothers all over the place.

16 miles at 6 flat pace one day, next day a 2 mile time trial at sub 9 pace. Cool if you’re in high school and the Hansons are full of guys who weren’t cool in high school but now can retroactively do so while hooking up with the female athletes. Awesome.

meanwhile Kenyans are eating ugali, doing chores, and running tempos at 4:40 per mile on crushing terrain

Rest really doesn't matter for those workouts. Yeah you can do 2x3 mile with like 2 mins rest but you are talking a very small difference in stress. Now things like 12x400 with 400 jog is sort of weak but I they are making an assumption you haven't done much fast stuff recentlym I would argue they do a couple weeks too much vo2max max work.

And I would say that it would s more a plan for a 3 hour guy than a 2:10....

I’m not a boomer, I’m Gen X, but great movie. The Hanson Bros were hilarious.

As far as the running Hanson brothers, I simply appreciate what they’ve tried to do for the sport. They don’t get the elite talent to start with; it’s a true developmental organization and a few relative unknowns like a Brian Sell or a Zach Panning or a Trent Briney or a Des Linden came from those humble beginnings. I wish I’d had a team like that for a few years post college. I was on my own.

People need to know the history of American distance running to truly appreciate the Hanson Bros. True visionaries.

You can nitpick any mainstream training plan if you want to. I think Hansons still holds up fine in 2026. Good mileage, medium long runs, marathon specific long runs, etc. That's a good training plan for most to get at or near their marathon potential. Remember, Hansons never really got big enough to get the biggest names. Even Des debuted in 2:45-flat & never broke 70 for the half marathon. Their results are pretty impressive, given what they do with blue collar runners who likely got passed on by other groups. I don't think many on here would've predicted Zach Panning's success.

But, like any training plan, tailor it to whatever runner you're training to address their strengths/weaknesses. A lot of amateur runners would do well with the Hansons' structure. Most lack endurance relative to their speed & training like this could lead to better marathon results. There's definitely an argument to be made for workouts with less rest/more speed mixed in. You saw Ben Rosario do that with NAZ Elite. Similar structure/more workout variability. At the end of the day, there aren't shortcuts in the marathon. Hansons do a good job respecting the distance/requiring their athletes to put in the work. New training styles come out all the day. That doesn't mean the old ones are dead. Hansons have showed sustained success & have done a lot for the sport.

Love this post but what does it have to do with Hansons

If you think the rests are a lot, then the intervals are too easy. Dial them into your effort on a scale of 1-10, where 4 is recovery, 7 is 5k pace, 9 is mile pace etc.

With all the crap that comes out nowadays its easy to forget that fundamentals are always the key. So if you're asking if Hansons compares to Instagram sluts, creatine gummies, double threshold, and 'running slower to get faster' GTFOHerrreee

If you're too fit for the prescription (sounds like it)... adjust

What? It's everything to do with Letsrun, where losers are in a race to say "everybody sucks!"