DeCastella's Overdistance Marathon Training Run

Here is an Owen Anderson article from Peak Performance Online. You can modify the training to suit your needs and goal but I find the paragraphs about long runs and muscle damage / recovery to be very interesting.

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0196.htm

I hope this is helpful.

Who has the better marathon pr?

Thanks for the article Portland Runner. I notice that Anderson suggests not doing any marathon pace running longer than 12 miles in the month prior. I've been doing a marathon pace run about every 3 to 4 weeks and increasing the distance each time by 3 miles. My last one was 15 miles and I had hoped to do an 18 miler at goal pace either this weekend or next. I had good results with this last year doing a 17 miler at goal pace 4 weeks out. But I notice that wejo had a tough go of it last year doing a 20 miler at goal pace 3 weeks out. Based on this, I think I'll skip the very long run and do the goal pace this weekend. Anyone think this is a bad ides? I'm running Chicago BTW which is 4 weeks from Sunday.

I'd be a little careful about doing something as long as a 20 miler at goal pace only 4 weeks out. Had a friend that raced a 30k a month before his marathon at his legitimate goal pace. He left his best performance in the 30km. Just does not seem to be enough time to recover properly.

Good Luck!

I did a 50K trail race as a training run 6 weeks before Boston a couple yrs ago with the above mentioned concept in mind. (Won the race quite handily at a very comfortable pace - the last and only time I'll ever do an ultra - no fun beating the slowest of the slow Gallowalkers).

I thought the 31 miles though at an easy pace took a lot of mojo out of my legs and I felt flat for Boston and had a subpar race.

I'm with Deek. He was consistent on all courses and CLEAN.

Keep in mind that Deek finished in the top 10 in 3 straight Olympic Marathons.

Jason

In the late 70s I had a stretch of time, maybe two or three months, when I decided to try a really long run, 25-30 miles, as a way to improve my marathon. Up until then I rarely ran longer than 22, and even that was unusual, 17-20 was much more common. I didn't find that the 25-30 milers did much except make me look forward to weekends less.

On the other hand, I knew a guy who had been stuck in the mid-2:20s for years and couldn't get faster until he ran the London-Brighton race, 55 miles(?) He ran 2:19 shortly afterwards and said he thought the "Brighton" was the reason as the marathon didn't seem like a very long race anymore.

Really, there's only one way to find out.

The first time I tried such a tactic was 2 years ago. I gave myself more recovery than Deek, in doing a 28 miler - 3 months prior to race day. I suspect that it had more of a mental effect than a positive physical one, in that I was sore (as if I'd raced a marathon). Despite that, a couple of weeks later (probably closer to 3) I was recovered and kept thinking back to the 'LONG RUN' and really feeling good about it. I guess to summarize, unless you are in the kind of condition that an athlete such as DeCastella was in, do the run, but give yourself lots of recovery and don't run it quickly.

Obviously no absolute answer to the 30 miler approach, but I did try a 28 and 30 a few years back when I was in hot shape, even running the final 5m at 5:30ish pace. Despite a taper before Boston and Vegas each time, I was leg-fuel empty by 12m come race day. Found a much better method was to run 13, 16, and 18 milers EXACTLY at marathon pace ON THE TRACK (a la Kevin Beck) to control and set the right pace and fuel-burning adaptations. I swore to myself in prep for Austin this year, I'd even do a 20 or 22m at MP to insure I don't fall asleep and wimpy as I did towards the end of Chicago last year. My two pennies worth...

Did anyone actually READ the program? Results: a 3:25 marathon. Yup, if 3:25 is your goal Owen Anderson is your man.

Obviously the article has a populist slant to it. I offered the link simply mainly for the Harvard / Tufts study information. I am of the mind that focusing on quality in the last month (ala Kevin Beck or Khannouchi) and avoiding long runs during that time may be helpful in elicting better performances. I've done the traditional 20 miler two weeks out and had tired legs going into races. I wish I'd done more MP work. If you've built the base, your marathon fitness won't suffer if you haven't done a long slow run for a few weeks.

100-90-80-70 weekly mileage as well as a

30-28-27-26 weekly long run the last 4 weeks just about does it for me!

On Hodgie-San's page, you can see Greg Meyer's training log for 1983 as he leads up to and wins Boston in 2:09.

Greg did his last 20 miler 10 days before Boston & quite hard. I did the same for most of my 35 marathons. If you still have "tired legs" 2 weeks after a 20 miler something is not quite right.

malmo did a 30 miler 2 weeks before his debut marathon (2:13 NY 82) Check out his log on my site as well.

I vaguely recall something about Derek Clayton running a 2.17 marathon 8 days before his 2.08 world record....he was one tough dude.