M Pace during Long runs

You are likely overdoing it, and the reason why is that the goal of the long run in physiological terms negates the need to run at MP, which is kind of a no-man's land of running in terms of speed. It's a certainly good idea to run the last mile or two of a long run at a faster pace to recruit some fast-twitch fibres and help your mental toughness when fatigued, but running the last 9 miles of a 19 miler at MP is a special workout that you don't need to do on a weekly basis.

What's your Marathon Pace compared to your Easy Run pace? Some runners may run a marathon a minute or more faster per mile than their easy run. For a runner who does his long runs at 7:00 pace, getting down to 5:30-6:00 for the last 9 miles may be quite tough to do each weekend. A runner who run 8:00 per mile during an easy run, but runs their long runs at say 7:30 would have a much easier time. The load on the muscles can be both relative and absolute.

Alan

i guess that would have been useful info.....

M pace right now is 7:09 based on a recent half marathon of 1:29.

So my easy is about a minute slower, but I have been running my easy runs a little fast.

so these longs runs are something like 10 miles at 8:00 and 9 miles at 7:10

I think you'll be fine doing this. I agree with runningart that there is some risk of overtraining if M pace is down around 5:30, but probably not at 7 minutes. You're still running at a purely aerobic pace, so you're fine.

Well, if the body feels good then continue.

Alan

You are in the same boat time wise as me. My MP pace was 7:15. I do not think you are over doing it. I did the end of my long runs at MP for 2 or every 4 long runs. I only did about 6-7 miles at MP. I was able to PR by over 6 minutes and run 3:09. My legs were tired in the closing miles but I never hit the wall, my 25th mile was faster than my 1st mile. I am running Boston and I plan to increase the MP pace part to about 8-10 miles of the long run.

I say continue and good luck. What marathon are your running?

you shouldn't plan on trying to increase the pace if you start going faster at the end of a long run then do it, but there should be no planned accelerations on a long day

Well in the Mahon camp (coaches Hall, Meb, and Kastor, etc. if you did not know) has a two week cycle once they get going in training where the first week the long run is up to 2:30 depending on ability and mileage with pick-ups at the end such as 10x1:00 on, 1:00 off, and the second week is a 20 or so mile run with the first 10 miles at a moderate pace, 10 at marathon pace, then a few miles easy. I think that this is the right approach, doing the long run you are suggesting every week may be over doing it. But sounds like you are on the right track with the type of workouts you should be doing to prepare for a marathon.

Thanks for all the input. Seems like I may be overdoing it a little so I think I'll keep doing this but not on each long run. On each cycle of 3 weeks when I do something like 17, 19, 21 I'll do the 17 all easy, the 19 with a 9 miler at MP and then the 21 with just a 3 mile fast finish.

That should also make things easier so perhaps I can up the mileage a little more, which is probably more beneficial than those MP miles anyway.