How to train for a flat marathon???

Only? No. Mostly? Yes. Hills are always good and yes you benefit from the strength they provide but it helps to train on the type of terrain you'll race on.

I think the point is that you should train in conditions that simulate your race. While you can certainly incorporate hills into your training, the reality is that a flat marathon forces your legs to do the exact same thing over and over and over with no variety. Hills might be challenging, but they recruit different muscles. So you should do race simulations and most long runs on flatter courses.

just run baby

Where I live (Okinawa), flat terrain is hard to find. However, my main marathon each year has a good amount of flat running from around the 28k to 38k mark, with the first 10k gently rolling, and then pretty steady climbing to the halfway (21k mark), then down to the 28k flat area.

I want to freakin' die running the flat area! I would rather have to run back up a hill or down a hill or something . . . just not FLAT! My legs are always training up and down, up and down, so when I hit a long stretch of flat, they don't like it.

So, hopefully that'll tell you something. But, don't neglect the hills altogether, for sure.

Brent wrote:

I want to freakin' die running the flat area!

Surges!!

Fool your legs into thinking they are going uphill.

Hills baby hills.

The flat course, flat training theory is one I have experimented with and exposed as a myth.

At least for me.

As for the "just tired" idea, it's not that. The other local marathon is almost the opposite. The first 10k are flat (and yeah, it's easy because I'm still fresh), and then a lot of hills (maybe a 5k flat stretch between say 15 and 20k or so). The hills (serious ones) continue until the end of the course and I definitely feel better running that course, though my times are a little slower.

Anyway, surges are a good idea. I wasn't able to run last year, and the year before I kinda sabotaged myself with some stupid running over the first 10k, so my mind thought about surging, but my legs just said hahahahahahahah! 3:08:20 result, and PB.

Of course hills are good generally, but do flat long runs flat marathon pace runs (maybe they're the same run for you) to acclimate to using the same muscles for hours. Specificity.

You know, this is an interesting question. I totally buy into the idea of training for the terrain you will race. For Boston, train on downhills and then at the end of your run, run uphills. For Chicago, get used to running on flat terrain, and get your legs used to the repetitive beating on the same muscles.

Having said that, I have coached 2 Trials qualifiers to their PRs at Chicago. Because of where they lived, both nearly always ran on rolling terrain. So anecdotally, I would say maybe it doesn't matter so much as long as you show up at the line fit.