fortworthrunner wrote:
Bump because this was epic as hell and deserves more attention.
Seems like a great way to get in a lot of time at a specific pace really quickly.
I'd guess that one could run 3 miles at marathon pace every hour. No need to do 24 hrs, just 18-20 will suffice if you get an early start and can sleep in the next day.
3*18 = 54 miles at marathon pace in a normal length day.
I've never done more than ~5 runs for a total of ~20 miles in a day, but I wasn't too sore afterward and that was at a time when running 20 miles continuously would have crushed me. The sleep deprivation of starting 24 hrs at midnight probably quadruples the difficulty.
I don't think that doing a 54 mile day like this would be all that stressful for a fit high mileage runner. And you'd get a couple week's worth of pace work in a single day. The real benefit is likely neuromuscular.
Things start to get insane once you take it down to around 5K pace though. At that point it would be 1 mile @ 5K every hour. I have no idea how hard the 5th or 6th mile would be. The downside is you might want to warmup/cooldown with at least a couple laps. I'd say you can get in at least 15 miles @ 5K pace in a single day without being sore/tired the next day, if 15 miles is already a regular medium day's running for you.
Here's my training plan: Weekend of Letsrun. "Weekend of Edwards"?
Day 1: 15x 1 mile @ 5K pace. + ~10 miles warmup/cooldown
Day 2: 18x 3 mile @ Marathon pace.
Makes for a ~80 mile weekend with 70 miles at race pace. No need to run during the week, maybe just some speedwork.