When you race a marathon as fast as you can, is there any benefit to it or is it just muscle/running damaging to the future running goals? Like, does running that far in one go actually have no benefit to your training and actually detriminal since it is so taxing on the body
I'm an ecophysiologist by training, and a bit sarcastic. There might be some effects to gamete production and libido with marathon training but any loss in fitness would be temporary.
How far in the future?
I would say that if you want to run a fast 5k then running a marathon close to it might not be a good idea.
I knew a pretty good coach 30 years ago that told me that there were two types of runs.
He compared them to bank transactions.
Some runs are like making deposits and others withdrawals.
He considered training as deposits and races as withdrawals. It made sense to me then and it still makes sense to me today.
I would consider racing a marathon (I've done 33) as a major withdrawal.
I'm still new to the sport, but just did my first marathon and felt like it really helped my economy and even my recovery. Ran my best 5k three weeks after by 30 seconds. This might largely be due to the consistant training leading up to it, but I just feel stronger overall since. I am pretty slow however so my expirience may not be typical. 3:05marathon and 17:45 5k
Marathon pace is just below lactate threshold (87-90% of HR max, w/anaerobic threshold being around 92%). I've always felt a fitness boost from running marathons, as long as you allow an appropriate time to recover and get the spring back in your step, which personally hits me after 8-10 days (w/1-2 days off and some easy running). Even cooler is the fact it gets easier to recover from marathons the more you do them- those who only do 1-2 marathons/year will be slower to recover. Bill Rodgers ran 5-6 marathons/year for a good chunk of his career, along with many others from the era doing the same. It's amazing that most elites don't incorporate low-key marathons into their training, but will do these ridiculously hard 18-24 mile training runs.