My wife who is a pretty decent runner, she has run 3:02 in the marathon and will probably dip under 3 this year, has started adding 30+ mile long runs to her training. We have been arguing regarding the physological benefit of this length run. She has been at 75 miles/week for about a month and will peak between 90-100. She also plans to peak at a 40 mile long run. She only does these once per month. The other weeks she'll do 15-22 mile long runs.
Any input?
If she recovers well, then I think it is a good idea. Would you feel that you had maximized your 10k potential if your longest single run were 5 or 6 miles? I'm probably in the minority on this, but I think that going beyond your race distance in training occasionally is a good idea - even for the marathon. Bordin used to do 50k somewhat regularly and the Japanese go even beyond that.
seems like the kind of thing that will be counterproductive for most, beneficial for some
for most, I would guess that it would cause them to "leave the race on the roads."
I would think that you could name more fast Marathoners who run considerably less than the race distance in training than those who run beyond it.
Excellent point hawkeye. Can anyone name a 2:06 guy or 2:20 gal who goes "overdistance".
Haile Geb does runs over 30 miles.
I think any run that consists of more then 30% of your weekly mileage is just a dumb idea. But she'll have to find that out on her own.
I don't think that anyone has definitively resolved this oft-asked question. In my opinion, it puts too much emphasis on one workout. Good training, involves the gradual and cumulative effect of each workout. With a 2:38 PR, I'm probably in your wife's class, but I never ran longer than 22 miles in training for that race. If she can run the 30 miles and bounce back for a good tempo or track workout 2-3 days later, maybe the runs are working for her.
During the heyday of Athletics west ('79 and'80ish) those guys ran up to 30 miles in prep for marathons (i.e. Nike OTC)...I don't necessarily think that they did it more than once or twice before a particular race, but they did it!
MF
Takahashi and Kimaiyo
GILT wrote:
Excellent point hawkeye. Can anyone name a 2:06 guy or 2:20 gal who goes "overdistance".
Paul Tergat (2:04:55), Toshinari Takaoka (2:06:16), Haile Gebrselassie (2:06:35) and Naoko Takahashi (2:19:46) have all reportedly done "overdistance" (30 mile/50k runs) training with Takahashi apparently doing some 40+ mile days up in Boulder when preparing for the Olympics.
Well now that she is back from the 30 miler this morning, here some more info. She and her training buddy went thru the 26 in 3:20 feeling fresh and they finished strong. She feels good, which is not the case after a marathon.
She is doing a track workout on Monday, so as some of you stated, that will be a good test/indicator.
You may be just jealous that she isn't staying in bed late giving you head. Go run with her.
run long wrote:
I think any run that consists of more then 30% of your weekly mileage is just a dumb idea. But she'll have to find that out on her own.
People get way too hung up on what you SHOULD do according to the RULES - like your long run must be no more than x% of your weekly mileage, or your weekly mileage should only increase by x% per week, or that you should do all doubles or no doubles, etc. Run! Experiment! Find out what works for YOU!
Maybe she'll find out that doing these 30M+ runs is NOT a dumb idea for HER. Everybody has different bodies, different talents, and different desires. There is no ONE RIGHT ANSWER that goes for everyone.
BDG
*Individual* examples--or even small groups like AW--do not "prove" the value of something, in this case ultra long runs. For every Japanese who's doing 6 hours at 8:00/mi., there's a Rosa Mota who almost NEVER went longer than 1:30 in her entire marathon career.
So...why should the "individual" example of Rosa Mota prove to me, or this guy's wife (who I would guess is not Rosa Mota) that HER way is the ONLY way that works?
We are all individuals that respond differently to different types of training. People thought Zatopek was crazy, people thought Lydiard was crazy, and we could go back in history and find plenty of people who successfully explored their own limits and talents.
And as Rosa Mota ran several marathons in her career, she obviously ran over 1:30 several times...
BDG
"We are all individuals that respond differently to different types of training."
Hey, lighten up, I AGREE with you---that was my point.
I just think there are too many examples of people running 30 plus mile runs and still crashing a bit in a race. There just doesn't seem to be enough benefits to make it truly worthwhile. I would be more inclined to settle for a long run that is the duration of the projected race time.
I don't have any problem with your analysis there. If I was setting up someone's training plan and they hadn't done anything like that in the past, I probably wouldn't recommend regular XLong runs like that. But I think it's fine to experiment with different types of long runs - long easy runs, long hard runs, long building runs, long runs with a good portion at marathon pace, and yes, the occasional XLong run. But to put a number on it would be tough - I've gone out and done several 30M runs over the the past several years, but I've had issues with much longer than that.
Experiment. Run.
BDG
To name a few close to those times, 208 guy Ozaki from NTT in Japan and 219 runner Qchan, Naoko Takahashi. Probably many more out there.