Marathon Performance Determined By Miles Only?

Well it does fit into the LRCwords:

"You overthink this, just run"

and

"Just run more"

and

about doubles

"I started to run 3 miles in the morning when I was (some) age, it made an immediate impact."

Malmo

(maybe the last quote is slightly wrong, but the message is clear).

It does exist other research though showing that for some it does not matter how much they run, they do not get faster.

But it was interesting, for others reading: Click the link and hear the podcast.

Later this weekend I plan on seeing if I can find the study he references. I would like to see the parameters and methodology he used.

Why is he pushing that marshmallow over?

I agree.

According to the Tanda calculator I found, if you run 155 miles per week at an average of 8:00min/mile, you could run 2:33:28 in the marathon. Is that realistic? What if you actually ran 8:00min/mile for every run? 155 miles is massive, but 8:00min/mile is very easy.

It could explain how Ed Whitlock's training worked. Do enough miles at a very slow pace and get very fast at the marathon.

Tanda also shows it's easy to break 3 hours in the marathon, but very hard to break 2:40 or worse 2:30. Breaking 2:50 isn't that bad either.

To break 2:30 at a 7:00min/mile average you need 115 miles per week.

tandaracepredictor.com

One's Marathon performance is more strongly correlated with current 1500m fitness than mileage. A sub-4:10 1500m runner in 4:10 1500m condition at start of Marathon who runs 100km per week is going to beat a 5:40 1500m runner who runs 200km per week in Marathon.

I think this is probably true if you have natural talent. But if you are a no-talent hobby jogger like myself, I think I could run 150 mpw and still not break 2:50.

I was dubious until I put in some data from my late 30s. I was in roughly 16 min 5k shape, doing about 50 miles a week, and close to 6 min per mile (I was doing things like 5 x 2 miles at 5:40 pace).

The Tanda Marathon Prediction was 2:48:55, and I ran 2:47:35 in London that year.

The Tanda Prediction was way off on my shorter paces, but accurate on the longer ones, whereas the age graded under-estimated my short times, and over-estimated the longer ones.

I was next to useless at anything past 10k, and Tanda did a lot better job of figuring that out than age graded or other predictions based on my 5k.

Even a 10 mile race that I did while running 'training tired' and a half marathon I did is a worse guide than the Tanda calculator.

Given that I was at a pretty extreme end of low distance/high intensity, so quite an outlier, the calculator did a better job than anything I've seen to date.

sub_3_is_the_goal wrote:

I think this is probably true if you have natural talent. But if you are a no-talent hobby jogger like myself, I think I could run 150 mpw and still not break 2:50.

I think you are seeing the truth of words? When we know the 1500m PB of elite Marathoners, we know fit elite Marathoners tend to race Marathon (32.5 to 36) x their 1500m PB. I think this formula holds up well for a 5:40 1500m runner.

I always find it hard to find studies on mileage, given it seems to be such a large influence on performance in running. Anyone have any interesting studies on it?

" When we know the 1500m PB of elite Marathoners, we know fit elite Marathoners tend to race Marathon (32.5 to 36) x their 1500m PB. I think this formula holds up well for a 5:40 1500m runner."

That's not going to work for Masters runners. And the range is useless. 32.5 to 36 times? A 5:00 runner predicts 2:42:30 to 3:00:00. How is that useful?

I'm more interested in the Tanda calculator. It seems to be eerily accurate. And it tells you how slow junk miles are. For most, it'll be like 9:30 min/miles. Yes, there IS such a thing as junk miles but they are very very slow.

The calculator is wayyyyy off for me!!! I mean completely useless at predicting, putting me at 10 minutes slower in half and running 60 miles a week. I can do that after layoff from running on no training... Just useless...

I was thinking the same considering the HM time, with a difference of almost ten minutes (or a 2 minutes difference on 5k). On the other hand, it does come within a minute of my marathon PR (3:09:xx), so I guess it has some uses, but mainly for the longer distances in aerobically underdeveloped (read: low-mileage) guys and girls. Cool calculator nevertheless, could possibly (probably) improve with a larger sample size study.

Calculator is pretty accurate for me.

I ran 1:10 and low 2:30s off of doubles everyday ( 8-9 min pace if not slower sometimes) and races every week. No workouts or speed work at all

Great! I think I will use it as another indication of how much my mileage should increase in a future sub-3 attempt (currently around 40mpw). Or I could just run 1km in 3 minutes each week and finish in 3:11 according to the formula given in the Tanda paper. Oh well...

Looking at Josh's Strava, he seems to pretty much do all is runs at MP (or am I mistaken, I couldn't see any really slow runs) ? Which doesn't quite match with speed doesn't matter...wouldn't it be more, train lots at the speed you will be racing at ?

The core of any good marathon training plan is easy slow mileage. The more the better. This isn't even slightly controversial.

What is controversial is the idea that anything faster than easy is pointless. I find this to be extremely unlikely. Nobody can definitely refute this idea based on data alone. The quality and quantity of studies in running is absolutely terrible.

In the running world we essentially base our training on replicating what works for others that are doing well. So instead of believing some dude that runs a 2:28, it might be better to believe the thousands of elite athletes that use speed work, and happen to be way faster than this guy.

If Kipchoge stopped doing speedwork, and just did slow easy miles, my guess is that he would be a lot slower(like a few minutes slower). I don't know this until he does it, but he will never do it so we will never know. I can say from my own experience, having recently tried running a marathon off of slow easy miles(injury was hampering me), I was a lot slower without speed work. Like 5 or 6 minutes slower.

runnER/DR wrote:

...

If Kipchoge stopped doing speedwork, and just did slow easy miles, my guess is that he would be a lot slower(like a few minutes slower). I don't know this until he does it, but he will never do it so we will never know. I can say from my own experience, having recently tried running a marathon off of slow easy miles(injury was hampering me), I was a lot slower without speed work. Like 5 or 6 minutes slower.

Same for me... For my first 4 marathons last year, I only trained with my ultra training miles, lots of easy running, fartleks, but no speedwork, or any specific marathon training, except plenty of local races from 5M to halfs sprinkled throughout the year. This year, in my prep for Boston, I went with Hanson's advanced program, topping out at 65M, averaging between 45-55M weekly, with weekly speedwork and MP runs, and improved my marathon pace by about 15-20 sec/mile which gives me about the same 5-6 minute improvement in my marathon.

Now, I didn't do it in Boston, the humidity and heat got better of me but hoping to repeat the same solid 3 months prep for Chicago in the fall and do it;)