if the marathon is almost a 100% aerobic, why do any workouts and just run as much as possible?

I remember looking at a survey somebody did about BQ attempts. There was a strong correlation with mileage and speed. Most needed to run 50-70mpw to BQ. At 70mpw, no one was not BQ'ing. It was like the more you run, the faster you were at the marathon.

You need time at marathon race pace though so that you train that energy system, and train your mind to handle that kind of discomfort for that long.

I have a friend on strava who is a mountain trail runner. He goes out a few days per week and knocks out 20-30 mile runs at a time, sometimes shorter, but usually all very long. But all pretty slow. 9:00/mile ish. He recently ran a road marathon at 6:20/mile pace. Zero race specific training, I didn't really see any work-outs, he would just go run trails. But then again he was mentally strong enough to do 50 mile - 100K races. He probably could've ran faster if he had some race specific training, but that's still a decent pace for a guy who wasn't really focusing on it.

if the marathon is almost a 100% aerobic wrote:

Any good reasons?

The musculoskeletal development needs to be there. It's much less about aerobic/anaerobic cellular or physiologic fitness.

In workouts the muscles and bones get stressed and strengthened to handle marathon pace. Easy runs aren't enough to do this. You could be in incredible aerobic fitness from only slow easy runs or from cycling and swimming but you would suck it up in a marathon because the muscles aren't ready for it.

if the marathon is almost a 100% aerobic wrote:

Any good reasons?

a lot of marathon workouts are high end aerobic efforts. For instance mile repeats, 2 mile repeats, even 1000s are all aerobic. Tempo runs are aerobic.

I don't think you even know what you are asking.

If I guy runs 120 miles a week all at 6:00 pace, he will be slower every time than if he was running 80 miles a week with some days at 6:00 pace while also doing aerobic workouts.

The extra 40 miles aren't worth it if you are going to just jog all the time.

Because you don’t understand human metabolism/energy pathways/adaptations.

Because your aerobic pace is affected by what your upper limit is. It isn't independent of that. You want to run a lot AND do workouts.

My crude understanding from a Daniels perspective, for what it’s worth:

The mythological “lactate threshold” is the pace at which your body builds up waste products (hydrogen ions, I believe) in your blood appreciably faster than it can be cleared.

The resulting buildup of those water products signals your brain to slow down so that it can clear those waste products.

The goal of racing the marathon is to run as fast as possible without having a material buildup of those waste products. That is, to stay aerobic.

The best way to be able to run faster while staying aerobic is to lower the point at which that appreciable buildup starts to occur. That is, to improve your lactate threshold.

The faster that you run when reaching your lactate threshold, the faster you can run without reaching it.

So Daniels emphasizes heavy amounts of threshold pace, particularly in the form of cruise intervals, as part of his approach to marathons.

And yes, I know that the build up of lactic acid and thus the waste products associated with the use of it for energy production, occurs on a continuum and that there isn’t a single point where all of a sudden it starts accumulating in your body. The point is to slide the entire continuum down to faster paces.

Derek Clayton training:

48 wrote:

Derek Clayton 6'2" wt 160lbs started racing in 1962 at 19.

Training ) Identical year aound) M AM 5 - 7 miles "easy"

PM 17 miles fast

Tu am 5 - 7 miles PM 12 miles medium

W am 5 - 7 miles PM 14 miles fast over hilly terrain

Th am 5 - 7 miles pm 14 miles fast over hilly course

Fr am 5 - 7 pm 10 miles easy

Sa am 4 miles PM 25 miles in about 2:20 once or twice a month runs xc or road race instead of Sa pm workout.

Su am 17 - 20 miles in hills PM 10 miles medium pace.

"My training is mainly based on how I feel - no prearranged schedule. When training for a marathon I train long and hard.

It worked for Derek Clayton.

Jerome Drayton (2:10:08) did the bulk of his 140 mile per week training at 7 min per mile, yet raced at 5 min per mile. All hail Ernst Van Aaken!