How are the paces determined? From races?

How early in the plan are you? The extra accumulated fatigue may creep up and bite you in the ass towards the end of the training cycle and cause a flaming crash.

Being from Detroit, I got to ask the Hanson brothers that same question in person.

The answer was that the times are a general recommendation. If you recover fast, then you can speed up the times of the tempo runs. If it takes you longer to recover than the tempo runs should be at the slower end of the scale.

Like others said if you can pull off all your other weekly runs & feel good I think you are OK. Two years ago I used Hanson to run a 309 BQ and ran the M Pace tempos @ 7 to 715. Often I included 1 mi warm & 1 mi cool.
If I could go back I would run a bit more but slow down a bit. The Sat - Sun - Mon sandwich of 8 ez 16 long 8 ez is most crucial with midweek M pace med long run next most important & speed/strength less important to hit every week. (My humble opinion) Good luck!

That's some good info.

I was also interested in trying their advanced plan. A few questions:

1. I am assuming all easy (ie low HR) efforts for the Friday-Monday blocks, correct?
2. How were your speed/strength workouts structured? I am assuming something like warm up/4-8 sets of 800s/warm down, something like that?
3. Any hill work thrown in - for the long runs, for example?

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

1. Long run could maybe include a progressive part. example: start at 90 sec slower than M pace & get down to 30 or even 20 sec slower than goal pacefor 2 or 3 milrs. Everything else Fri to Monday very easy.

2. Speed is 10 to 16 weeks out & just 2 to 3 miles @ 10k pace / 50+ sec faster than M pace. Equal times interval & rest. 800 & 1200s work. So do 5k & 10k races (just a couple). But I can see doing 60 sec hills instead. It's all good.

3. The strength stuff (2 to 9 weeks before race) was hardest to pull off 5 to 6 miles just 15 sec faster than M pace sounds easier than it is. 1 & 2 mile repeats w short breaks.

3. I did 3 or 4 legit long hilly trail runs ( 2 hours) but did more long runs on the road. Total mileage was 45+ mpw for most of 12 weeks with 4 weeks 55 to 60. Only 3 runs longer than 16.

seems like it should be fine, as those runs get longer and the tuesday sessions become 6 miles of work, you may prefer to throttle the th tempo back, as your tu runs will be maybe 6.50 pace with little recovery. You can always do some marathon pace during the long run too.

I'm 5 weeks into the plan myself, the tempo just went up to 7 miles and the weekend run goes to 1. I see how the stress starts to build up

Thank you. This was really helpful.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

I just hacked the plan from Runners World "way of the Renegades" article & plan circa 2010. My training buddy did buy & download a Hanson plan I think & we went by that. I recall that speed is "between" 5k & 10k pace so close to 60 sec faster than M pace.
My buddy over did it & got injured during / after our last long run & some hard workouts 4 weeks out. This part of why I d advise not stressing over the speed & strength workouts, taking it real easy Saturday & Monday (but still getting in an hour) & focusing on the other days ...

1 would be less than optimal, 14 was what I had in mind. I think my keyboard is going kaflooey

Just found this thread when searching around for other's experiences with the Hanson Plan.

I am in week 11 (first strength workout this morning) and had a question related to pacing.

This will be my second marathon and in my first, my actual distance (per my watch) was 26.54 miles. For my goal time of 3:12, 26.54 miles = 7:14/mile while 26.2 = 7:20/mile.

For what distance do you plan your race-day pace?

plan for 26.2.
If your 1st race was on a certified course I am saying your watch was wrong, which is pretty normal. Someone will ask if you ran the tangents, but even if you did not that would not make for the 0.34 difference. GPS is quite hit or miss for exact distance. Again, I am assuming your 1st marathon was on a certified course.

Over 26.2 mile certified course you can easily run an extra 0.34 miles. I have never ran a certified course where my garmin was not showing a number greater than the advertised race distance. Missed sub 3 hr in a marathon by 12 seconds for this very reason a few weeks ago.

Actually, it could, as DCrainmaker has shown. If GPS units were so hit or miss and the tangents didn't matter, post-race results on Connect would have as many people below 26.2 as above, which is not what happens.

As far as the original question, I would plan your pace according to how you plan to run the course. If you expect to be able to run the most efficient line (based on how crowded the course is) AND you are going to do so, then go with 7:20. If it is a somewhat crowded race and/or you plan to run the course but not pay a ton of attention to how "efficiently" you run it, then shade a bit faster, maybe 7:15. Of course there's always the ST answer of run the right pace, which is the smartest/fastest pace you can, but I'm assuming the goal here is to have the most evenly paced race possible while still achieving your goal time.

I am fresh off an extremely unsuccessful marathon campaign.
There are probably many reasons for the failure. I believe the most important is this.

I needed EITHER a long long runs- 22+ miles
Or a very long marathon pace tempo runs 12-16 miles
COnsistentlty.

A 18 mile long run and a 8 mile fast pace tempo is NOT enough.
I needed consistent exposure to lots of miles at race pace, or I needed 26 miles to be "shorter."

To answer your question:
If the tempo paces is too easy- Increase the distance.

Course was certified, but a bunch of people with a half marathon starting as well, so it was 5 or 6 miles before I could comfortably run the tangents. It also had some downtown areas where I know the GPS wasn't as accurate.

Thanks for the feedback.

I can tell you that when consciously running tangents and in fairly open courses I usually end up around 26.3. One common issue in certification is the lack of cones that are around the course on race day for 2 way traffic or routing runners; these usually always add some distance despite taking the shortest route; not to mention water stops, other runners... When I am not focused on tangents, water stops, crowds...the number can easily get > 26.4. I usually knock about 3-4 seconds a mile off goal pace for insurance.

One other tidbit, mile markers are not certified so do not overreact to miles splits from mile markers; gps is usually better unless you are at some of the big time marathons when mile markers are set very accurately.

After reading your opening post, I was going to reply back stating just what you've said in your latest post.

If your following the plan correctly based on an achievable goal, there will be tempo run nights when you will wonder how the hell am I going to get through 12K at marathon pace, let alone 42K. The cumulative fatigue they based the plan around really does add up.

I've followed the Hanson plan on three occasions, and for me the key has always been the last tempo run (1.5 weeks out? or is it 2.5, can't remember off hand). I've always felt I was fading about 4 weeks out and struggling hard to maintain mp on the tempo runs, but have managed to nail the last tempo run as it all comes together. Do that, and your confidence going into the race will be huge.

As for not having longer long runs, I've yet to hit the wall after going through this plan. Usually managed to pick the pace up a bit for a strong finish. But, I suppose individual results may vary.

If the race is small with no crowds running the tangents should be pretty easy. Just take the shortest line through the corner :) (sorry, don't have it in me tonight to draw a diagram, but you can try here http://howtorunamarathon.net/Run_the_Tangents.html)

You obviously haven't run Disney.

https://app.strava.com/...s/239679812/overview

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What I do: http://app.strava.com/athletes/345699

I don't care what strava or your GPS say. I am saying they are more often wrong than not. If you ran disney with a Jones counter do you think it would have measured 26.5?

Before you go telling me again how smart you are, take a look at all the other people who ran that race at see what distances they ran (hint: there's about 500 GPS files on Strava for that race). Even the top runners clocked between 26.4 to 26.7 miles that day. With a clear path, like I had at Disney, it is very easy to add anywhere from .20 to .40 miles by not hitting the tangents on a curvy course. I'm also betting that a Jone counter would have clocked even higher.

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What I do: http://app.strava.com/athletes/345699