Hi All,
I recently started running with a dedicated running team whose focus is on marathons and half marathon.
They are providing the following recommendation:
We recommend doing your Long workouts at a pace 60-90 seconds slower than race pace. There are several reasons why this will be beneficial in the long run.
Slowing down allows for active recovery. Constantly pushing at race pace will quickly break your body down putting you at risk for injury and overtraining.By race day our goal for you is that you will have spent 3-4 workouts moving forward for more time than it will take you to finish your half or full marathon. The longest workouts during the season are 11 miles for the half marathoners and 22 miles for the full marathoners. If you are constantly pushing at race pace you will never spend the amount of time on your feet that it will take your body to finish your race. If your goal time for the half is 2 hours, but your longest workout only took an hour and 40 minutes because you always went out a race pace, you will leave your body fighting to continue moving for another 20 minutes. By slowing down as you progress through the mileage you will train your body to continue to provide/process the fuel necessary to continue moving forwardIf all of my long runs are done at 60-90 seconds slower than my race pace, how will my body be able to run at this faster pace for a marathon? Aren’t I training my body to run at this slower pace? Isn’t my body’s ability to process fuel, energy expenditure, etc all based on the slower times of my long runs? My shorter runs during the week are at a faster pace. When I asked the leader how I will be able to speed up this 60-90 seconds on race day he explained that “running faster on short days plus race day adrenaline will make it easier to hit goal pace when I matters.” Can this be true for 26 miles?
The Hanson Marathon Method says to run your long run 45 seconds slower then your goal marathon pace. Their plan is founded on a a cumulated fatigue structure where they want you to accumulate stress, fatigue and learn how to run on tired legs during training, then run your goal pace on fresh legs on race day. That was my summary of their plan, not word for word from them.
If all of my long runs are done at 60-90 seconds slower than my race pace, how will my body be able to run at this faster pace for a marathon? Aren’t I training my body to run at this slower pace? Isn’t my body’s ability to process fuel, energy expenditure, etc all based on the slower times of my long runs? My shorter runs during the week are at a faster pace. When I asked the leader how I will be able to speed up this 60-90 seconds on race day he explained that “running faster on short days plus race day adrenaline will make it easier to hit goal pace when I matters.” Can this be true for 26 miles?
Thanks, John
If you were training for a 10k, would you be doing your 9 or 10 mile runs at 10k race pace?
What is your goal for the marathon? From the reasons they give this sounds much more like a group that trains to complete the marathon than trains to run a competitive marathon.
I believe that to be true. Everyone will have a different theory and what works for some won’t work for others - but that’s what I subscribed to. I usually go 90 seconds slower than race pace - sometimes even 120 seconds slower (depending on variables).
It has been the way I’ve been training as advised by my pro ironman competitor friend. To build aerobic endurance I run at a hr of 180-age which is a pretty easy pace. My short runs I will do sped drills, accelerations, sprints, etc. read the triathlon training bible by friel, he explains everything very well.
Ok, so if you are hoping to run an 8min per mile pace and train your long runs at a 9min per mile pace - you can simply speed up to 8min per mile and hold it for 26 miles?
What is your goal for the marathon? From the reasons they give this sounds much more like a group that trains to complete the marathon than trains to run a competitive marathon.
They have all pace groups - from 7min per mile to 13 min per mile. All are following this method.
I would get yourself Jack Daniels’ book. That should help you understand proper pacing. From my experience a lot of guys who get into running post college run their easy runs too fast. You have to understand that each type of workout is for a different purpose. You have V02 workouts, lactic threshold workouts, and easy runs. I never ran over 15 miles at marathon race pace in a workout. The longest “hard” workout I did was 22 miles - where there were 5X2 mile repeats at half-marathon pace sprinkled through the run. I’ve run over 10 marathons and my PR is 2:32 at Boston.
If you can recover off a 20+ mile run at marathon race pace enough that it doesn’t impact your training the next week, then your goal pace is too slow.
Thanks, will look into it. I just have a hard time wrapping my head about running slower on the long runs then going a lot faster on the longest run - race day.
Ok, so if you are hoping to run an 8min per mile pace and train your long runs at a 9min per mile pace - you can simply speed up to 8min per mile and hold it for 26 miles?
Shorter runs you go faster and work in speed work to keep your legs used to the speed. Yes, I do believe that to be the case. It’s not uncommon for a race pace to be 1:00-1:30 faster than a “long run training pace”.
FWIW, I had similar thoughts after running a surprisingly fast (for me) 15km road race in November. My long runs were always 7:45-8:15/mi for 12-15mi over the previous 8 weeks. I did once a week threshold pace workouts (e.g., 5-7x1000m at ~6:00/mi on a certain rest interval) and then easy runs on 2-3 other days during the week at a similar pace to my long runs. I ended up averaging 6:25/mi during the race. So, even though it is a shorter race the concept is the same for the marathon. It seems your coach has a conservative approach to distance run training, which is probably much better than an aggressive approach with high rates of injury.
Your logic is going to be your undoing, it makes sense, but that’s not how the body adapts, using your logic milers should just go to the track and run miles at race pace, since that’s that they hope to accomplish. I could get into training theory and energy system optimization and mitochondria, but suffice it to say, listen to people who have experience and know what they’re talking about, because they’re right.
I will say though, as you improve and get below 3 hour or so, you should be building throughout the training cycle to where you will be doing 12-14 miles at marathon pace perhaps with a few miles at each end, but this puts the finishing touches on fitness built through slower long runs and faster threshold workouts.
What is your goal for the marathon? From the reasons they give this sounds much more like a group that trains to complete the marathon than trains to run a competitive marathon.
They have all pace groups - from 7min per mile to 13 min per mile. All are following this method.
Ok, the slowing down over time and eating just seemed strange to me. The long slow runs are a normal way to add mileage without getting injured. I also follow Daniels’ plan and don’t do more than 16 miles at marathon pace in workouts. I take it they have marathon and threshold pace workouts for you.
I could get into training theory and energy system optimization and mitochondria, but suffice it to say, listen to people who have experience and know what they’re talking about, because they’re right.
Got it. I am interested in some of the theory/science about how it works if you care to share.
Thanks, John
If someone doesn’t jump in to explain some of it, I’ll come back to it later when I have some time. I rarely recommend books, but if you want a good resource which explains a lot of the “why’s” to training specificity and building general fitness, check out a book called “run faster” by brad Hudson. It’s shorter and in my opinion easier to read for a novice than Daniels. The book touches on a lot of why you need to build general fitness and why getting extremely specific with your workouts early on will lead to plateaus.
One last thing before I go, for a quick read, check out this short article series. Its by Benji Durden, a guy who originally ran a 2:36 in his first marathon, eventually improving to 2:08. He talks simply and directly. At the bottom of the page shows the succession of articles (the first page is the training program). You’ll notice the second page is “run long” where he directly talks about long run pace and why it is slower.
One last thing before I go, for a quick read, check out this short article series. Its by Benji Durden, a guy who originally ran a 2:36 in his first marathon, eventually improving to 2:08. He talks simply and directly. At the bottom of the page shows the succession of articles (the first page is the training program). You’ll notice the second page is “run long” where he directly talks about long run pace and why it is slower.http://www.copacabanarunners.net/ipath.html
Most excellent, I appreciate it!
“You also may think that the suggested time range for the long run is too slow. Similar to the easy run pace, resist the temptation to go faster. The main value of the long run in the marathon training program is to train your body to be more efficient at burning fat and sparing glycogen stores.
If you can teach your body to burn fat, rather than depleting glycogen to produce energy, you’re less likely to run out of fuel and hit the wall come marathon day. But the faster you go on your long runs, the less likely it is that your body will learn how to burn fat efficiently and the more likely it is that you will hit the wall in the marathon.”
So even though I run faster on race day, my body stays in fat burning mode for longer? I was thinking (maybe too much) that if I run faster on race day I will deplete glycogen faster and at a rate my body was not used to since I was in fat burning mode on all of the long runs.
There aren’t really different modes that turn on and off. ATP is always coming from multiple sources, the percentage breakdown is determined by workload and duration. You’ll have to read some exercise physiology books if you’re interested in the actual science.
From a practical training standpoint, marathon training is about training your body to handle the duration and the pace. To handle the duration, you have to do 2-3 hour long runs. If you could run those at pace already, you wouldn’t need to train, you’d just run the marathon. Since you can’t, you have to run them slowly.
The second component is running the specific pace. Marathon pace is going to be <93% of threshold pace. How close you can run to threshold is pretty much correlated with how many miles you’ve run both in the build-up and in your lifetime. In marathon training you need to spend the majority of the build-up lowering threshold pace and increasing endurance. 8-12 weeks out you can do a specific marathon build and focus on mpace - running one workout per week that’s aimed at extending the distance you can maintain mpace.
Basically think about it like a funnel. On one side, you’re trying to extend the TIME you can run. On the other, you’re trying to extend the DISTANCE you can run mpace. As the race gets closer, you get more specific and those two converge to the point where you’re doing 20 mile progression runs.
If you’re new to running though, focus on the two most obvious (and easy to wrap your head around) areas - endurance (lots of easy miles and long runs) and threshold (20-30 min runs at threshold and 50-60 min runs at 95% of threshold). Doing those things weekly will get you 99% of the way there.