Shortest LSR to run a marathon?

Reg'stoy

If I may as a complete novice offer my tuppence worth. I followed a training program fairly rigidly and this very question raised it's head when I talked to others who had ran a marathon. I did one 20 mile on the top of a couple of 18mile runs and quite a few 15 mile. I was amazed at the physical difference in what was such a small difference in distances in completing the long 20 mile run.

I was/am your typical weekend runner and as such just wanted to finish so the benifit of the long run for me was mental. I knew when I lined up that I would finish because mentally I had almost already ran the distance. I had broken the marathon into 3 stages, 2 10 miles with just a 10k to finish. When I passed the 20 mile marker (which I knew I would), I said alright buddy just another 6 to go.

So for me the long slow run was as much about mental preperation as physical.

--amadeus--

Feel free to disagree with each other but please don't make it personal ("attack the post, not the poster").

Racing Flat

All this talk of Higdon, Daniels, Galloway, etc. etc. - IMHO people won't go far wrong following the Brendan O'Shea programmes in the Irish runner. If you can take the volume you'll be strong as a horse.

Racing Flat

mithril wrote: »

I am no expert, but this would appear to contradict the P&D approach, I and a lot of others on this forum, are using?
in the P&D 18 week program, first 6 weeks is building a base with slowinh running , next 6 weeks you start doing a weekly lactate threshold run and for the final 6 weeks with the exception of race week yuo convert this into a V02 max workout with intervals and tune-up races. So you are focussing more on anaerobic fitness as the race approaches.

Most training advice seems to be to do longer slower base work first and then gradually reduce the quantity as you increase the quality (speed), i.e. for middle/long distance on track. So this is often transferred to marathon training. But I remember one book saying that for the marathon it should be the opposite - do the faster sessions first and the slower fast ones then (which at the time didn't seem to make sense or seem natural to me). Can't remember who it was, thought it was P&D but maybe it was the Scottish/South African ultra-runner (?Norrie Williamson or something like that). But based on the reasons explained above by tergat, it now makes sense to me.

BeepBeep67

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

We'll have to ask a club-runner, but I certainly get the impression that some of the faster runners on this forum have quite individualized programs.

From experience this varies, typically there aren't enough educated / correctly trained resources in most clubs, so let's 20 club members are doing DCM, the 80:20 rule will generally apply. The 80% get standard programs based on their time target and the 20% that show promise or are a bit more demanding get tailored versions of that and more 1:1 focus and feedback.
The way we try to handle is something similar to the above with a club get together for 2 - 3hrs every 3-4 weeks, which is about 1hr group discussion and the remainder an opportunity to nab someone to explore a point a bit further, this is then backed up with a weekend event about 6 weeks out from the Marathon, where there would be 2 - 3 very specific training sessions and lots of opportuntity to ask questions and make some adjustments in the final weeks.

asimonov

Racing Flat wrote: »

Most training advice seems to be to do longer slower base work first and then gradually reduce the quantity as you increase the quality (speed), i.e. for middle/long distance on track. So this is often transferred to marathon training. But I remember one book saying that for the marathon it should be the opposite - do the faster sessions first and the slower fast ones then (which at the time didn't seem to make sense or seem natural to me). Can't remember who it was, thought it was P&D but maybe it was the Scottish/South African ultra-runner (?Norrie Williamson or something like that). But based on the reasons explained above by tergat, it now makes sense to me.

McMillan seems to agree with that approach where he suggests changing from the classic marathon training programme as shown here in this diagram (which he obviously made at home).



and replacing it with this structure below, bringing speed back earlier in the programme.



full article in running times here

Krusty_Clown

Thanks Asimonov, makes for good reading (and we know he's a regular coach. ). In the article he also presents this alternative (minority) approach, based on high volume, with little/no speed-work, which apparently they use with some success with in Asia:

While the classic method and the new method may work for 90-95 percent of marathoners, there are some athletes who seem to fit another method—the volume method. For these runners, speed before stamina or stamina before speed matters not. Much less emphasis is placed on specific workouts as the accumulation of miles is the key to their success.
I have coached athletes who simply lacked speed and no matter how much they worked on it, only marginal improvements in speed could be made. For this type of athlete, the best plan of attack is simply to work on your strength, which is your strength. Volume of training becomes numero uno.
Examples from the past include many of our great American marathoners from the late 1960s who simply ran a lot of miles. None of those training miles were necessarily fast by today’s standards, but the athletes still won races, made Olympic teams and achieved times that most current American runners would be happy to call their own. Today, many Asian marathoners use the volume approach—the Japanese in particular. The Japanese coaches and athletes with whom I have spoken are matter-of-fact about it. They know their athletes have no speed so they don’t worry about it. They overwhelm the competition with endurance. And who can argue with them? They dominate championship marathons like the World Championships and Olympics.

kennyb3

slightly off topic but related to lsr's, i see brendan o shea advocates doing 50% of training and avoiding concrete if possible, do many people do even close to this much off the paths and roads?

tunguska

kennyb3 wrote: »

slightly off topic but related to lsr's, i see brendan o shea advocates doing 50% of training and avoiding concrete if possible, do many people do even close to this much off the paths and roads?

I dont know what anybody else does but I do pretty much all my runs on concrete. Thats about 85+ miles worth. Id like to run on grass but its just not a convieniant option. The body is holding up well but I do perform a lot of stretches before and after training. Also use the foam roller a lot to iron out muscles after a long run on the hard surface. Its probably better to run on grass but like I said thats not always possible so when you are running on concrete just look after yourself in terms of stretching and doing some resistance training to strengthen the leg muscles.

Pisco Sour

Would there be a danger if when running long slow runs slower than your marathon pace (suppose running at 4.30 pace, and your marathon goal pace is 4.00) that you may become too used to running at this slow pace and actually find it hard to run the long miles at the faster pace come race day?

I havent run a marathon yet so I could be talking absolute rubbish. Have been thinking about running one in April next year and the whole issue of pacing in training runs has been on my mind strangely today (when I should have been working )