Quality over quantity (marathon)

kookiebrew

Hi guys n girls, when it comes to marathons do people usually go for quality over quantity or aim for as many as possible.

I know there's some people here who can run all their marathons at a great pace but I'm thinking more your average marathon runner. Personally I'd prefer to put in a good time and train hard for it.

Coffee Fulled Runner

Definitely quality. I don't see the point in doing five or six marathons a year and collecting medals if you don't break the 3:30 at the least. But each to there own, if you like long distance running and the buzz from races then best if luck to you.

kookiebrew

I know a few people who will run 4-5 a year and finish around 4:30-5 hrs, that just doesn't appeal to me one bit. But as you said each to their own.

Itziger

I'm kinda split on this one. Here are my last two years marathon experience.

2014: 1 Quality all the way, right? Blew up, cramped, didn't even PB. Frankfurt 3.13.xx

2015: 4 Quantity all the way. Lux (pure training run, had only done one 'long run' and that was 6 days before, AND it was awful!) 3.18.xx

Karlsruhe, (Sept 20th) not priority but major prep. 3.05.xx PB

New York, (Nov 1st) priority, bridges got me. 3.04.xx PB

Pisa, (Dec 20th) kinda afterthought, 3.03.xx PB

So, of course, I'm going back to Quality this year

kookiebrew

Sounds to me quantity is the way to go if you want a pb haha

Darren 83

Interesting topic, there's a lad I know who does min 5 marathons a year. Times are all in 5 hours plus. I don't see the point of all the training if no improvement in times. His health has also has taken a serious dive.

rom

Doing a marathon ain't cheap if you factor in travel, accommodation, race entry etc. So if your doing it to visit the place thats fine but personally if I wanted to see a City I would go on a walking tour. When I get older that I am not concerned about times I will probably do races for this reason but for now I like to try my best.

RuMan

Probably comes down to what ur doing in ur "off season". If you're sitting on the couch and doing nothing you are probably better off training continually for marathons as at least it gets u training consistently.

As far as i can see the elites would target 2 a year. One spring one autumn.
Some form of consistent year round training with a build up to 2 peaks seems the logical way to go. Personally the marathon would lose any "magic" for me if i was doing one every month.

echancrure

I don't why you can't do a bit of both.

Have one or two target marathons (e.g. Cork, Dublin) and have fun / weekend away kinds as well (e.g. Connemara, Dingle).

Chasing a pb everytime can lead to delusion.

Krusty_Clown

RuMan wrote: »

Probably comes down to what ur doing in ur "off season". If you're sitting on the couch and doing nothing you are probably better off training continually for marathons as at least it gets u training consistently.

As far as i can see the elites would target 2 a year. One spring one autumn.
Some form of consistent year round training with a build up to 2 peaks seems the logical way to go. Personally the marathon would lose any "magic" for me if i was doing one every month.

I dunno. May be just my own perspective (based on my own non-elite experiences) but training for and running two marathons a year doesn't really offer room for improvement. Perhaps different for some elite runners at the moment, who are forced to do a double marathon cycle because of Rio, and other elite runners (e.g Kenyans) chasing word major titles, but I would imagine that for most other elite runners who do not fit into these categories/circumstances, running a single marathon every year or every other year offers the best potential to improve. If of course the considered alternative is to do no training at all, then yes, anything has to be better than doing nothing at all.

I don't think anyone would defend the position that multi-marathoning leads to improvements. I'm sure that some runners can continue to achieve PBs when multi-marathoning, but would likely also do so (and perhaps at an accelerated rate) if they focused on just one marathon per year.

kookiebrew

I think most people who run multi marathons in a year are not that interested in pbs anyway. It's more a quantity thing.

Did my first marathon last May and my plan was to spend the rest of the year building up my miles and gettin my half pb down all to try for as good a time as possible this May. So basically I've spent a year training for a marathon.

Instead of this I could have slowed down and ran 2 or 3 more marathons at a slower pace over the past 9 months or so and made no or very little improvement on my pb. I just don't see the point of doing that.

Seanie_H

I've done a load of junk marathons in terms of PBing. Marathon training is enjoyable and rewarding even if you're not beating times. There's a mental endurance there too that's good to test. If you look at the lads in the East & West of Ireland Marathon Clubs, there's something pretty cool about how they can knock out week after week of marathons.

But I'd have no bones in admitting it's a poor way attempting to achieve a PB. Running for enjoyments sake without 100% intensity is enjoyable. PBs all about all quality of training and commitment to the process / plan. I'll have a tip at a proper pb attempt next year.

Gavlor

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I dunno. May be just my own perspective (based on my own non-elite experiences) but training for and running two marathons a year doesn't really offer room for improvement. Perhaps different for some elite runners at the moment, who are forced to do a double marathon cycle because of Rio, and other elite runners (e.g Kenyans) chasing word major titles, but I would imagine that for most other elite runners who do not fit into these categories/circumstances, running a single marathon every year or every other year offers the best potential to improve. If of course the considered alternative is to do no training at all, then yes, anything has to be better than doing nothing at all.

I don't think anyone would defend the position that multi-marathoning leads to improvements. I'm sure that some runners can continue to achieve PBs when multi-marathoning, but would likely also do so (and perhaps at an accelerated rate) if they focused on just one marathon per year.

Interesting thoughts Gary.

I've ran 2 marathons a year over my shirt running life but I'm considering focusing on 10k & half marathons over the next few months in prep for a lash at Dublin or Amsterdam in October.

I'm looking at Wexford half in April, Waterford half in June, clonmel in August and Dublin in September.

My original plan was to race the Waterford full in June but I'm considering the above instead.

ie quality over quantity. What do you think?

KielyUnusual

Gavlor wrote: »

Interesting thoughts Gary.

I've ran 2 marathons a year over my shirt running life but I'm considering focusing on 10k & half marathons over the next few months in prep for a lash at Dublin or Amsterdam in October.

I'm looking at Wexford half in April, Waterford half in June, clonmel in August and Dublin in September.

My original plan was to race the Waterford full in June but I'm considering the above instead.

ie quality over quantity. What do you think?

I think you are due a short one for the Waterford Full this year so might as well give it a lash in preparation for the full distance up in Dublin.

Krusty_Clown

Gavlor wrote: »

ie quality over quantity. What do you think?

It'd be a similar enough pattern to my own running history. Started off with a marathon, then one wasn't enough and I was training for and doing two a year. I was still making good progress, but I'm not sure how much of that was just down to natural progression, versus the benefit of running 2+ marathons a year. Eventually the diminishing returns catch up with you and the PBs become marginal. You can switch to another style of plan, and that'll work for a while, but eventually same thing. Marathon training makes you a better marathon runner, but it doesn't necessarily make you any faster (aside from fringe benefits like running economy, weight loss, physiological adaptations etc).. IMO if you want to get faster though, you have to train faster, which means shorter distances, faster speed.

In your case because you don't have the heavy pounding of many years of consistent mileage, the two-marathon year plan won't necessarily do you any harm and you'll likely continue to see benefits, just from structured consistent running, but eventually you may reach your current potential and will have to look elsewhere to continue to improve your marathon times, and that means going back to the drawing board and revisiting the basic building blocks of running.

Your new strategy looks good, as long as you have specific goals aligned with those races. For example if the goal is to try and PB at each of those halfs, you're on a hiding for nothing. My build-up for Frankfurt last year was:
Jan-May 5k focus (some races across distances for the craic)
August: Tullamore half - goal: 13 miles @MP
September: Charleville Half - Aim for a PB
Late September: Moone Kilomarathon - 16 miles @MP
October: Marathon

That worked for me, as there was a logical progression. I'm doing something similar this year, though the focus for the first half of the year is the 10k distance and will switch to the marathon for the final 12 weeks before Berlin. Hopefully it works out. The psychological benefits of hitting PBs over the first half of the year over shorter distances before heading into marathon training are pretty substantial, so hoping I can swing in that direction over the next few months. Anyway, apologies for the long answer to a short question. Quality first, then quantity!

BeepBeep67

Gavlor wrote: »

Interesting thoughts Gary.

I've ran 2 marathons a year over my shirt running life but I'm considering focusing on 10k & half marathons over the next few months in prep for a lash at Dublin or Amsterdam in October.

I'm looking at Wexford half in April, Waterford half in June, clonmel in August and Dublin in September.

My original plan was to race the Waterford full in June but I'm considering the above instead.

ie quality over quantity. What do you think?

Personally I would replace a few of those halfs with shorter races, if you plan on giving each one a lash, then you are sacrificing 2-3 weeks training for each. What will benefit you more for your marathon goal?

aoboa

The psychological benefits of hitting PBs over the first half of the year over shorter distances before heading into marathon training are pretty substantial, so hoping I can swing in that direction over the next few months.

This is really interesting and as a complete novice it's something I had never considered.

Gavlor

Brilliant advice across the board (with the exception of the tipp comedian!).

One follow on question so.

Should the lsr have peaks and troughs over the course of the year or should it plateau at 12-14 miles during the short stuff, increasing steadily for the longer stuff.

Sorry for the extra question but I'm sure there are others that might also be interested....

Darren 83

On the subject of multiple marathons, I'm planing on running Cork in June and would like to run DCM in October. What would be the best way to approach doing two marathons in a year? I'm following Jack Daniels 2Q plan

BeepBeep67

Gavlor wrote: »

Brilliant advice across the board (with the exception of the tipp comedian!).

One follow on question so.

Should the lsr have peaks and troughs over the course of the year or should it plateau at 12-14 miles during the short stuff, increasing steadily for the longer stuff.

Sorry for the extra question but I'm sure there are others that might also be interested....

I would adjust depending on the target race or point in the schedule, for me it's tough mentally to always have a 2hr+ run at the end of the week, but others look forward to that.

For 10k you want the focus to be on race specific workouts, but endurance is a big factor in all races from MD upwards. I've hit master's PB's in 3k - 5M off marathon training. So keeping something every other week at 12M + is sensible I think and it can be a straight forward easy run and keep the powder dry for the 10k focused sessions.

For the HM, I would go to 16 as a minimum and longer depending on where you are at and no harm in mixing up every alternative LSR with some tempo and/or MP paced efforts.

Finally, if marathon is the ultimate goal, there's no harm in factoring in a longer LSR maybe once per month, it means when you get into marathon specific training you can hit the ground running off a shorter more specific cycle. I find it tough starting a 24 week plan, much prefer to be doing the right things, but with a greater degree of flexibility and then jump in 12-14 weeks out.

My 2c, hopefully see you on the road one of these days.

Enduro

Is there any science to back up the general impression I'm reading here that you're unlikely to race optimally if you race more than 2 marathons a year? Is it just othodoxy/recieved wisdom that goes unquestioned, or is there any good data to back it up?

I can see why this might be the case for a relatively new runner, but it strikes me as being very conservative indeed for a more experienced well trained distance runner.

Coffee Fulled Runner

You could be be right but I'd say OP was referring to average runners more so than well trained ultra/long distance runners.

Woden

Is it not just like any other distance though? I'm no flyer but looking back when I was training for my first half it was like a marathon in the sense that it didn't actually run the race distance in any training run and then a number of marathon plans top out at less than race distance

Then you fast forward to marathon training and all of a sudden you're running the equivalent distance wise at least of a half every weekend (albeit at LSR pace) and if I was to take a more advanced half plan now it could be 45mpw and long runs could peak at 15/6miles greater than race distance.

Is there just not another step past the marathon then training for ultra's were you are then putting out marathons every weekend as a LSR and your body adapts?

TFBubendorfer

Woden wrote: »

Is it not just like any other distance though? I'm no flyer but looking back when I was training for my first half it was like a marathon in the sense that it didn't actually run the race distance in any training run and then a number of marathon plans top out at less than race distance

Then you fast forward to marathon training and all of a sudden you're running the equivalent distance wise at least of a half every weekend (albeit at LSR pace) and if I was to take a more advanced half plan now it could be 45mpw and long runs could peak at 15/6miles greater than race distance.

Is there just not another step past the marathon then training for ultra's were you are then putting out marathons every weekend as a LSR and your body adapts?

That's a different issue IMHO. The OP was asking about running multiple marathons as a means to itself. There are plenty of runners who do that, including some exceptional cases who run over 100 marathons a year.

Running marathons as training runs for an ultra are not the same thing. That's a training run, not a marathon for the sake of it.

Running a marathon as a pacer is somewhere in-between. If you want to run as many marathons as possible, pacing a marathon cuts down on expenses. Personally, I find it very handy for training purposes as well: if I pace a marathon I know I won't be tempted to race it instead, which can have negative repercussions on your training.

Gavlor

Woden wrote: »

Is it not just like any other distance though? I'm no flyer but looking back when I was training for my first half it was like a marathon in the sense that it didn't actually run the race distance in any training run and then a number of marathon plans top out at less than race distance

Then you fast forward to marathon training and all of a sudden you're running the equivalent distance wise at least of a half every weekend (albeit at LSR pace) and if I was to take a more advanced half plan now it could be 45mpw and long runs could peak at 15/6miles greater than race distance.

Is there just not another step past the marathon then training for ultra's were you are then putting out marathons every weekend as a LSR and your body adapts?

Good point but personally speaking I have no intention of running an ultra. For me it's about hitting a 2.50 marathon and then maybe try improve on that. Therefore as the lads have said Someone looking to improve marathon times should focus on speed & then endurance.

Woden

Fair enough. No intention of running an ultra myself! In the context of the OP I'll take an each to their own attitude. Everyone has their own reasons and motivations for getting out there.

Enduro

Enduro wrote: »

Is there any science to back up the general impression I'm reading here that you're unlikely to race optimally if you race more than 2 marathons a year? Is it just othodoxy/recieved wisdom that goes unquestioned, or is there any good data to back it up?

I can see why this might be the case for a relatively new runner, but it strikes me as being very conservative indeed for a more experienced well trained distance runner.

And just to be clear, I am specifically talking about marathons here. As TBF says, plenty of ultraruners, myself included, would easily exceed marathon distances in training each week. So the short answer to your question Woden is yes! But that's irrelevant.

I'm wondering specifically whether the received wisdom that one can't race more than two marathons (or so) a year effectively comes from. Is it science based, or is it just unquestioned orthodoxy?

That's a totally different question to the OP, but the thread seems to have evolved based on the presumption that it isn't possible to effectively race more than one or two marathons a year. I'm questioning where that underlying presumption comes from. It doesn't seem to apply to most shorter distances, from what I can tell.

Notwork Error

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

It'd be a similar enough pattern to my own running history. Started off with a marathon, then one wasn't enough and I was training for and doing two a year. I was still making good progress, but I'm not sure how much of that was just down to natural progression, versus the benefit of running 2+ marathons a year. Eventually the diminishing returns catch up with you and the PBs become marginal. You can switch to another style of plan, and that'll work for a while, but eventually same thing. Marathon training makes you a better marathon runner, but it doesn't necessarily make you any faster (aside from fringe benefits like running economy, weight loss, physiological adaptations etc).. IMO if you want to get faster though, you have to train faster, which means shorter distances, faster speed.

In your case because you don't have the heavy pounding of many years of consistent mileage, the two-marathon year plan won't necessarily do you any harm and you'll likely continue to see benefits, just from structured consistent running, but eventually you may reach your current potential and will have to look elsewhere to continue to improve your marathon times, and that means going back to the drawing board and revisiting the basic building blocks of running.

Your new strategy looks good, as long as you have specific goals aligned with those races. For example if the goal is to try and PB at each of those halfs, you're on a hiding for nothing. My build-up for Frankfurt last year was:
Jan-May 5k focus (some races across distances for the craic)
August: Tullamore half - goal: 13 miles @MP
September: Charleville Half - Aim for a PB
Late September: Moone Kilomarathon - 16 miles @MP
October: Marathon

That worked for me, as there was a logical progression. I'm doing something similar this year, though the focus for the first half of the year is the 10k distance and will switch to the marathon for the final 12 weeks before Berlin. Hopefully it works out. The psychological benefits of hitting PBs over the first half of the year over shorter distances before heading into marathon training are pretty substantial, so hoping I can swing in that direction over the next few months. Anyway, apologies for the long answer to a short question. Quality first, then quantity!

I dunno, this thread has me a bit confused as to the premise of this quality v quantity debate but would you not agree that there has to be a degree of indivualistion in training where a person's strengths and weaknesses has to be considered and I think some people(gavlor on the next page is picking you up wrong due to the last line but maybe I'm picking it up wrong)? You see speed as the limiter to your progression right now and a way to improve the most for you which I'd I agree with as your endurance is rock solid but you've years of high mileage training behind you so as you said, need to change the stimulus up to break homeostasis and give the body a new stress. Most people haven't built up your endurance so speed has not become a limiter for them. I was always a firm believer in that quantity will destroy quality of training for most people people as most people aren't even close to aerobically/endurance maxed out and distance running is hugely aerobically dominant although basic speed is very important. Basically, that endurance will determine how close you can run to top speed and top speed will determine how fast you can run.

I think there's a big difference between someone running 100 miles a week focusing on quality and someone running 40 miles week doing so but maybe that's my bias talking. I really feel that someone running the 40 miles would benefit far more building quantity first. I often hear stories of high mileage guys dropping the quantity, adding quality and making big breakthroughs but maybe that's more down to having a huge base already built and changing the stimulus then actually quality being better. Just my 2c

Gavlor

Notwork Error wrote: »

I dunno, this thread has me a bit confused as to the premise of this quality v quantity debate but would you not agree that there has to be a degree of indivualistion in training where a person's strengths and weaknesses has to be considered and I think some people(gavlor on the next page is picking you up wrong due to the last line but maybe I'm picking it up wrong)? You see speed as the limiter to your progression right now and a way to improve the most for you which I'd I agree with as your endurance is rock solid but you've years of high mileage training behind you so as you said, need to change the stimulus up to break homeostasis and give the body a new stress. Most people haven't built up your endurance so speed has not become a limiter for them. I was always a firm believer in that quantity will destroy quality of training for most people people as most people aren't even close to aerobically/endurance maxed out and distance running is hugely aerobically dominant although basic speed is very important. Basically, that endurance will determine how close you can run to top speed and top speed will determine how fast you can run.

I think there's a big difference between someone running 100 miles a week focusing on quality and someone running 40 miles week doing so but maybe that's my bias talking. I really feel that someone running the 40 miles would benefit far more building quantity first. I often hear stories of high mileage guys dropping the quantity, adding quality and making big breakthroughs but maybe that's more down to having a huge base already built and changing the stimulus then actually quality being better. Just my 2c

Are you saying to keep the long stuff going but not to race too many long distances and thereby focusing on both speed and endurance?

Would that not be slightly counterproductive within the same training cycle? I'm not disagreeing with you by the way I just think it's important to get clarity on the thought process.

aero2k

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

It'd be a similar enough pattern to my own running history. Started off with a marathon, then one wasn't enough and I was training for and doing two a year. I was still making good progress, but I'm not sure how much of that was just down to natural progression, versus the benefit of running 2+ marathons a year. Eventually the diminishing returns catch up with you and the PBs become marginal. You can switch to another style of plan, and that'll work for a while, but eventually same thing. Marathon training makes you a better marathon runner, but it doesn't necessarily make you any faster (aside from fringe benefits like running economy, weight loss, physiological adaptations etc).. IMO if you want to get faster though, you have to train faster, which means shorter distances, faster speed.

In your case because you don't have the heavy pounding of many years of consistent mileage, the two-marathon year plan won't necessarily do you any harm and you'll likely continue to see benefits, just from structured consistent running, but eventually you may reach your current potential and will have to look elsewhere to continue to improve your marathon times, and that means going back to the drawing board and revisiting the basic building blocks of running.

Your new strategy looks good, as long as you have specific goals aligned with those races. For example if the goal is to try and PB at each of those halfs, you're on a hiding for nothing. My build-up for Frankfurt last year was:
Jan-May 5k focus (some races across distances for the craic)
August: Tullamore half - goal: 13 miles @MP
September: Charleville Half - Aim for a PB
Late September: Moone Kilomarathon - 16 miles @MP
October: Marathon

That worked for me, as there was a logical progression. I'm doing something similar this year, though the focus for the first half of the year is the 10k distance and will switch to the marathon for the final 12 weeks before Berlin. Hopefully it works out. The psychological benefits of hitting PBs over the first half of the year over shorter distances before heading into marathon training are pretty substantial, so hoping I can swing in that direction over the next few months. Anyway, apologies for the long answer to a short question. Quality first, then quantity!

The real difficulty here is how to measure success. It would take a few years of trying one marathon vs. several, and how could you be sure about cause and effect when it came to the results - e.g. if you went from single to multiple marathons per year and performances deteriorated - would that be down to the training, increased racing, ageing, injuries, boredom, lack of focus etc.

I'm a bit backwards compared to you Gary - I always believed that it was bad to run more than one marathon per year - so much so that I didn't run any in 2012. I ran 2 in each of '13, 14, and 15.

'13 was on a whim, running Cork 7 weeks after London to try to convince myself I wasn't finished as a runner (London 3:30 incl 7 min in medical tent, Cork 3:08 incl loo stop)

'14 was a bit more structured, running Cork (2:58) as a B race prior to running DCM '14 on my 50th birthday (2:55)

'15 Having missed the PB on my 50th I decided to do one more marathon - Rotterdam (2:48:35) PB. Then, with a bit of encouragement from Mrs Aero, I decided to do one more, to finish the marathon adventure where it all started in '83. DCM '15 2:48:06.

Just to refer back to the quality vs quantity question, this applies to the training as well as the number of races. I followed the Hanson program for the last two marathons, my longest run in each case was 16 miles (1:45-1:50).

So in my case, going from 1 to 2 per year brought better results, but perhaps if I'd skipped Rotterdam last year and focused on sorting out my biomechanical problem I'd have done even better in DCM. However, I wouldn't have toed the start line in Dublin knowing I could run 2:48. There are so many things to consider, but I reckon the point of diminishing returns would be reached very quickly. I couldn't imagine getting myself in peak physical and mental condition for that sort of challenge more than twice in one year.

NE has expressed it better above - I had relatively good endurance but relatively poor natural speed, and the change in training meant I was able to accommodate two hard training cycles in the same year. I also finished the races in better physical condition each time. (I'm a bit knackered now, but I don't think the running is to blame:))

Notwork Error

Gavlor wrote: »

Are you saying to keep the long stuff going but not to race too many long distances and thereby focusing on both speed and endurance?

Would that not be slightly counterproductive within the same training cycle? I'm not disagreeing with you by the way I just think it's important to get clarity on the thought process.

Not if you're focusing on running on the 5/10k, training is modulated differently than the marathon, you won't be doing as much quantity as you would be training for a marathon as you have to balance the increased intensity needed for 5/10k training. That's not to say that quantity isn't important as the 5/10k are massively aerobically dominant races and endurance is key but speed plays a more prominent role than marathon training, the emphasis slightly changes as you don't need as much quantity as you would for marathon training. More intensity means you need to sacrifice a little mileage for recovery. It's a balancing act if that makes sense.

What you can do if your aim is to work on endurance is to have a bigger base of miles and gradually build it up, the stronger you become aerobically, the farther and faster you will be able to run so your body will be able to eventually handle both more miles and intensity in training(density). When I talk about quantity being more important in my opinion, I mean it's more important to build quantity first so your body is better able to handle intensity down the road when you need to do that to change the stress and improve again. In my opinion, both quality and quantity are both really important parts of training but I believe it's more important to focus on building the miles first before adding more quality.

An example of this would be what my coach(28 minute 10k guy back in the day of that makes any difference) is working on with me right now, He has cutdown my workouts from twice a week to just one day and is focusing on building the miles and endurance first before I'll start doing two workouts a week again. His words are that what's the point in running at high intensity right now when I can still make huge improvements with a lot of low intensity running first.

I'll be frank with you, for someone who has run 27/28 minutes for 5 miles like yourself, speed shouldn't be a problem for a sub-3 or 2:50 marathon. In my opinion, your endurance and economy is holding you back and that's something that comes with lots of running.

Krusty_Clown

Notwork Error wrote: »

I dunno, this thread has me a bit confused as to the premise of this quality v quantity debate but would you not agree that there has to be a degree of indivualistion in training where a person's strengths and weaknesses has to be considered and I think some people(gavlor on the next page is picking you up wrong due to the last line but maybe I'm picking it up wrong)? You see speed as the limiter to your progression right now and a way to improve the most for you which I'd I agree with as your endurance is rock solid but you've years of high mileage training behind you so as you said, need to change the stimulus up to break homeostasis and give the body a new stress.

Yes absolutely. My comments highlighted that this was 'my own perspective' and 'my experience'. My individualized feedback to Gavlor, was that given that he doesn't have the same level of consistency and endurance that a two marathon/year cycle might still continue to yield benefits. Specifically:

Krusty_Clown wrote:

In your case because you don't have the heavy pounding of many years of consistent mileage, the two-marathon year plan won't necessarily do you any harm and you'll likely continue to see benefits, just from structured consistent running..(snip)

I'm not sure about the usefulness of this thread, as it's too open to re-interpretation and is not targeted at specific experience levels. For example, I'm currently doing high mileage (as many miles as I will run per week during the marathon training cycle) in order to get myself ready to take on the quality. So in this example, I'm more correctly doing quantity before quality, before (quantity+quality). So trying to address a question like 'quantity before quality' is not specific enough to be answerable in a useful way.

Gavlor

I hijacked it a bit!

Apologies all

kookiebrew

Jaysus I was just wondering do people in general prefer to train hard for a good time or just trundle along and do multiple marathons at a slow pace... Didn't see it getting complicated like this haha

Krusty_Clown

kookiebrew wrote: »

Jaysus I was just wondering do people in general prefer to train hard for a good time or just trundle along and do multiple marathons at a slow pace... Didn't see it getting complicated like this haha

I love running long distances, exploring new places, seeing new sights etc. But I'm also driven to run the marathon distance as fast as I possibly can and to continue to improve my times over the distance. Thankfully there's time for both. I reckon when the marathon times start to go backwards, I'll take a more relaxed attitude to marathon running and will go back to doing some sight-seeing marathons and ultras. My bucket list includes Comrades marathon, Tokyo, Fukuoka, Paris, Norway. That's the beauty of the sport - there's room for the floggers and the joggers.

rooneyjm

kookiebrew wrote: »

Jaysus I was just wondering do people in general prefer to train hard for a good time or just trundle along and do multiple marathons at a slow pace... Didn't see it getting complicated like this haha

Its quite simple. Would you swap all the fat birds you were with for one supermodel. Some would some wouldn't.