Long Runs

gaigner said:

When training for a marathon what is your longest run?

After a vacation to Suarez Mexico where I altitude trained for the
Holyoke Race of Champions, I had the runs for 10 days non-stop. Beat
that!

In article <[email hidden]>,

gaigner said:

When training for a marathon what is your longest run? I recently ran my
first marathon in 4:15 on a hilly course. I had done two 20 milers during
my training. I am now looking at running another one in October and I'm
starting to piece together my recovery and training plan. I would love to
break the four hour mark. Has anyone every run a 22 or 23 mile long run? I
really ran out of steam at the end, I was on pace for 4:00 hours up until
mile 22; I then hit the wall. During my training I was hitting a wall too.
First the wall came at about 14 miles. As my training moved on and the long
runs got longer the wall moved to about 18 miles. Then in the race it hit
at 22. So my thinking is I need to do longer runs when I train to push the
wall on the other side of 26.

My advice might be applicable here, as we run at about the same pace. It
took 6 marathons before I ran one where I didn't hit the wall. The difference,
I think, wasn't the length of the long run but rather that I was doing more
mileage in general and doing two long(ish) runs on the weekends instead of
just one.

At least, that's what I *think* it was. Marathons are strange beasts.
Sometimes you run them and sometimes they run you. Perhaps I just had
a really good day.

The general wisdom seems to be that you don't need to run over 20 miles
in training and that better conditioning will let you survive/avoid the
wall.

Alan
--
Defendit numerus

gaigner said:

When training for a marathon what is your longest run? I recently ran my
first marathon in 4:15 on a hilly course. I had done two 20 milers during
my training. I am now looking at running another one in October and I'm
starting to piece together my recovery and training plan. I would love to
break the four hour mark. Has anyone every run a 22 or 23 mile long run? I
really ran out of steam at the end, I was on pace for 4:00 hours up until
mile 22; I then hit the wall. During my training I was hitting a wall too.
First the wall came at about 14 miles. As my training moved on and the long
runs got longer the wall moved to about 18 miles. Then in the race it hit
at 22. So my thinking is I need to do longer runs when I train to push the
wall on the other side of 26.

What say you?

This is an intesting topic which generates lots of discussion. Before
you look to increase your long run give us some details about the
rest of your training and how you paced your race.

For instance the race - did you start out running too fast and run out
of steam? Poorly paced races can do in the best of training plans.

Training. It was a hilly course, how did you prepare in general for
the hills? Can you give some details of your your weekly training to
include miles and some idea of pace?

Back to your original question. The reason most long runs stop at
about 20-22 miles is once you go past this, the injury rate
significantly increases. Before you decide to increase your long run
you need to undertand your ability to handle the extra distance.

Personally I found running longer helped me and pushed the wall back.
Having said that, I would look at your overall training to see if
there are other things you can do such as increased mileage, adding
more hills for strength or doing some or different spped work before
targeting just the long run.

In general one's second marathon is usually faster because of the
physical and mental experience.

-Doug

Thanks Doug, here are some of the answers your looking for:

The race itself. I was trying to keep myself at a 9 minute mile. I have a
GPS watch that gives me an update every mile. My miles were comming in
between 8:50 and 9:10 most of the way.... untill the end. I felt great
about that. My normal pace when I'm training and not thinking about pace is
about 8:30-40. So I had to slow myself a bit for the marathon knowing that
I'm going a long way.

I did not train for hills. I live near a river and run along it so dispite
that fact that I'm in US midwest (read that as flat land as flat as flat can
be) I do have some hills. But nothing more then 50 feet at a 45 degree
angle, I'm just running out of a river valley. During the marathon I had
hills of over 200 feet (all numbers provided by my GPS watch) and the angle
was nuts.. had to be 60 degree if not more. I had to stop running them and
just walk because it was taking to much energy and I was actually going
slower trying to run versus walking.. if that make any sense.

As for weekly milage. Before I started to train for the marathon I was
running 15 - 20 miles a week. That was a bit of a low point for me but
winters in Chicago will do that. I followed a traing program off of Runners
World web site. It was a 16 week program and had me slowly increase my
weekly training from the 15 - 20 I was doing to about 25 - 30 per week.
During the training it had me do two 20 miles and I stated in my first post.

Well I think I've written enough, god bless those of you still reading.

Thanks again,

gaigner

"pithydoug" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

gaigner said:

When training for a marathon what is your longest run? I recently ran my
first marathon in 4:15 on a hilly course. I had done two 20 milers
during
my training. I am now looking at running another one in October and I'm
starting to piece together my recovery and training plan. I would love
to
break the four hour mark. Has anyone every run a 22 or 23 mile long run?
I
really ran out of steam at the end, I was on pace for 4:00 hours up until
mile 22; I then hit the wall. During my training I was hitting a wall
too.
First the wall came at about 14 miles. As my training moved on and the
long
runs got longer the wall moved to about 18 miles. Then in the race it
hit
at 22. So my thinking is I need to do longer runs when I train to push
the
wall on the other side of 26.

What say you?

This is an intesting topic which generates lots of discussion. Before
you look to increase your long run give us some details about the
rest of your training and how you paced your race.

For instance the race - did you start out running too fast and run out
of steam? Poorly paced races can do in the best of training plans.

Training. It was a hilly course, how did you prepare in general for
the hills? Can you give some details of your your weekly training to
include miles and some idea of pace?

Back to your original question. The reason most long runs stop at
about 20-22 miles is once you go past this, the injury rate
significantly increases. Before you decide to increase your long run
you need to undertand your ability to handle the extra distance.

Personally I found running longer helped me and pushed the wall back.
Having said that, I would look at your overall training to see if
there are other things you can do such as increased mileage, adding
more hills for strength or doing some or different spped work before
targeting just the long run.

In general one's second marathon is usually faster because of the
physical and mental experience.

-Doug

Quoted message said:

gaigner said:

When training for a marathon what is your longest run?

After a vacation to Suarez Mexico where I altitude trained for the
Holyoke Race of Champions, I had the runs for 10 days non-stop. Beat
that!

Video please?

gaigner said:

Thanks Doug, here are some of the answers your looking for:

The race itself. I was trying to keep myself at a 9 minute mile. I have a
GPS watch that gives me an update every mile. My miles were comming in
between 8:50 and 9:10 most of the way.... untill the end. I felt great
about that. My normal pace when I'm training and not thinking about pace is
about 8:30-40. So I had to slow myself a bit for the marathon knowing that
I'm going a long way.

I did not train for hills.

Adding hill work will help, esp. if running on hilly course.

I live near a river and run along it so dispite

Quoted message said:

that fact that I'm in US midwest (read that as flat land as flat as flat can
be) I do have some hills. But nothing more then 50 feet at a 45 degree
angle, I'm just running out of a river valley.

You might look at Lydiard hill drills to get more bang out of small
hills. On the menu at the right, you'll see "Hill training DVD" (video
of some of the techniques) and "Hill Training & Sprint Drills" (slides
of drills, some freeze shots from the video).
http://www.lydiardfoundation.org/training.html

During the marathon I had

Quoted message said:

hills of over 200 feet (all numbers provided by my GPS watch) and the angle
was nuts.. had to be 60 degree if not more.

Are you getting numbers directly from the watch or downloaded, and if
downloaded, what software? It might be accurate, but the Garmin 305 I'm
using gives really bad elevation data in their software although
Sporttracks is more reasonable. You might look at protractor to see how
steep 60 degrees is. 30-40% can sometimes seem like 60 deg😉, but I also
recognize that trails coming up stream banks can be almost hand over
hand. (note that 100% = 45 degrees)

I had to stop running them and

Quoted message said:

just walk because it was taking to much energy and I was actually going
slower trying to run versus walking.. if that make any sense.

Absolutely - see my Seymour 10k race report. The energy costs of running
up hills is way more than hiking them.

Quoted message said:

As for weekly milage. Before I started to train for the marathon I was
running 15 - 20 miles a week. That was a bit of a low point for me but
winters in Chicago will do that. I followed a traing program off of Runners
World web site. It was a 16 week program and had me slowly increase my
weekly training from the 15 - 20 I was doing to about 25 - 30 per week.
During the training it had me do two 20 miles and I stated in my first post.

[Warning regarding my comments: I haven't done a marathon but training
for a little longer trail run. But my volume is near your description
(averaging about 25mpw (run, power hike) over past 3 months, a few
16-19mi long runs so far, but hope to reach low to mid-20s in next 6
wks) although I'm a lot slower and include walk breaks for terrain and
scenery. I also build most of my base in Alaska banana-belt winter, so I
need to adapt to dirt again this time of year. IOW, I don't train by the
book. So take my comments with a truckload of salt.]

What I've noticed in my long runs (somewhat like yours without a lot of
volume to support them), is that 3 may be better than 2, although 2 is
certainly better than 1. It does seem like the most adaptations for
"doing" (not racing) the distance occur in the 1st 2 times at that
duration, but the 3rd time boosted the confidence (granted, that trail
was easier than the other 2 I had trained on, and it was race course for
15.5 mi race). Since I'm on trails, I do take walk breaks.

Your discussion of your training - how the wall moved from 14 mi to 18
mi - sounds very much like you just need more volume and time for the
adaptations to take place - not just maxing out near 25-30 mpw, but
running that or more for several months.

Regarding your intial question regarding length of long runs. Yes, some
people do run longer than 20-22 mi for marathons, including some running
longer than 26. Some just go by duration (time on feet). Others tend to
focus on total volume and may do more work at higher intensity, maybe
having more than just a few runs in the 16-20 mi range. An advantage of
the longer runs is that you get used to time on your feet and figure out
hydration / electrolyte / fueling strategies, whether shoes work for
that long, etc. Race day may have different intensities, which can throw
things off. But some folks can get by or be competitive on much shorter
long runs. Many people have figured out what works for them by trial and
error, but the "error" probably provided more base or intensity for
later "trials" of other approaches. So except where folks have cloned
themselves, it's hard to tell for sure which is "better".

Mentally, I agree with Doug's comments (and many books) that most stop
at about 20-22 mi (or 3 hrs or whatever) for long run since injuries
increase beyond that distance. That's probably in road running context
for people's first marathons. Walk breaks are a technique used for
people that want to do the longer runs in training for the experience
and still not get injured. To *me*, limiting long runs because of injury
potential sounds like it's setting people up for injury on race day, but
at least they make it to the starting line. However, if going by time on
feet, then a 22-mi long run may be the same duration as 26-mi race, so
it is the same as running the distance in training.

For most people, volume can help on race day, and volume can also help
longer runs prior to race day, if that route is preferred for the
confidence issue. But I've also seen many comments about increased
volume "causing" injury. The "" because in some cases, folks didn't
proceed cautiously. IOW, in both long runs and total volume, it could be
hard to separate out training errors from "this may not be right
approach for this person".

Good luck with your training and keep us posted.

Dot

--
"The goal is training and adaptation, not destruction and injury."
- John Hardy
http://www.mountainrunning.coolrunning.com.au/misc/training.shtml

PS: Doug has lots of experience from the been-there-done-that school as
well as helping others. So pay attention to what he says vs my ramblings
as someone near same training volume as you.

--
"The goal is training and adaptation, not destruction and injury."
- John Hardy
http://www.mountainrunning.coolrunning.com.au/misc/training.shtml

"gaigner" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Thanks Doug, here are some of the answers your looking for:

The race itself. I was trying to keep myself at a 9 minute mile. I have
a GPS watch that gives me an update every mile. My miles were comming in
between 8:50 and 9:10 most of the way.... untill the end. I felt great
about that. My normal pace when I'm training and not thinking about pace
is about 8:30-40. So I had to slow myself a bit for the marathon knowing
that I'm going a long way.

I did not train for hills. I live near a river and run along it so
dispite that fact that I'm in US midwest (read that as flat land as flat
as flat can be) I do have some hills. But nothing more then 50 feet at a
45 degree angle, I'm just running out of a river valley. During the
marathon I had hills of over 200 feet (all numbers provided by my GPS
watch) and the angle was nuts.. had to be 60 degree if not more. I had to
stop running them and just walk because it was taking to much energy and I
was actually going slower trying to run versus walking.. if that make any
sense.

As for weekly milage. Before I started to train for the marathon I was
running 15 - 20 miles a week. That was a bit of a low point for me but
winters in Chicago will do that. I followed a traing program off of
Runners World web site. It was a 16 week program and had me slowly
increase my weekly training from the 15 - 20 I was doing to about 25 - 30
per week. During the training it had me do two 20 miles and I stated in my
first post.

If you want to get down below 4 hours, building a higher volume base is
probably the best way, provided your body can handle it and you have enough
time. This is underscored by your above-stated normal training pace of
8:35ish, whereas you couldn't hold a slower pace for the marathon. I don't
know about the training plan you followed, but considering your goal, I'd
run more miles but slower, and particularly your long runs, e.g. build more
endurance. You can still do some runs faster, that's always good provided
they're not too fast, and serve a purpose. Most people train *slower* than
their marathon pace for a majority of their training volume. If you have
enough volume, marathon pace should be somewhat hard, though not as hard as
tempo pace.

You might look into walk breaks, as Dot said, particularly for long runs. I
wouldn't actually use them in a race, as Galloway suggests, but for training
they're the perfect pace moderator for recovery runs, or for longer efforts,
particulary hilly ones. For building the muscular endurance you need to
lessen the effect of "the wall", speed is not necessary, and in fact could
hinder your progress because you really want to isolate the slow twitch
muscle fibers during longer runs, especially early on. So, relax and enjoy,
sprinkle in walk breaks (not TOO many but frequent), and ignore your pace
for long runs at first.

-Tony

Quoted message said:

Well I think I've written enough, god bless those of you still reading.

Thanks again,

gaigner

"pithydoug" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

gaigner said:

When training for a marathon what is your longest run? I recently ran
my
first marathon in 4:15 on a hilly course. I had done two 20 milers
during
my training. I am now looking at running another one in October and I'm
starting to piece together my recovery and training plan. I would love
to
break the four hour mark. Has anyone every run a 22 or 23 mile long
run? I
really ran out of steam at the end, I was on pace for 4:00 hours up
until
mile 22; I then hit the wall. During my training I was hitting a wall
too.
First the wall came at about 14 miles. As my training moved on and the
long
runs got longer the wall moved to about 18 miles. Then in the race it
hit
at 22. So my thinking is I need to do longer runs when I train to push
the
wall on the other side of 26.

What say you?

This is an intesting topic which generates lots of discussion. Before
you look to increase your long run give us some details about the
rest of your training and how you paced your race.

For instance the race - did you start out running too fast and run out
of steam? Poorly paced races can do in the best of training plans.

Training. It was a hilly course, how did you prepare in general for
the hills? Can you give some details of your your weekly training to
include miles and some idea of pace?

Back to your original question. The reason most long runs stop at
about 20-22 miles is once you go past this, the injury rate
significantly increases. Before you decide to increase your long run
you need to undertand your ability to handle the extra distance.

Personally I found running longer helped me and pushed the wall back.
Having said that, I would look at your overall training to see if
there are other things you can do such as increased mileage, adding
more hills for strength or doing some or different spped work before
targeting just the long run.

In general one's second marathon is usually faster because of the
physical and mental experience.

-Doug

gaigner said:

When training for a marathon what is your longest run? I recently ran my
first marathon in 4:15 on a hilly course. I had done two 20 milers during
my training. I am now looking at running another one in October and I'm
starting to piece together my recovery and training plan. I would love to
break the four hour mark. Has anyone every run a 22 or 23 mile long run? I
really ran out of steam at the end, I was on pace for 4:00 hours up until
mile 22; I then hit the wall. During my training I was hitting a wall too.
First the wall came at about 14 miles. As my training moved on and the long
runs got longer the wall moved to about 18 miles. Then in the race it hit
at 22. So my thinking is I need to do longer runs when I train to push the
wall on the other side of 26.

What say you?

I agree with posters like Alan and Tony who suggest that mileage is the key. I
also think Doug makes a good point when he points to the benefits of
experience. This is a combination of the racing experience itself, and
cumulative training effect.

More mileage will make you feel better prepared for simply going the distance,
if the race is your weekly mileage, then completing it in a single session is
extremely difficult, and you won't be able to do it fast. Also, adding mileage
will improve your endurance, your times in shorter distances (10k, 5k, etc)
will tumble, improving your potential for finishing a fast marathon.

Finally, you are doing your training runs too fast. They should be slower than
marathon pace. If they feel too easy at or slower than marathon pace, you
should view this as an opportunity to increase your mileage, not train at a
faster pace.

Cheers,
--
Elflord

"gaigner" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

When training for a marathon what is your longest run? I recently ran my
first marathon in 4:15 on a hilly course. I had done two 20 milers during
my training.

Long runs for me are 17 to 22 miles. I've always found that the distance of
the longest run is not a significant a factor in "wall hitting". Average
weekly mileage is much more important.

However, if you go out too fast, no matter how fit you are, you will hit the
wall. Learning how fast is too fast can be done by using various prediction
charts to extrapolate marathon times from 10k times as a first guess.
Eventually you get pretty good at gauging your effort in marathons. Sounds
like you paced it pretty well. Your body just wasn't trained enough to
store the fuel you needed to get you to the finish line without bonking.

Quoted message said:

I am now looking at running another one in October and I'm starting to
piece together my recovery and training plan. I would love to break the
four hour mark. Has anyone every run a 22 or 23 mile long run? I really
ran out of steam at the end, I was on pace for 4:00 hours up until mile
22; I then hit the wall.

Based on your 25 mile weeks, you did really well. You have talent in the
top 5%, in my opinion. The problem will likely go away when you get your
mileage up to a more typical 50+ miles/week.

Fifty mpw probably sounds crazy to you, but just slow down your pace on
your daily runs, and you can pick up your mileage without any drama over a
month or so. The 16 week plan you mention below to go from 15 to 25
miles/week is wayyyy too conservative!

More miles/week means you can actually run the marathon at a faster average
pace than you normally train at. Believe it or not, most well trained
runners race a marathon about a minute a mile faster than their typical
training pace.

Quoted message said:

During my training I was hitting a wall too. First the wall came at about
14 miles. As my training moved on and the long runs got longer the wall
moved to about 18 miles. Then in the race it hit at 22. So my thinking
is I need to do longer runs when I train to push the wall on the other
side of 26.

Work on your base (still do long runs every now and again, obviously). A
decent base will make a huge difference.

PS: I've done 30-something marathons, ranging from 3:23 to 2:37, on mileage
from 45 to 95 miles/week.

Tony S. said:

"gaigner" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

As for weekly milage. Before I started to train for the marathon I was
running 15 - 20 miles a week. That was a bit of a low point for me but
winters in Chicago will do that. I followed a traing program off of
Runners World web site. It was a 16 week program and had me slowly
increase my weekly training from the 15 - 20 I was doing to about 25 - 30
per week. During the training it had me do two 20 miles and I stated in my
first post.

If you want to get down below 4 hours, building a higher volume base is
probably the best way, provided your body can handle it and you have enough
time. This is underscored by your above-stated normal training pace of
8:35ish, whereas you couldn't hold a slower pace for the marathon. I don't
know about the training plan you followed, but considering your goal, I'd
run more miles but slower, and particularly your long runs, e.g. build more
endurance.

I'm not sure which RW schedule he used, but I was looking for something
else last night and just for kicks plugged some numbers (starting at
15-20mpw) in their SmartCoach pgm: http://tinyurl.com/2qhjzg
I've been doing a little more than that volume-wise, although no 20-mi
long run yet (19 is longest), and while I might be able to "survive" the
distance at this point, I would definitely want more long runs near 20
mi or more AND more base relative to the schedule to support them. They
used to have some other training schedules, but I don't see them now so
not sure which he used.

I've played around with their SmartCoach in the past, and it will
provide you a pgm to go from whatever level to marathon in 16 wks (won't
provide longer training pgms). That pgm never heard of the "10% rule."
If you have a reasonable base to start for whatever distance, the pgms
it produces aren't too bad (at least in my thinking, fairly mainstream,
but lacks hills), but 16 wks isn't enough time to build base (at least
for me) and train for a marathon, IMHO.

Dot

--
"The goal is training and adaptation, not destruction and injury."
- John Hardy
http://www.mountainrunning.coolrunning.com.au/misc/training.shtml

If it were me I would:

1. Cancel my subscription to RW.

2. Throw my watch in the Illinois River (or not look at it until I had
run at least 8 miles, by which time I would know what pace I want to run
at).

3. Concentrate on getting round the course and not worry about time. Try
finding a little group of runners going a little bit slow for you and
stick with them. If at 18 miles they are still going too slow (and they
probably wont be), then speed up and leave them behind.

4. Significantly increase my weekly training. I'd be looking for 40 - 50
miles per week.

5. Put in a few half marathons before I tried another marathon. You need
to get a half marathon time to give your self a realistic goal. When you
can consistently run a HM in sub 1:50, it's time to aim for a sub 4:00
marathon.

6. Concentrate on easy marathon courses before moving on to harder ones.

7. Try to get a sense of perspective. eventually, you will come to
realise that you actually did very well, on a first (hilly) marathon to
get as far as 22 miles before hitting the wall.

In article <[email hidden]>, gaigner
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Thanks Doug, here are some of the answers your looking for:

The race itself. I was trying to keep myself at a 9 minute mile. I have a
GPS watch that gives me an update every mile. My miles were comming in
between 8:50 and 9:10 most of the way.... untill the end. I felt great
about that. My normal pace when I'm training and not thinking about pace is
about 8:30-40. So I had to slow myself a bit for the marathon knowing that
I'm going a long way.

I did not train for hills. I live near a river and run along it so dispite
that fact that I'm in US midwest (read that as flat land as flat as flat can
be) I do have some hills. But nothing more then 50 feet at a 45 degree
angle, I'm just running out of a river valley. During the marathon I had
hills of over 200 feet (all numbers provided by my GPS watch) and the angle
was nuts.. had to be 60 degree if not more. I had to stop running them and
just walk because it was taking to much energy and I was actually going
slower trying to run versus walking.. if that make any sense.

As for weekly milage. Before I started to train for the marathon I was
running 15 - 20 miles a week. That was a bit of a low point for me but
winters in Chicago will do that. I followed a traing program off of Runners
World web site. It was a 16 week program and had me slowly increase my
weekly training from the 15 - 20 I was doing to about 25 - 30 per week.
During the training it had me do two 20 miles and I stated in my first post.

Well I think I've written enough, god bless those of you still reading.

Thanks again,

gaigner

"pithydoug" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

gaigner said:

When training for a marathon what is your longest run? I recently ran my
first marathon in 4:15 on a hilly course. I had done two 20 milers
during
my training. I am now looking at running another one in October and I'm
starting to piece together my recovery and training plan. I would love
to
break the four hour mark. Has anyone every run a 22 or 23 mile long run?
I
really ran out of steam at the end, I was on pace for 4:00 hours up until
mile 22; I then hit the wall. During my training I was hitting a wall
too.
First the wall came at about 14 miles. As my training moved on and the
long
runs got longer the wall moved to about 18 miles. Then in the race it
hit
at 22. So my thinking is I need to do longer runs when I train to push
the
wall on the other side of 26.

What say you?

This is an intesting topic which generates lots of discussion. Before
you look to increase your long run give us some details about the
rest of your training and how you paced your race.

For instance the race - did you start out running too fast and run out
of steam? Poorly paced races can do in the best of training plans.

Training. It was a hilly course, how did you prepare in general for
the hills? Can you give some details of your your weekly training to
include miles and some idea of pace?

Back to your original question. The reason most long runs stop at
about 20-22 miles is once you go past this, the injury rate
significantly increases. Before you decide to increase your long run
you need to undertand your ability to handle the extra distance.

Personally I found running longer helped me and pushed the wall back.
Having said that, I would look at your overall training to see if
there are other things you can do such as increased mileage, adding
more hills for strength or doing some or different spped work before
targeting just the long run.

In general one's second marathon is usually faster because of the
physical and mental experience.

-Doug

--
Ken

Thank you everyone for the responses. Answers to some of the question that
came out in the thread:

Dot: You asked about the elevation numbers. I have a Garmin 201 and I use
their software. How accurate it is I don't know, but I'll bet the numbers
are better then me guessing. If you were to ask me it was a 26 miles
straight up during a blizzard.

Ken you mentioned getting some half marathons in. I took some of those on
in the past. My times were 1:49 and 1:52, but they were a couple of years
ago. I took on the marathon because it was something I needed to get done
before my father passes away..... Not that he's on his death bed but the
dude is old and at 34 I'm not getting any younger.

Everyone seems to agree that getting the weekly mileage up is a good idea;
and I agree. I followed the schedule I had because I had tried to train for
a marathon before but ended up hurting myself being and idiot. (Not that
I'm not an idiot today, just ask my 13 year old son, he'll tell you) This
schedule had me doing speed work once a week... looking back on it I would
have been better served to just do longer runs instead. Oh well.... theirs
always another race to be had.

A thanks again for everyone's input, even the knuckle head who tried to make
a funny about having the runs.

gaigner

"gaigner" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

When training for a marathon what is your longest run? I recently ran my
first marathon in 4:15 on a hilly course. I had done two 20 milers during
my training. I am now looking at running another one in October and I'm
starting to piece together my recovery and training plan. I would love to
break the four hour mark. Has anyone every run a 22 or 23 mile long run?
I really ran out of steam at the end, I was on pace for 4:00 hours up
until mile 22; I then hit the wall. During my training I was hitting a
wall too. First the wall came at about 14 miles. As my training moved on
and the long runs got longer the wall moved to about 18 miles. Then in
the race it hit at 22. So my thinking is I need to do longer runs when I
train to push the wall on the other side of 26.

What say you?

Thanks for your time and the support I get just reading this group,

gaigner

"gaigner" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

Thanks Doug, here are some of the answers your looking for:

The race itself. I was trying to keep myself at a 9 minute mile. I
have a GPS watch that gives me an update every mile. My miles were
comming in between 8:50 and 9:10 most of the way.... untill the end.
I felt great about that. My normal pace when I'm training and not
thinking about pace is about 8:30-40. So I had to slow myself a bit
for the marathon knowing that I'm going a long way.

I agree with Elford that your training pace and racing pace need some
review. You training pace should be a minute to minute a half shower
than race pace. Sooo, either you train too fast or raced to fast.

Quoted message said:

I did not train for hills. I live near a river and run along it so
dispite that fact that I'm in US midwest (read that as flat land as
flat as flat can be) I do have some hills.

Find those hills and add them as a weekly effort if possible

Quoted message said:

But nothing more then 50 feet at a 45 degree angle, I'm just running
out of a river valley. During the marathon I had hills of over 200
feet (all numbers provided by my GPS watch) and the angle was nuts..
had to be 60 degree if not more. I had to stop running them and just
walk because it was taking to much energy and I was actually going
slower trying to run versus walking.. if that make any sense.

It make perfect sense and very astute of you to notice this. In some of
my races I have hiked passed those attempting to run. You probably saved
some important glycogen stores.

Quoted message said:

As for weekly milage. Before I started to train for the marathon I
was running 15 - 20 miles a week. That was a bit of a low point for
me but winters in Chicago will do that. I followed a traing program
off of Runners World web site. It was a 16 week program and had me
slowly increase my weekly training from the 15 - 20 I was doing to
about 25 - 30 per week.

This is what I was looking for. As other have said I would look to
increasing your overall mileage up to 40-50. if you were using RW web
then that's Hal Higdon and maybe intermediate 1? Look at his I2
program. While I am a fan of the longer long run, you do not have the
base or experience yet for this change. Concentrate on getting overall
miles up with the miles distributed over the week.

Considering your mileage, pace, etc your first effort was just fine.
Just increasing your miles alone will get your time down. More miles is
more strength to hold on in general. If you can add some hills be it
hill repeats or even a slower hilly shorter run, that will some more
physical strength and mental confidence. Some speed work would benefit
but be careful of changing too much to quick. The Intermediate II
http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/inter2.html has some of this and is
nicely laid out.

As for you GPS, either leave it home or don't look at it during you
training runs. I have feeling your watching your pace too much rather
then simply running. Most of this should be fun. 😉

Quoted message said:

Well I think I've written enough, god bless those of you still
reading.

Careful now, I'm heading south with my friends and I have my SPF 45.

-Doug