Pacing for long runs

[gnu]

I know we've had this discussion before, but I can't find any of the threads and my head is spinning. The question boils down to "What pace should I be running my long runs?"

Should long runs be slower than marathon pace? How much slower? The recently revised McMillan Running Calculator puts my long run range at 6 sec/km faster than its idea of my marathon pace to 40 sec/km slower. So is it a bad idea to run your long run at goal marathon pace?

This will be my fifth marathon, you would think I would feel a little bit like I know what I am doing - but I really don't. Any advice/discussion/debate would be appreciated!

[Miss*Smiles]

This summer I ran my long runs at whatever pace felt good that day. Sometimes the pace was 7:45 sometimes the pace was 6:30. It was whatever I felt good and comfortable doing. I was always out running with someone, so we had to be able to have a conversation while we were running, without me gasping for air.

Does that help?

[purdy65]

I find the new McMillan paces a wee bit peppier.

I agree with Denise though - I think it's all about how you are feeling on the day.

For example - if I run a faster pace run on Saturday, I automatically know that my pace will be on the slower side on Sunday. A nice easy run on Saturday might give me some pep on Sunday. Let the legs do the talking and try not to be a slave to some number on the garmin. I can go for kilometers long stretches without even peeking at the Garmin - just running comfortably. Sometimes I'm suprised at the pep, and sometimes I'm disappointed, but I don't let it set the parameters for the success/non-success of the training run. I base that on whether I was able to maintain pace, and how I actually FELT. I ask myself questions like was I able to maintain my form, breathing etc throughout the run? Did my pace drop off? Or was I able to maintain pace, even if it was slow?

I would say it's not a good idea to run your long runs at the pace you think you will run the marathon at (well at least not the WHOLE run). You may find that compromises the rest of your training. Your legs may tell you, however that's it's a good day to try a few K at MP towards the later stages of the training run - let them go!

Good luck on your Marathon Karen!

[La]

For me, my actual marathon race pace ends up being about the same as my LSD pace (for my recent PB in London, that was 6:25/km). I did do some of my long runs at a bit of a faster pace (6:15) and some a bit slower (6:35), but my goal on race day is to be able to maintain my training pace for 42.2K. I can maintain it for 32K, but after that things start to fall apart.

ETA: the marathon is not my happy distance - 42.2K is still a big challenge for me - so I can't "race" it the way I can "race" a half marathon (5:40/km).

[Joe Dwarf]

I believe the rationale for the new McMillan pacing is that for slower runners, their marathon time is often well in excess of their long run time. So if you are running a marathon in 5 hours and headed out for a long run for 2 hours, maybe your marathon pace or faster makes sense. I don't say that's right or wrong, that's just the explanation I heard.

Personally these days I go by feel and by heart rate. Warning: numbers wonking ahead, eye-glazing may occur.

The fastest paces suggested by McMillan for easy and long runs are only a few seconds slower than what he predicts for MP based on my last half, and my goal MP is slower yet as I don't have the mileage to support the predicted pace. That is too fast for me for any run much over 10k, unless I am deliberately doing a race pace kind of work out. For example, a few weeks ago I did 25 km at my goal MP plus warmup/cooldown for a total of 30 k. My average heartrate during the MP section was around 160 or a bit higher. Top end of the easy range for me is around 153 and frankly I would prefer to keep it well in the 140s for the bulk of an easy long run. 160 is still 10 beats short of what I think of as LT rate so for MP I think that's OK. But it is obviously too high to be regarded as an easy or LSD run and bear in mind I was still running maybe 10 secs/km slower than the McMillan recommended pace!

OTOH the revised McMillan numbers have made me feel OK with pushing it a bit on shorter runs. I have always found that when I go out for an hour or less I tend to be faster than the recommended pace but still feeling comfortable. Turns out those runs are well within the new range (like, 20-25 secs slower/km than the fastest pace in the range) so I rationalize that I am not screwing up on pace there. Maybe I just like to go fast.

[ian]

For me, my actual marathon race pace ends up being about the same as my LSD pace

This is a key observation. I'd divide marathoners into two groups, with the dividing line being somewhere near a 4 hour finish (probably a little lower for guys and a little higher for gals & seniors):
(1) Marathon pace will be faster than LSD pace, as on race day you'll have the fitness to sustain a higher aerobic effort.
(2) Marathon pace is LSD pace on race day, hopefully lasting all the way through the extra distance.

The calculators assume that race performances are limited in a predictable way by aerobic capacity (i.e., the size of the engine) but marathons are heavily influenced by muscular endurance (i.e., the gas tank). This can make setting marathon goals complicated. Marathon training, on the other hand, is simple: run lots and keep most of it at a comfortable pace. For LSDs, this usually means being able to carry on a light conversation while you run, at least for the first couple hours. Most of the benefits of LSDs will occur no matter how slowly you run them, so there's not much need to micromanage the paces, but yes it's possible that an LSD near marathon pace might be appropriate.

[Jwolf]

I'd divide marathoners into two groups, with the dividing line being somewhere near a 4 hour finish (probably a little lower for guys and a little higher for gals & seniors):
(1) Marathon pace will be faster than LSD pace, as on race day you'll have the fitness to sustain a higher aerobic effort.
(2) Marathon pace is LSD pace on race day, hopefully lasting all the way through the extra distance.

This. Not everyone will fall squarely into group 1 or 2, but I've noticed this too.

I have seen people not fall into these two groups, and it usually comes down to mileage. For example, faster marathoners that don't do a lot of mileage tend to do all their long runs at race pace; slower marathoners that do a lot of mileage (like some ultrarunners) tend to find that faster marathon pace on race day (30-90 sec/km faster than long run pace).

Personally, I've observed this "4-hour divide" for a while, which makes it tough because 4 hours has always been my as yet unrealized goal (closest has been just under 4:07). I'm sort of in between the two groups, I guess. I can do half-marathons at close to 5:00/km, yet can only hold on to my desired 5:40/km marathon pace for about 32K on race day. I do long easy runs at about 6:00-6:30/km, and calculators predict I should be closer to a 5:25/km pace in the marathon, or a 3:45 time. McMillan might say that I should be doing my long easy runs faster, but then I find that my midweek runs suffer. Perhaps I just need more adaptation and more mileage. I do some of my long runs with race pace portions (5:20-5:30/km) but it hasn't helped yet.

So- there are many variables. How fast you are as a marathoner, your total mileage, and the paces of your other runs (including but not exclusively the run the day before the long run) tend to be pretty key. To answer your question of where YOU should be doing your long runs... from what I know of your training, it sounds like your current long run pace is fine, and you'd probably expect to run close to that pace on race day.

[Joe Dwarf]

I can do half-marathons at close to 5:00/km, yet can only hold on to my desired 5:40/km marathon pace for about 32K on race day.

Is that an issue with pace, or is that an issue with that magical 32 k barrier? I blew up there on the only marathon I've run so I have very little personal data. I do know that on LSDs once it gets past 30k for me it is getting to be a slog no matter what the pace.

[gnu]

Thanks everyone.

So in other words, in my final long run before taper (which I am doing tomorrow), don't worry too much about pace...right?

My long runs (usually done on Fridays) since the end of August have been 27, 30, 34, 24, 30. Tomorrow I was going to do 36 - so I should basically just run by feel then? Maybe pick it up over the final bit just to see if I can?

Maybe I should start another thread about advice for racing strategy closer to time, but if I am doing my long runs on routes that are significantly harder than the race course, would it be reasonable to think I could pull off 10-20 sec/km faster on race day than my long run paces have been averaging?

ETA for those who don't know, I am a 5 hour marathoner.

[Jwolf]

I can do half-marathons at close to 5:00/km, yet can only hold on to my desired 5:40/km marathon pace for about 32K on race day.

Is that an issue with pace, or is that an issue with that magical 32 k barrier? I blew up there on the only marathon I've run so I have very little personal data. I do know that on LSDs once it gets past 30k for me it is getting to be a slog no matter what the pace.

Well, other people can do it. Supposedly the "magic" of breaking through that 30-32K barrier comes from the cumulative endurance training of several runs over 3 hours as well as total mileage. My longest runs were up to 36-37K, with several in the 30s; total mileage peaked at about 100K. I've never done weeks and weeks at 100K+ -- not sure I want to, though.

It's all part of the pacing-- I assume that if I start slow enough I won't slow down. Does that "slow enough" have to be my long run pace or slower? How do I choose? (Rhetorical question-- I'm not asking you specifically, just pointing out how it all plays into pacing.)

[Jwolf]

Maybe I should start another thread about advice for racing strategy closer to time, but if I am doing my long runs on routes that are significantly harder than the race course, would it be reasonable to think I could pull off 10-20 sec/km faster on race day than my long run paces have been averaging?

It's hard to say without a fuller picture of the details of your training (not just the long runs), but it seems reasonable.

[La]

Someone (might have been ian) said something a while back about how if you go out too fast, you're "borrowing" speed from the second half of your race, and the cost of borrowing can be very high! Or something to that effect.

[Joe Dwarf]

Tomorrow I was going to do 36

I've had advice from a couple of the coaches here (I think MichaelMc was one) that 36 km is too long. They said that there is no training reason to go past 34 k, and actually 32 k was good enough. This current cycle I peaked at 34, although the plan was by time and if I had strictly followed it I would have been much longer. Last time I did a 3:30 run that worked out to 37k, and that's when I got the advice that I had overdone it.

[purdy65]

I don't go over 32, but I do quite high mid week milelage. I'm hoping that gets me through the last 10K

[jes]

For what it's worth, my coach says our LSDs should average 30 sec (or greater) slower than projected race pare. He also doesn't support long runs above 34k, and only those for the 'experienced' crowd.

[ian]

I can do half-marathons at close to 5:00/km, yet can only hold on to my desired 5:40/km marathon pace for about 32K on race day.

Is that an issue with pace, or is that an issue with that magical 32 k barrier? I blew up there on the only marathon I've run so I have very little personal data. I do know that on LSDs once it gets past 30k for me it is getting to be a slog no matter what the pace.

Keep in mind that you're still fairly new to marathoning and it takes a couple of years of steady training to get most of the endurance adaptations in place. Eventually 32K will be less of a barrier, and that's a good indication that you're in the first of the two groups I described earlier.

I've had advice from a couple of the coaches here (I think MichaelMc was one) that 36 km is too long. They said that there is no training reason to go past 34 k, and actually 32 k was good enough. This current cycle I peaked at 34, although the plan was by time and if I had strictly followed it I would have been much longer. Last time I did a 3:30 run that worked out to 37k, and that's when I got the advice that I had overdone it.

There's no magic number for "too long", but in general, an extra of run near 30K in the cycle will carry more benefit than getting the longest one past 35K. As Jes' coach points out, the "experienced crowd" can sometimes get away with the longer runs, in part because these runners can distinguish between good and bad fatigue, and in part because the long runs take less time.

[Joe Dwarf]

I can do half-marathons at close to 5:00/km, yet can only hold on to my desired 5:40/km marathon pace for about 32K on race day.

Is that an issue with pace, or is that an issue with that magical 32 k barrier? I blew up there on the only marathon I've run so I have very little personal data. I do know that on LSDs once it gets past 30k for me it is getting to be a slog no matter what the pace.

Keep in mind that you're still fairly new to marathoning and it takes a couple of years of steady training to get most of the endurance adaptations in place. Eventually 32K will be less of a barrier, and that's a good indication that you're in the first of the two groups I described earlier.

I'm not sure where I am in your two groups, but I do know trying to figure out pacing for this coming one is hard. I am going to post a final training summary in my log the end of this week and ask for some advice there.

[turd ferguson]

I'd divide marathoners into two groups, with the dividing line being somewhere near a 4 hour finish (probably a little lower for guys and a little higher for gals & seniors):
(1) Marathon pace will be faster than LSD pace, as on race day you'll have the fitness to sustain a higher aerobic effort.
(2) Marathon pace is LSD pace on race day, hopefully lasting all the way through the extra distance.

This. Not everyone will fall squarely into group 1 or 2, but I've noticed this too.

I have seen people not fall into these two groups, and it usually comes down to mileage. For example, faster marathoners that don't do a lot of mileage tend to do all their long runs at race pace; slower marathoners that do a lot of mileage (like some ultrarunners) tend to find that faster marathon pace on race day (30-90 sec/km faster than long run pace).

Personally, I've observed this "4-hour divide" for a while, which makes it tough because 4 hours has always been my as yet unrealized goal (closest has been just under 4:07). I'm sort of in between the two groups, I guess. I can do half-marathons at close to 5:00/km, yet can only hold on to my desired 5:40/km marathon pace for about 32K on race day. I do long easy runs at about 6:00-6:30/km, and calculators predict I should be closer to a 5:25/km pace in the marathon, or a 3:45 time. McMillan might say that I should be doing my long easy runs faster, but then I find that my midweek runs suffer. Perhaps I just need more adaptation and more mileage. I do some of my long runs with race pace portions (5:20-5:30/km) but it hasn't helped yet.

So- there are many variables. How fast you are as a marathoner, your total mileage, and the paces of your other runs (including but not exclusively the run the day before the long run) tend to be pretty key. To answer your question of where YOU should be doing your long runs... from what I know of your training, it sounds like your current long run pace is fine, and you'd probably expect to run close to that pace on race day.

If I could point to one thing in my experience that's a controlling factor, its the pace of the other runs. If you're doing all your runs at 6:00 then running faster than that in a race is going to be a challenge. If you're doing midweek 10 milers at 4:45, that's another matter entirely.

[carm]

This is a great discussion. I've only done one (sample size =1, woopy do), but my overall pace was a 6:25/km, which was on the faster end of of my LSD paces in training-(6:20-6:40/km depending on the run). That was not by choice since I crashed at about 33-34K and slowed down A LOT.

[Irongirl]

It's been awhile since I've done a marathon, but, for my best marathon, where I was able to hold my pace, (2:12 and 2:12 for my halves)....

I trained at a 7 min/km pace, and ran at a 6:20/km pace - BUT, I did my runs during the week usually at about a 6 min/km pace.

I know that my legs are pretty trashed after a long race at 6:20/km - I can't see how doing my long runs close to that pace would work out for the rest of my weekly runs.

The biggest thing that I emphasize in my talk at the RR about "slowing down to speed up" is that when you run fast during your long run, you probably won't be able to maximize what you're getting out of the runs during the week.

[ian]

I'm not sure where I am in your two groups, but I do know trying to figure out pacing for this coming one is hard. I am going to post a final training summary in my log the end of this week and ask for some advice there.

For your marathon last year, you were basically in between the groups in the sense that you had some solid training but you'd still be doing well to run the whole thing through at any steady pace. With another year of training under your belt, you're definitely in the 1st group so that it's now a question of what is the optimal speed. My best guess is 5:00/K for the first half will probably get you to the finish line with only a slight fade, but I'll have a look at your log on the weekend to fine tune my hunch.

[purdy65]

I'm in the 4 hr divide too, and I can see Ian's point. I think with each experience (except Boston, of course), I've just had to come to trust my training more, and rather than put the extra miles I've done this cycle into the long run, I've put it into my mid week runs (although I've still done 6 30+K runs)

At Goodlife, I learned to 'race' a marthon. Even though I have a careful plan, I hope I can remember how this time!

I'm also counting on the back to back cycles giving me a boost. I've basically been in marathon training since December!

[Joe Dwarf]

For your marathon last year, you were basically in between the groups in the sense that you had some solid training but you'd still be doing well to run the whole thing through at any steady pace.

Well the first 32 k was overly aggressive and the last 10k a survival lurch, average pace overall was pretty much my LSD pace from last year...

[Dstew]

The other factor is what are you bringing to the table. In the year leading up to the year before my first BQ, I was racing 5, 8 and 10 K races every month. Then there were some half marathons to discover my weaknesses that turned out to be endurance. So then several months of "base" building and then few years but high intensity during the week and then two long runs of 40 K with the last 5 K at marathon pace. That combination got me a 3:16 marathon.

Building on that and pushing up the mileage too quickly got me a stress fracture in September. Trained for my first Boston with a very traditional program although there were two 36 k runs slow with no marathon pace. It turns out they were about 40 seconds slower than my actual race pace.

The next marathon was a Hanson brother type approach but with a ton of 25 k marathon or close to that pace type runs instead of any long run. That was a 3:19 marathon.

The marathon after that was during a Nor'Easter so the time might have been a little off but the long runs were close to a minute slower per kilometer than the actual race pace as every Saturday my wife played bridge at a location I had to drive her to and every Saturday I went for a 3 hour and 30 kilometer long run. During the week as with all of my training, the shorter runs were quick and maybe even faster than recommended.

In short, I had four different approaches to the long run and when everything was taken into consideration, they all got me to about the same rough ball park result. I agree with what seems to be a good point that having said that, it would seem that you have to have run fast at some point if only so your body is use to going faster than your long run pace.

[Spirit Unleashed]

If you have the endurance and the confidence, just stay focused and take many gels.