Marathon training

GaryRuns

I've run three marathons in the last two years and I have my fourth lined up for the end of this year. I've been using Hal Higdon's plans, advanced 1 for my last marathon. They've done me well but I'd really like to push it on this last one, maybe shooting for a Boston qualifying time for my age bracket. I ran across this plan the other day. Wow! The Higdon ones never exceeded twenty miles but this one gets up to 28 miles. I've read conflicting things on this. I believe Higdon mentioned in some of my reading that he didn't see the utility in running over 20 miles during training. I also remember reading another coach who claimed even 20 was too much. This coach preferred running more along the lines of a 15 and then another 10 the next day, rather than a single day of running long. I'd love to hear what thoughts others have on the topic, and any links to articles discussing the topic you may have.

TIA!

spiriteagle99

I've been a longtime member of a couple of different running forums (Runners World and Running Ahead). Consensus is that recovery time for very long runs interferes too much with overall training. It's hard to do a good tempo run or speed intervals two days after doing a 4+ hour training run. Given that it takes me two months to recover from a marathon, there is no way I would do training runs of that distance. What I have read is that anything over 3 hours can do more harm than good, unless you are a really slow runner who expects to take 5 hours or more to finish. Then a 4 hour run might be a good idea.

The runners I've followed who take their training very seriously generally focus on lots of overall miles (70+) and a lot of quality. Jack Daniels and Hanson plans are highly recommended. Hanson's longest long run is 3 hours, but he includes a lot of quality (speedwork).

I did Higdon's Intermediate 2 for two of my marathons and his Advanced 1 for one. I did manage to BQ on Intermediate 2, thanks to age grading. Right now I'm doing Pfitzinger's 18/55, which includes a lot of mid-week ML runs (10-13 miles) and longer quality runs (i.e. today I had 11 miles with 7 at LT). It also has 10 runs that are 16-20 miles, including some that have significant MP portions. My hope is that the increase in long runs and medium long runs will help my endurance and stamina, since that has been an issue for me. Biggest question is whether I can get through the training without wearing out.