My next marathon isn't until October so I was thinking of working on getting quicker at shorter distances before I start a long build up to the marathon. Is this a waste of time and should I just concetrate on max mileage? My mileage at the moment is hovering around 35 to 44 miles depending on the week.

Another tip, I increased the speed of my long runs. I didn't run at race pace, but I only ran about 30 seconds slower per mile instead of 2 minutes slower and I think that made a difference too.

The single most important predictor of marathon performance is average weekly mileage. If you want to improve then run more.

In my opinion you should aim for averaging around 60 miles per week minimum for the 20 weeks leading up to the race for best results.

Also, most of the mileage, around 80%, should be run easy, around 75% max HR if you use a HRM. Trying to get faster by running faster all the time will not work. It will only make you really tired and eventually overwhelm your body's ability to adapt during high volume training.

Really?????????????????

The single most important predictor of marathon performance is average weekly mileage. If you want to improve then run more.

In my opinion you should aim for averaging around 60 miles per week minimum for the 20 weeks leading up to the race for best results.

Also, most of the mileage, around 80%, should be run easy, around 75% max HR if you use a HRM. Trying to get faster by running faster all the time will not work. It will only make you really tired and eventually overwhelm your body's ability to adapt during high volume training.

Really?????????????????

Yes, really.

The single most important predictor of marathon performance is average weekly mileage. If you want to improve then run more.

In my opinion you should aim for averaging around 60 miles per week minimum for the 20 weeks leading up to the race for best results.

Also, most of the mileage, around 80%, should be run easy, around 75% max HR if you use a HRM. Trying to get faster by running faster all the time will not work. It will only make you really tired and eventually overwhelm your body's ability to adapt during high volume training.

Really?????????????????

Yes, really.

please please let me know how milage has anything to do with predicting performance?

Because about 99% of the energy used in a marathon is from aerobic pathways and the biggest predictor of aerobic fitness is average weekly mileage. Anyone looking to improve their marathon performance can best do that by improving aerobic capacity and that is done by running lots of miles at the appropriate intensity year after year.

The more miles one runs and the longer they keep at it the greater their aerobic capacity will be within their own personal genetic limit. It probably would take about 10 years of constant high mileage running to approach that limit.

The single most important predictor of marathon performance is average weekly mileage. If you want to improve then run more.

In my opinion you should aim for averaging around 60 miles per week minimum for the 20 weeks leading up to the race for best results.

Also, most of the mileage, around 80%, should be run easy, around 75% max HR if you use a HRM. Trying to get faster by running faster all the time will not work. It will only make you really tired and eventually overwhelm your body's ability to adapt during high volume training.

Really?????????????????

Yes, really.

please please let me know how milage has anything to do with predicting performance?

Because about 99% of the energy used in a marathon is from aerobic pathways and the biggest predictor of aerobic fitness is average weekly mileage. Anyone looking to improve their marathon performance can best do that by improving aerobic capacity and that is done by running lots of miles at the appropriate intensity year after year.

The more miles one runs and the longer they keep at it the greater their aerobic capacity will be within their own personal genetic limit. It probably would take about 10 years of constant high mileage running to approach that limit.

So you are telling me someone who runs 60 miles a week will run a quicker marathon than those that do 40 miles per week?

The single most important predictor of marathon performance is average weekly mileage. If you want to improve then run more.

In my opinion you should aim for averaging around 60 miles per week minimum for the 20 weeks leading up to the race for best results.

Also, most of the mileage, around 80%, should be run easy, around 75% max HR if you use a HRM. Trying to get faster by running faster all the time will not work. It will only make you really tired and eventually overwhelm your body's ability to adapt during high volume training.

Really?????????????????

Yes, really.

please please let me know how milage has anything to do with predicting performance?

Because about 99% of the energy used in a marathon is from aerobic pathways and the biggest predictor of aerobic fitness is average weekly mileage. Anyone looking to improve their marathon performance can best do that by improving aerobic capacity and that is done by running lots of miles at the appropriate intensity year after year.

The more miles one runs and the longer they keep at it the greater their aerobic capacity will be within their own personal genetic limit. It probably would take about 10 years of constant high mileage running to approach that limit.

So you are telling me someone who runs 60 miles a week will run a quicker marathon than those that do 40 miles per week?

Someone who runs 40 miles a week would run a faster marathon if he ran 60 miles a week.

There are too many other variables involved to isolate one variable and compare 2 different people.

You have just contradicted yourself! way too many variables! Either way its poor advice to tell a newbie runner to up there milage to 60+ a week to improve times! what about intervals, what about tempo runs, you yourself have picked out one variable and said go and do that like its gospel!

The variables I am talking about are age, sex, genetics, and overall training history so I have not contradicted myself at all. In a distance of 26 miles where the average new runner is finishing in 4 hours or more, intervals and tempo runs are next to irrelevant. That person is running for so long that running anywhere close to LT is physically impossible. They would be much better served by increasing their aerobic capacity which will in turn allow them to run faster while consuming less glycogen and generating less lactate. This is done by running lots of miles for a long time (several years).

More importantly, this is not simply my opinion but the accumulated experience of such "Marathoning" experts as Lydiard, Phitzinger, Daniels, and others.

The mistake most people make is thinking they have to train fast in order to get faster. The result is that they run too fast all the time, and by extension too little, and never fully develop the aerobic capacity in the legs' slow twitch muscle fibers. All the tempo and interval training in the world isn't going to fix that.

Finally, when I said that people who run marathons should be aiming at 60 mi a week minimum that's exactly what I meant. If a new runner cannot do that then their focus should be on building a base to that level before worrying about "speed" training. If it takes several marathon training cycles to get there then when they do finally get to that point they will be much better prepared for the distance than if they sacrificed the volume for faster training runs.

The bottom line is that faster training runs are next to useless unless one has built their aerobic capacity high enough that they can sustain that faster pace for 26 miles and not simply run fast for 20 miles, hit the wall, and then walk the last 6 miles.