14, 16, and 18 miles at Marathon Pace

For most of my past marathons, I’ve loosely followed 10–16 week training plans by either Jack Daniels or Pete Pfitzinger. To train for The Woodlands Marathon, my most recent marathon, I incorporated a component I read about in Ryan and Sara Hall’s blog: The long marathon-paced tempo.

Ryan talks about it here. He describes a 15–18 mile run at marathon pace as his “main course” of training, and shorter workouts during the week as “appetizers.” This struck a chord with me last year, as I suspected then that my late-race cramps were related to not spending enough time at marathon pace.

I incorporated 14, 16, and 18 mile continuous stretches at race-pace as part of my training, usually as a part of longer 20–22 mile runs. These long marathon-pace efforts made me feel unstoppable during the first 20 miles of The Woodlands Marathon. In fact, the race felt like a 10k with a very tiring warmup. A 10k on tired, cramping legs, but still just a 10k. I imagine this is what sprint triathletes feel like as they start the run.

I’m attempting these same long tempos to prepare for the San Francisco marathon. My goal pace for these runs, and (if they go well) for the race itself, if 6:10. On Friday morning, I ran the first 14 mile tempo. It wasn’t easy, with thoughts of stopping hitting me constantly for the first 7 miles. I hadn’t slept well the night before, and there was an enormous headwind coming up the San Francisco coastline, causing me to struggle to hit 6:20s. I fell into a grove at mile 7 though, and finished with a few miles under pace, causing my average pace to be <6:10. I’ll count it!