A few more questions

[Brice]

So I have been running pretty consistently for the past few months and am wondering how things are looking?  I have picked a marathon, it is going to be the Columbus Ohio Marathon on October 19th.  I guess my real questions are what should my training look like until then?  Looking at my own training I think I need to increase my long runs a good bit more in the next few weeks.  I have read differing views on long runs for marathon training and was wondering what your guys view on that is?  Should I run some 20 mile continues long runs in preparation or keep my long runs in the 16-18 mile range?  I understand the concept of running two a days to get good longer miles in but do I need to run some long continues runs as well?  Also when do I need to start to tapper my training?  There is also a half marathon on September th that a friend wants  me to run with them, is that to close to my marathon to race?  As usual thanks for any and all the help you can give.

[Dallen]

You really need to be doing runs of up to 20 miles if you want to succeed in running a fast marathon. But work up to that distance slowly or you will just get injured.

2 runs a day are not worth doing unless your total mileage passes 60-70 miles a week. Otherwise you would be getting much more benefit from a single longer run each day.

[Jon Allen]

I know that some Kenyan training groups only do 30k training runs (18.6 miles), but almost all marathon training plans recommend long runs of 20 or even 22 miles.  Like Dallen said, it is important in your training.  Helps your body adjust to running that far and depleting your energy stores.  The more 20 mile runs, the better.

As for the half marathon- 3 weeks is plenty of time to recover from an all-out half marathon (2 weeks is probably fine, too), so go ahead and do the half in September.

[Brice]

I figured I needed to do a few 20 milers and had planned on started working towards that this week with a 16 miler on Friday.  I choose the marathon I am doing because friends of my wife are doing it and this way my wife and daughter can go and have the company of the other runners spouses to hang out with.  I said all of that because most of them are doing the 16 week, run 3 days a week, train so you can finish trainings, and when I was talking to them this week they started grilling me about running everyday and asking me about how my muscles will recover from all of that.  I think I stood my ground fairly well and encouraged them to check out this site.  After the fact it did make me question my training a little  and while I still hold to the philosophy of running encouraged on this site and by many others, I did want to post a little review to confirm what I think I already knew.  And I know my long runs have not been what they needed to be up to this point. 

So how far out do I start to taper off of the high mileage? 

[Sasha Pachev]

Aside from the vacation in June your training looks solid. The 5 K you ran in 19:55, and the 16x400 show you have enough speed to make BQ a possibility if the endurance supports it. Your BQ pace is 7:17. You've raced your 5 K at 6:25 pace. So this will not make 7:17 pace a piece of cake to run, but at least you have almost a minute safety net. Consistent mileage overtime will help you keep your marathon pace close enough to your 5 K pace to make it. Plus, your 5 K pace will improve a bit as well.

At this point I would not bother backing off the mileage. Taper helps when you have a solid base. Taper is always a compromise between losing aerobic fitness in exchange for higher levels of fuel storage and stronger neural drive (fresh legs). When you've been running high mileage for a while you have plenty of aerobic fitness, enough to where you could trade some of it for fuel and fresh legs. In fact, you would not be able to use it without the fuel and fresh legs, so the trade off is worth it. When your aerobic fitness is lacking, you will not be limited by the lack of neural drive. A low-mileage runner always has too much of it, that is why he has to worry about going out too fast in a marathon. And you will not be able to store that much more fuel either because the fuel storage capacity is a function of life time as well as recent mileage as well. So tapering for more than a week will end up doing more harm than good. You'll end up with a decrease in aerobic fitness which was lacking to begin with and an increase in neural drive which at the start was more than you can use anyway. Fuel at the start of the race will probably be only marginally higher at best, but the other two variables (aerobic fitness decrease combined with excessive neural drive) will waste that margin in the first few miles.

Regarding long runs. I would approach it this way. Warm up 2 miles. Then run 7:20 pace until you do not feel good any more. About 10-12 miles or so. 14-16 when you feel ready. Then cool down 2 miles. Or just find a half marathon and race it untapered. Make sure to warm up and cool down. Do not run in the long run so long or so hard that makes you cut your weekly runs. One long run does no more for your fitness than one Sunday meal for your nutrition. Every run is important. I see long runs in my training more as  a confidence builder and mental practice of the race situation than  conditioning. The conditioning happens every day, long run is just a small contribution.