Scatty training - 8 weeks before Marathon - Help!

patmo

Here I am, cap in hand, begging for help to find some focus and answers before it's too late. In essence, my question is: am I correct in thinking that I really, REALLY need to be working on my long easy runs right now?

Here's the situation. Pretty good aerobic base. I cycle/trail run in the alps most days, pretty hard effort, for about an hour if it's running, or maybe 4 hours if I'm on the bike. I've not got any flat tarmac around, but yesterday I went down to Evian where there's a lovely path along the lake, and managed a very flat half marathon in an hour and 32 mins. This was my first proper run on a road, and my feet and knees were murder by the end and I could feel my speed tailing off from 12km! I'll often do longer trail runs of say 45km, or half that on back-to-back training days, and can normally finish those at faster pace than my little low altitude half marathon. So... what gives? Is it the tarmac surface that I need to get used to? Weekly/Bi-weekly longer runs at easy pace up to taper-time?

I'm 5'8", 67kg, and 5km in about 18:45min. Bit chubby for marathons, maybe!

This is totally taking advantage of a forum to which I have contributed very little, so I apologise for that! But my knowledge is minimal, so my input would be pretty wasted. I have good flapjack recipes though, if that's any help to anyone?

Christine5

if the marathon is all tarmac/road, i'd imagine it would be worth getting some experience on similar surfaces. is it a flat course? because hills V flat will result in some differences in running form (stride length, stride rate).

"nothing new on race day" and all that

Robsmith83

If i have been living and training at high altitude say 2-3000m for a number of months and my race is at sea level. Should i go down (live/train) to sea level 2-3 weeks prior to the race to readjust for speed track work say and will i still retain the training effect of altitude-training or would the previous months altitude training have been diminished after a few weeks of soley being at sea level again?. If that is the case should i still be staying at high attitude until a few days before the race at sea level? Bit of a chicken and egg question. Hope it isn't too confusing, would be interested to know what you guys think. Many thanks