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LSR, too quick?
Hi all,
Just started my first week proper of London training.
My long run today was 12 miles and I did my usual Sunday comfortable pace of around 8:55 per mile. This feels really comfortable, and is a conversational pace.
I'd targeted to do a sub 4 hour marathon but reading some threads, it appears I'm running too quick, is that correct?.
This is my first full marathon but I've done 8 or 9 halves and have a 1:47:30 pb.
cheers for all advice 
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How do you feel after the run and how you feel tomorrow will probably determine if you were going too fast. If you feel too tired to do the rest of the weeks sessions then that will also tell you if it was too fast.
As you have done a lot of halves this speed for this distance may also seem ok but when you enter the new territory of longer runs than you have ever done then it may be worth slowing them down a little.
Play it by ear the next week or so and see how you feel. Then you can make a decision.
Bear in mind that the first 12 miles (at least) of your marathon should also feel really comfortable and be a conversational pace. For a 12 mile run that pace may be a bit quick but it's really over the proper long runs (say 16+ miles) that it's important to run slower.
Cheers all, feel absolutely fine after running and will be out doing speed work tomorrow night as I do every week.
Hopefully, this pace will still feel good in 5/6 weeks time when I'm doing more miles.
Run the 20 milers at that pace and you will suffer for it - unless you've improved a lot.
I'd try and be aware of the risks and try and slow it down a bit next time.
What sort of pace should I be targeting for the really long runs?.
I had thought around 9:15 per mile is that still to quick? I'm a confidence runner, I need to know that I can do it, having done it in training if that makes sense.
You don't want to run your race in training, the chances are you will be too shattered on the day of the "actual race"
Really?, as slow as that?.
at 10:30, I'm 1min 20 seconds per mile off my race pace and I'd be concerned whether the jump come race day would be too great?.
if you were to do that pace, how long would your longest LSR be? 20 miles or more?.
Flob, if you don't mind me asking, have you run a sub 4 marathon whilst doing your LSR at an 11 minute pace?. It just seems to leave you with a huge chasm between what you've trained at and the 9:10 pace you'll need to average on the day. Did you not find that an issue?.
It's not an Ego thing here it's just a reality of there being a huge gap between the two? I'm not seen any schedules which have suggested your LSR should be that slow.
My speed came from my interval, tempo and parkruns.
I also did a half marathon race, a half at MP with a 7 mile warm down and a progressive long run.
The largest amount of MP miles in any session I did before the Marathon was 13.
This approach may not work for 100% of people but I do know that my worst ever marathon performance came from running every marathon at my MP.
Ps. Nearly all plans tell you to do your long runs at a slow pace, usually anywhere between 60 - 120 secs per mile slower than MP.
That's a great 10k time, but the two aren't comparable, trust me, I've done loads of 10ks, off road, on road, tri's, duathlons etc and it is just a completely different event to half marathons IMHO.
My typical speed training (and im guessing yours) will be based on varying weeks on 10x400m, or 600m, and then lower rep 800m or 1k. Typically my speed work is between 4 to 5k plus a couple miles warm up and down, so to step up that pace to 6.2 miles, is with respect much easier than trying to knock off 1mim 40 seconds off each mile over 26.2 miles.
I hate to poo poo your ideas as I love kicking stuff about but I doubt you'll achieve your sub 1:40 half time (7:30 per mile) by doing 10 to 11 min pace LSR. Unless your speed work is epic distances, or you are a very natural athlete.
Cheers Millsy, that's some good examples, I think I'm going to drop back 30 seconds pace and see where that leaves me.
How many times have we seen people doing their race slower than their training pace ? Too many.
As Millsy says - dont run your race in training.
Do your faster runs over shorter distances.
Maccydee, I've always worried about the pace for long runs and how it translates to marathon pace. Having done my first marathon with a half time of 1:50 I ran 4:03:02 in 2008. My long runs were somewhere between 9:15-9:50 pace.
I set a PB of 3:59:04 in 2010 doing long runs at 9:15-10.15 pace, usually the sharper end of that. Another 4 marathons run with times varying between 4:02 (April 2013) and 4:19 using similar paces.
Then this year I did a September marathon using Pfitzinger & Douglas 12/55 plan. to support what others have said, the long runs were slower. I think I probably ran somewhere around 9:45 on average (my half time had improved to 1:45) and I did worry that I couldn't sustain race pace - all I wanted was a sub 4!
On race day I set off at roughly 9 min miles, got to 10 miles and was feeling good. Sped up a fraction, and ended up running 3:45:12 with a 9 minute negative split. I have never finished a race feeling so strong!
To me, this speaks volumes about the conservative start and the need to trust in your plan. If the speed work in the week is tough it will pay off longer term. Since then, I've taken my half to 1:39, 10 mile to 73:15 and 5k to 20:54, none of which I'd have done previously, especially the half.
Listen to these guys! They know what they're talking about!
Man, that is exactly my situation right now!! sounds like you've done the donkey work for me in your experience so I'll take that on board. Thanks for that
This thread is of real interest to me right now for a few reasons, so can I give my 2p's worth on the subject of LSR's?
I'm in the process of preparing for my second marathon 2/16 weeks into training, Paris!
My first marathon was in October and I planned to run it in 3:30 - so all went well and I was doing the LSR's around 8:45 min mile, some interval runs and a couple of easy runs each week. As my fitness grew, so did my confidence and I started to dream of following the 3:15 pace runners! However, I got injured three weeks from the start of the race and scaled back my dreams and aspirations and aimed to finish and enjoy instead, did it.
Thing is, when i got to the start of the race in Amsterdam I was already beaten, injury or not I was burned out. I had essentially been racing every weekend for 16 weeks on the long runs just on the cusp of breathing heavily but believing that I was doing it slowly. I'm beginning to blether on, apologies. My point is - 1 min off MP a mile is a minimum!
So, marathon number 2 prep. is under way, target 3:30-3:40 in Paris, LSR range 9:07-9:50. Went cross country for the LSR yesterday, with a friend chatting away, 9:20min per mile, was really good, even felt a bit fast in places. Result today is feeling sprightly and no aches or pains.The purpose of the LSR is capilliarisation (muscle building), time on feet and aerobic base. Speed is soooo not important in THIS session. Only race on race day!
There's loads of really sensible advice on this thread, from experience it seems. Good luck with it all Maccydee and y'all.
Marathon training is all about the long term and not the same as half marathon training. If you can also get a medium LSR of 11-14 miles in during the week that's good too.
Maybe a 3:20 run for 20miles may give you some mental benefit but doing more than one will risk injury and just exhaust you. I've run 4 marathons following the advice of doing as many 18-20milers as possible. But the quickest I've gone on the day is 4:30 and that's off a 1:55 half! The issue is starting off slowly and having miles in your legs.
For my 16 milers I'm doing 12miles at 10:00 then the last 4 at 8:50. It fells dine and gets me out for the magic 2:30. My new target is 3:45. God help me!
Flob, interestingly my 5k is quicker but my 10k race pb is slower by a minute. However , I wouldn't read to much into that as my 5k pb was on a flat as a pan cake course but my 10k local races were really Hilly ones so weren't associated with fast times. It could be that we're about the same on typical courses. I must say I've never run a half for a pb but my PB did feel great, normally I'm training for fun and do them for a laugh finishing around 1:51 to 1:53 in time. I've run 10 mile long runs for about 4 years so my week one training was very little different to normal only 1.5 mlies longer and 30 seconds per mile slower.
Just to add my 2 cents worth here.. I asked Sam Murphy this question at the Asics bootcamp and she said that faster runners, i.e sub 3.30 marthoners should have a bigger difference between their LSR pace and their race pace of say 1 -1.5 min/mile difference but for us slightly slower runners, 0.5 to 1 min/mile reduction was probably more appropriate.
I am hoping for a sub4 time at the Paris marathon and will be looking for a pace of around 9.5mm for my LSRs.
My problem in my first two marathons weren't a lack of quantity of miles, but injuries and niggles I picked up in training. I was doing my 20 mile runs in 2 hour 40 and aiming for 26 miles in 3 hours 45. I made that mistake twice.
My attitude now is make sure my LSR leaves me feeling fresh a couple of days later, not with niggles. The best way to achieve that is by taking them much easier and much slower.
Realistically, my 20 mile PB will never be beaten, but hopefully I can take a good 30 minutes off my marathon PB in the next couple of years.
Maccydee here's my two-penceworth:
I was a 6 time failure at sub4, based on a 1:43 Half. In desperation, last year I turned to Heart Rate training, and made sure all my long runs were done at less than 75%max - that meant starting off really slowly as my heart rate used to drift badly in a long run.
My 12 long runs coming into my Autumn 2012 marathon started at 14m and included 5 x 20+ milers. The pace started off as 10:40mm. I got slightly quicker each week, running to HR, and the last run (13m) was at 9:09mm. All were run at the same low HR. I then ran 3h49 with a small negative split.
A year later I'm a minute per mile quicker, and my long runs are still 90+ seconds back from my last marathon pace.
The key is long runs are not places to test "MP". You need to develop aerobic endurance and you do that by running at a relaxed rate. If you need a psychological test, try finishing the last few (5?) miles at 9mm. Just don't do the whole run at that pace...good luck
maccydee - a good rule of thumb (for finding MP) is to try to run a block of about 10 to 12M at steady PMP in a MLR. You should be able to hold the pace for around that distance, but it is a very tough run and will take some building up with say 6M of MP, 8M etc over a few runs.