PUBLISHED 08/07/2006
Jason Karp likes to use LT pace for the last three to four miles of a long run. "It's a key physiological variable," he says. "If we can improve someone's LT, they'll run a faster marathon."
Run Till You Puke
A few years back, Khalid Khannouchi noted that he took his long runs so seriously that he couldn't sleep for a night or two beforehand, and would sometimes get sick to his stomach after. Since Khannouchi is the only marathoner ever to break 2:06 three times, it seems that there's something to his approach.
According to his wife and training advisor, Sandra, Khannouchi always runs negative-split long runs, warming up for several miles, and then running just 15 to 20 seconds slower than his marathon pace. The last three miles, he goes for broke. "He tries to run them at about his 10-K race pace [4:30 to 4:40]," she says.
Greg McMillan says many of the great Kenyan marathoners do the same. He learned this a few years ago when he was an apprentice to Italian coach Dr. Gabriele Rosa. Rosa encourages his runners, including marathon world record holder Paul Tergat, to start their long runs at a relaxed pace before picking it up to MP pace for the midrun miles. "Then they'll run the last 10 to 30 minutes of the workout like it's a race," says McMillan. He calls this the "fast-finish long run."
So what should you do? If you want to go for the gold, then by all means train like Khannouchi and Tergat. Just be sure to take a Tums before every long run. Otherwise, I'd say that a simple marathon-pace long-run strategy makes the most sense for the most runners. After all, it obeys the essential training precept: the specificity-of-training rule.
I'm going to try this simple pace-progression for my next marathon: Start with five EZ miles and five marathon-pace miles (or whatever distance is appropriate for your fitness). On each subsequent long run, add a mile until you get to nine EZ plus nine MP. At that point, you can either step up to a nice round 20-miler or start tapering for your marathon PR.
