I have a genuine question.
I'm seeing lots of people talking about doing intervals where they alternate between easy long run pace and a slightly faster pace, at which they plan to run a marathon.
I'm genuinely surprised at this because the whole point of interval training is to run for shorter distances than you race at, with a higher intensity than you can maintain for a whole race, with slower recovery paces in between. Which applies whether that is training for 800metres or a marathon.
Surely if you do intervals, you need to go faster than marathon pace to stress your system and then recover using slower than marathon pace ( or maybe marathon paced recoveries possibly) so that your body adapts and you can run further, more comfortably, in a marathon race.
I'd be very keen to know if there is some research to back up the idea of 'marathon pace' intervals.
Certainly, the late Frank Horwill used to advocate a marathon runners interval session of 12x400m at 3k, 5k or 10k pace ( depending on current fitness ), with 400m recovery between those efforts, at goal marathon pace. Which uses the normal 'run faster, recover slower' interval training method.
Very interested to understand how the marathon pace then slower recovery intervals idea came about.
Cheers
I'm seeing lots of people talking about doing intervals where they alternate between easy long run pace and a slightly faster pace, at which they plan to run a marathon.
I'm genuinely surprised at this because the whole point of interval training is to run for shorter distances than you race at, with a higher intensity than you can maintain for a whole race, with slower recovery paces in between. Which applies whether that is training for 800metres or a marathon.
Surely if you do intervals, you need to go faster than marathon pace to stress your system and then recover using slower than marathon pace ( or maybe marathon paced recoveries possibly) so that your body adapts and you can run further, more comfortably, in a marathon race.
I'd be very keen to know if there is some research to back up the idea of 'marathon pace' intervals.
Certainly, the late Frank Horwill used to advocate a marathon runners interval session of 12x400m at 3k, 5k or 10k pace ( depending on current fitness ), with 400m recovery between those efforts, at goal marathon pace. Which uses the normal 'run faster, recover slower' interval training method.
Very interested to understand how the marathon pace then slower recovery intervals idea came about.
Cheers