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Marathon Training Plan - No Long Runs

5082835
6 months ago

I am on week 12 of a 21 week Garmin Marathon Plan with race day on May 4th. I'm in the build phase which runs for only another 3 weeks (until March 26th) So far my 'long runs' have been a maximum of 45 minutes or roughly 8.5km in total. I used Garmin Coach for two half marathons last year and both plans were excellent and had my long runs building up to c2hours on my feet. I am concerned that I'm not doing nearly enough long runs and I cannot see further than the next 6 days of training. Anyone have any similar experience and can shed some light? Thanks all.

  • 0 1 month ago

    I’m in the same boat.  I’m 4 weeks away from a marathon and Garmin coach has only given me one run more than 21 kilometers. This week’s long run is  an hour and a half. The same as the suggested base run I did today.

  • 0 7 days ago

    thanks for the question and comments - very useful! Using Garmin for the first time training for my fifth marathon, and am likewise surprised by the absence of long runs: nothing over 10 miles till 8 weeks before the race with a 1hour 42min run (12 miles) Watch calls for a shorter long run next week, but I am having none of it, doing 14 miles instead. Could the problem be that I indicated my aspirational time (3:30 hrs vs current PR of 3:47) so Garmin focuses on speed workouts?

  • 0 6 days ago in reply to 3898310

    No , garmin just has an error with their marathon training plans.  either it is incorrectly limiting long runs based on a runners previous training miles per week or previous longest runs... who knows.  Should have hard/speed workouts once or twice a week and a long run that slowly builds to ~20miles or 3hrs...  

    Whatever the issue is... can't believe they haven't fixed it!   Before people figure out its a problem...it's too late!   Add a mile or two to long run per week.  Recvoery/stepback week every 3-4wks (reduce all distances by 20~30%)

  • 0 5 days ago in reply to NickMN

    I would also add that if you were training to run a faster marathon, long runs (and overall volume) become even more important than ever. It's not just about getting faster, it's also about gaining the stamina to maintain marathon pace for hours. After all, your speed workouts will be a lot faster than MP.

    In this case, you would never sacrifice your long runs (or overall volume) in favour of speed workouts. In addition to weekly speed workouts, you might even do a "long run workout" every two weeks: e.g. something like 5k warmup, 10k tempo, 1k easy, 10k tempo, 4k cooldown. (Probably not the greatest example in the world).