marathon training

[darts180]

hi could I ask, instead of doing an 18mile ish training run all in one go, could you do several shorter runs 5 to 6 miles each day, does that count? I like to think at the end of the week if your total weekly milage is high then your body will be strong on marathon day yeah. I think some people will do long runs so the body adapts and recovers and gets the benefits from it. it's just I hear that elite runners rarely go past 16miles in training for the day as they can carry themselves through the last 10miles easily on the day. so really what I'm asking is do 5 mile or so runs actually count yeah thanks.

 

[TriTom]

Double run days are definitely a thing in long distance triathlon training to get the miles up.
Faster session in the morning when the legs are fresh then slow session in the evening or 1 slow morning and 1 slow evening.

 

[darts180]

thanks for the reply, I did a 21 mile training run something like 2650 elevation and a mixture of roads and trails, I like to think that helps. on marathon day I knocked 20 minutes off last year's time so I'm rather pleased. I think next year I'll just do shorter long runs to see if that helps.

 

[Stig-OT-Dump]

Sadly it doesn't work like that. Time on your feet is what counts.
If you don't have time for an 18 or 20 miler, the best thing to do is back to back long runs of, say, 13 & 10 miles, because on the 2nd day you're running on tired legs.
You can get by on 3 runs a week; tempo, intervals and a long slow run. If you go for the same aggregate mileage doing 6 runs a week you'll end up in a world of pain on race day.