Hi Folks,
I'm about to begin on an advanced marathon training program that lasts 16 weeks. I'm aiming for a 3 hour marathon in april 2010. I seem to have all the hard interval training during the week days sorted but I am still unsure of how hard I should be hitting the long sunday runs. Should I be doing them at my marathon goal pace? Should I be holding back? Any advice is really welcome.
Thank You

You should definately not be running your long runs at marathon pace. For someone new to running longer distances attributed to marathon training it is typically recommended to run 1 to 2 minutes slower than your MP, in your case this means training at 8 to 9 minutes per mile. This will seem really slow and can be really difficult to maintain the slow pace. The value of the long run is to get time on you feet to allow your body to adjust to the extra stress, and build endurance.

On some of your longer runs you could incorporate portions of the run at MP for a "tempo" like workout. This would help both mentally and physically, however I would recommend this only once every 2 to 3 weeks.

Have you run a marathon before / how did you come up with a 3 hour for a goal time?

Tks for your reply. I have 6 previous marathons and have been steadily improving. I now want to take it really serious and try to hit a 3 hr. I have this 16 week program from runing.com and it's fairly close to what I would like to do myself. It's just that I was unsure of the long run pace.
Thanks again for your reply.