Now in its second edition this book written by one of Americas top coaches and writers on athletics is full of detailed information principally designed for runners who have run a marathon and want to improve their times by the use of specific training.
Many runners believe that the more training and mileage you cover for the race then the better you will perform but its not how many miles a week you run its what you do with that mileage.
Running a quality 50mpw is a lot better race terms than running 70mpw especially if you train at a slightly higher intensity during those shorter strength training runs.
Remember you are trying to run that 26.2miles at a slightly faster pace than you have become accustomed to during training.
Intoducing Fartlek,tempo ,and speed sessions on the track will eventually reap rewards.
Train like a 10k runner ie speed but increase your longer runs to include faster paced intervals so when it comes to race day your proposed Marathon pace will feel steady and controlled.
Look at the top race winners at big city marathons,they excell at all distances from 5k right up to the marathon because the majority of their high mileage is done at a significantly faster pace to allow running 26.2miles at under 5minute mileing to remain relaxed.
Look how relaxed Martin Lel,Paul Tergat and the other front runners appear,mainly because their marathon pace is significantly slower than their pace for shorter distances.
Many runners run mile after mile in training at the same pace and find that their times hardly change from race to race.
Hal Higdons excellent advice throughout this superb book if followed carefully will reap rewards.
Each chapter deals with individual aspects of training and dietry matters.
He even includes volume of oxygen tables that show what a runner should beable to achieve at different distances as long as they train specifically for that distance ie to break 3hrs for the marathon you should beable to run a 1-25 half marathon comfortably and a sub 38minute 10k.
As i have said improve your 10k times significantly and with proper training your marathon times should also improve.
This book gives superb advice for those runners wishing to fine tune their running when all other training programmes have failed.
