Quote Originally Posted by OakLeaf View Post
Magic 8-ball training plan says..... All signs point to YES.

Seriously, I read recently that one of the strongest predictors of hitting "the wall" is not having done more than 20 in training. To me - knowing nothing but my own body - that seems kind of "no duh." Going out and trying to race 33% farther than I'd ever jogged just seems crazy to me.

I've got the time, what's the down-side? As long as I'm being careful about injury prevention, which I'm trying to be. Seven and a half weeks to race day gives me time to hit 26.2 in training a couple of times, anyway, before I start tapering.
I think once you have done a couple of marathons you know what your body needs, but there is a HUGE mental victory of KNOWING you can make the distance. Even if the benefits are only psychological, positive thinking is HUGE during a long race.

For me, my longest long run needs to be about 22-24 miles for my brain to switch over. For my first couple of marathons, I did only do 20 miles, and that was okay, but I don't feel like I RACED the distance, I just WENT the distance. Which was okay with me then, but isn't now.

For Ironman, I do only run about 20 miles as my longest long run. It might be up to 21 or 22 with warm-up/cool-down miles considered. I guess in that case you know that racing is going to be entirely different than training, so it's a matter of building endurance to carry you, and running long enough that you're confident you can jog, walk, shuffle, or crawl the last 4 miles if it comes to it.

RE: Running barefoot: I have been running in Five Fingers for about 5 weeks. The first week I did one run in them and wore them every day. The next couple of weeks I did every other run in them. Since then, I have done every run in them, including 2 runs of 14 miles. I have been listening to how my body recovers, and so far at this point my FiveFingers recovery time is the same as my body recovery time, but I do require extra stretching and attention to the ankles/calves (I have had to stretch my toes/top of my foot, too ). The first few runs were pretty painful (in a muscle sore way), then as I adjust my running posture I find I am using muscles like my adductors and glutes differently so they get sore, too.

I run on some concrete sidewalks, but mostly asphalt multi-user paved trails. Long runs I avoid as much concrete as possible and finish on grass. The Ironman run course is almost exclusively on asphalt, so I try to stick to it, even if I am not going to run Ironman in the VFFs.