Has the Standard Model of Training Changed?

I like to investigate new ideas in training and philosophize about them; it's what I do - but, after going down various rabbit holes, I inevitably ask myself "Have you tried what works for everyone else?" First, do what's worked for others, then if it doesn't work for you, make tweaks; don't start with something no one's ever tried. But maybe some new method has supplanted the old...


When I ran my first marathon in the late 1970's, there were no published marathon training plans. Lydiard's was the first and came out a few months after I ran. What we had to go on was lore, guidelines created by those who had gone before. Here were the general rules:


1) Rarely run more than twice your average distance, and never more than three times it.
2) Your average pace should be a minute per mile slower than your marathon pace (some said 1.25 minutes).
3) The number of total miles you run in the 8 weeks before a marathon, divided by 20, is the number of miles into the marathon before you "hit the wall." [No one ever hits the wall any more; I'll get to that eventually.]
4) Your average training pace is about 1.5 times your all-out one mile time.
5) Get in three 20 mile runs before a marathon and, if you can, make it two 20's and a 22.


This has 3:00 marathoners running 60-70 miles per week, with long runs of 15-18 miles, at 8:00/mile.


Strava did a survey of its users and found that sub-3 runners averaged 7.5 miles per day at 7.5 minutes per mile. This is considerably less mileage and much faster. Is this the new paradigm? Going back to the 1973 poll, runners breaking 3 hours averaged 8 miles per day, less than the old guidelines, but it was noted that they had an average one mile race time under 5 minutes and that the more miles they ran, generally the faster they finished; there was nothing about their average training pace.


I looked for a recent marathon plan that fit the Strava numbers and there's a good one at from Runner's World that averages 7.5 miles per day at 7.5 minutes per mile the last 8 weeks: https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/training/marathon/a760127/rws-ultimate-marathon-schedule-sub-300/ Looking at it, I immediately found a lot of things I didn't care for, but it's really a good plan. The last 12 miler should be "easy" rather than "steady" or you aren't tapering properly. The percentage of fast miles is high. It doesn't say what to do if you can't run what it says on any given day. The suggested time for the last 1/2-marathon race is a bit fast. Other than that - and those are quibbles - it has everything right.


EXCEPT...




If you look at it from the rules of the 1970's, it looks different. 7.5 minutes per mile average, less one, gives 6.5 min./mile for a marathon, or 2:50. If you take 7.5/1.5 you get a mile in 5:00, which while correct for a miler like me to run 3:00, is more typical of breaking 2:50 for most runners. If you take the mileage in the last 8 weeks and divide by 20, you get hitting the wall at 21 miles. This is a plan for running 21 miles at 6:30 and then staggering in at 8-8:30/mile the last five miles to still break 3:00. And this is pretty much how I did it back in the day.


But no one hits the wall any more, and it's more a change in attitudes than in training. You don't get anything more for running so hard that you spend 8 weeks trying to recover than you do for running more easily and finishing 10 minutes slower. Back in the day, if you ran 7:30 per mile on easy days, you ran 70 miles per week and finished in 2:50.


So - next year already - what I think is really needed for me.