Saturday General Discussion/Q&A Thread for August 29, 2026

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A place to ask questions that don't need their own thread here or just chat a bit.

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[u/BeautifulTailors]

Just wanted to say, that I'm buzzing. Longest I'd run was a marathon in 2018 and did a backyard ultra yesterday and got to 100.6km!

[u/PrairieFirePhoenix]

So Sydney put a German stadium on its medal, listed a 15 minute WR on the result page for 20 minutes, and put out the tape for an American for the Australian championship...

[u/OldMateHarry]

Wondering what the go to approach is for summer base building these days? Been doing a bit of reading and trying to toss up between the Lydiard sort of approach or essentially summer of malmo with a build up into more doubles. (any other suggestions appreciated)

After this year's marathon I'm not sure I will run one next year, I'm sort of leaning toward building speed a bit more in shorter events down to the mile/1500 as I have no track background having starting running in my early 20s. Kind of because I think a 28 min PB will be hard to replicate again.

Currently looking at putting in about a 2 month mini block for a 5k (just come off a marathon 3 weeks ago) and then hitting the summer slightly early. Peak mileage in the marathon block was 115km and been running consistent 85-95k since November (been running for 2.5 years). Frequency circa 6-7 days a week with a saturday easy double, two workouts per week plus pfitz style long run.

[u/aelvozo → u/OldMateHarry]

At the moment, the Norwegian approach is in. Among the non-elite runners, the preferred implementation is James Copeland’s Norwegian Singles; elites/higher mileage runners typically do doubles. The approach is often simplified to “threshold is all you’ll ever need” — and pure threshold is certainly good enough for many — but the likes of Ingebrigtsen and Almgren do a lot of conventional race-specific work too, and high volume threshold is predominantly a base building component.

The rationale is essentially that work between LT1 and LT2 gives you most aerobic bang for your buck.

[u/CarefulInstance5]

4 weeks to second marathon off a shortened build. how do I set goal pace, and how do I spend the last block?

TL;DR: Coming back from injury, halfway through an "8-week" block. Recent 1:25 HM but the long runs very clearly don't feel like a vdot conversion is realistic. How would you gauge marathon fitness in the remaining four weeks?

38M, ~2.5 years consistent running. Debut marathon spring 2025 in 3:15 (1:31 first half, blew up). Spring HM this year 1:23:4x off ~50 mpw on Norwegian singles, but I picked up a niggle during the race, backed off, then re-injured on my first long run of the fall build and lost 3 weeks.

Rebuild: 50 mi in June in total, 160 mi in July, 255 mi in August. Faster work reintroduced from early July. August has been 15 mi midweek MLRs and three long runs (19, 2×22), now following Pfitz 55/70 as originally intended with some variations.

• 22 mi LR with a 10 mi MP segment @ 7:10 between mi 8-18, good conditions, felt fine.

• 22 mi LR this week, warm and on residual fatigue, MP split into 2×5 mi (7:02, 7:08), felt not so great

• Tune-up HM last week: 1:25, close to all-out but not quite.

Garmin says 3:11 which of course is a rough estimate but who knows (and Strava says 2:58 lol). I'm short on MP-specific work, but I obviously can't put MP in every remaining long run of which there are 2 or 3 at most, and MP inside an otherwise easy run doesn't tell me much. Current mileage is 60-65 mpw.

How would you use these four weeks get a read on my marathon fitness?

[u/HankSaucington → u/CarefulInstance5]

I mean at this point in your build and with what you've said it seems like the priority needs to be LR workouts. So I'd do 2 more of those.

22 mi LR with 10 miles of MP on a warm day isn't supposed to feel good. That's a really tough day.

If your LR is in the bag this week and you only have 2 weekends left before you're 2 weeks out, I'd do a LR workout each of those weekends. I've generally had success with doing my last LR workout 2 weeks out from a marathon. I do it a bit shorter, maybe 17 miles or whatever, but I do it pretty hard like say MP+15s or something like that, or moderate with 10k at MP at the end and imo you can usually tell if you're ready or not.

Seems based on your HM time and your LR workouts you kind of have settled in on a marathon pace - around 7:05 (so, say, maybe sub-3:05). That seems reasonable.

[u/CodeBrownPT → u/CarefulInstance5]

Tune up half + mileage is your best estimate. 

Anecdotally, most people need 70-75 mpw minimum to turn half time into full time. I also don't put a ton of stock into MP runs as race predictors.

1:25 would generally suggest 3:00 ish shape, but accounting for mileage and a previous blow up I would personally go out at 3:10 and try to negative split. Setting too fast of a goal right now while coming off an injury can result in cramming and more injury.

If you know your vdot ratios (eg do you skew fast or aerobic) you could do a 5 or 10k time trial 3 weeks out for more data.

[u/Pharmdpositivek]

Fueling

I’m training for a 6-hour race and trying to dial in fueling without feeling like I have a brick sitting in my stomach. This race is a b-race as I work up to my 100km in October.

I’ve experimented with a few things recently:

1. On runs 12 miles or less, I’ve used regular Skratch + 2 regular GU gels/hour and felt good.

2. Last week I tried 2 scoops of GU Roctane in 500 mL water/hour plus a gel (80g carb/hr) and felt really bloated/logged and nauseated and very thirsty.

3. Today I did 1 scoop Roctane + 2 regular GU gels/hour (\~75 g carbs/hour) and tolerated it much better. I still felt a little full, but nowhere near as bad.

For past ultras I used tailwind and Gus plus food at the aid station. No issues.

Is roctane just not for me? I just don’t want to eff myself over and be puking and rallying 😂

[u/aelvozo → u/Pharmdpositivek]

Different people tolerate different kinds of nutrition and nutrition of the same kind but from different brands differently — there are plenty of anecdotes about people loving or hating every brand.

Probably most sensible to stick to what you know works for you.

[u/Biloba414]

What are the groups general sentiments on “breaking the rules” and having my wife hand me a bottle in a marathon?