M'thon trainin, on the fells?

[nickharris]

I'm advising another off road distance runner who has entered the Edinburgh. We concluded it wasn't distance that would be problem but leg cadence and speed. She is working on threshold pace runs with increasing time and decreasing recoveries plus hill circuits. If you want more advice you can contact me via the Fell Section of Rossendale Harriers. Nick Fell level 3 coach.

Ive just entered Edinburgh marathon, on 23 may. Whats people opinions on doing long training runs for a marathon, off road? Say for example if all or most of my 2-3 hour runs were done on the moors or hills would this help or hinder my marathon prep? I prefer training off road, and as long as I do my speed work on the road do you reckon I'll be able to do the marathon without doing more than 1 or 2 'long' road runs? Thanks for any thoughts on this

[TheReverand]

Thanks for that nick, this thread is from this time last year as I was starting my marathon training, which went pretty well, all my runs over 2 hours were on an old dissused railway line on the way home from work, you could say my long runs were all mixed terrain, bits of everything, but not one of my long runs was solely on road. I know what you r saying about cadence and that, but I think you find it easy to keep good cadence if you are not struggling!!!! you cannot keep good cadence if your legs are whacked!!! Threshold training is good, I did most of that on the treadmill.....
I got 249 on a hot day last year, this year im running a lot better and am hoping to dip under 240 :-)