Longer Tempos Make for a Stronger Marathon

I’m in the final tuning for the St. George Marathon (in less than 2 weeks).  I have come to learn the importance of tempo runs as part of my marathon training and do them every week except when in a mileage building stage.  A tempo run should be a sustained run at or just below your lactate threshold pace.  This is a pace that you can maintain without lactate building up to the point where you have to slow in a run of up to about 1 hour.  Not sure what that pace is for you?  I feel the best estimate of this pace is your ½ marathon or 15K race pace.  For me this is 6:42 and 6:40, respectively.  However, I find I have to adjust this pace for weather.  Last week was my last long tempo run.  I ran 10 miles with 8 at a heat adjusted tempo pace (adding about 15 seconds to 6:40).  This put me at about 1 hour at tempo pace.

I believe every bit of my training is important for each marathon.  One of the best articles (and most concise) I have read on marathon training was “Optimal Marathon Training Sessions” by Pete Pfitzinger.  Worth a read just on tempo, but he puts these runs in context with VO2 max and standard aerobic runs.