Are McMillan training guidelines the real reference?

Could those training and race pace times the real reference for a sub-2:30 marathon? A couple of month back a reader here on 400days pointed to McMillan, a US coach’s web site with lots of good stuff on long distance training. He thoroughly goes through running physiology, different training forms and how to build your own training program. A basic ingredient is the McMillan race and training pace calculator that provides you a recommended pace for different runs in competition and training. You enter a recent race result that you are quite content with and hit the “calculate” button. I turned it a bit around and entered the result I’d like to achieve, a marathon in 2:29:59. The pace results were, well, let’s say intimidating. Read the rest of this entry »