Changes

An evaluation of A 1970's study looked for correlations between marathon finish times against and metrics from the final two months of training from before the 1970srace<ref name="Slovic-1977"/> is shown below. There is an obvious correlation between the finishing time and both the longest run and overall mileage.

Another similar study showed that the number of runs over 16, over 20 miles, the length of the longest run and overall mileage are correlated with finish time<ref name="McKelvie-1985"/>. One study separated out overall mileage from the long run<ref name="Dolgener-1994"/>. In that study, two groups of runners did the same long run schedule but their overall weekly mileage either increased from 18 miles to 39 miles, or from 23 miles to 49 miles. The marathon performance was identical between the groups, suggesting that long run distance may be more important than overall mileage.