Long down hill on Marathon....

what grade?

If it's a nice downhill (5% or so), then don't worry about it.  It just will throw off your pacing a little (as you will go faster for your target effort).  Since you run hills already, it's only 6 miles and it's at the start of the race, it should be cake.

I did a race that was 5% up for the first half, then 5% down for the last (with a small uphill around mile 17).  That's when downhill kicks your butt. 

You are right: you should NOT underevaluate that downhill. It can be a limiting factor if you don't know how to change the foot movement on the downhill when hitting the ground. It should be in "hammer" style. That would save your muscles over the knee which can give you some problems after the 30th km mark.

There is a famous italian marathon in Florence which starts with a 2-3km downhill and it was my first marathon. My coach prepared me with some special trainings for that start.

Then I did not do anything for downhill specifically for long time and 1 month ago I went to a 31km mountain race in Switzerland where there was a 6km downhill going down for about 700meters! It was crazy and I was almost falling down.

I needed 4 days to recover from that crazy downhill afterwards: the pain over my knees was unbelievable.

6miles is not short: how many meters descent? 

Profile for first half.

Profile for second half.

There's nothing too steep for too long.  The net drop for the first 13 miles is 700 feet.

As Scout7 supplied, about 550 feet descent over the first 8 miles (160 meters)

Can you define "Hammer"

thanks

ok it is nothing to be worried of. Average about 1.5% slope...

Difficult to explain but you should "enter" with your foot as an hammer when you are going down. You should be perpendicular with the body with the surface, relax the arms down all along your body and go! You will save a lot of energy relaxing the arms down.

Staying perpendicular with the body is not natural and you should try it in training. You will see that your speed will suddenly increasy as soon you will stay perpendicular. Tipically people tend to run in downhill keeping the body contracted and with less then 90 degree angle, holding back. Plus, the foot hit the ground with the first back part of it and not like an hammer. That would kill the muscles over your knees.

Sorry but I realized that my english is not good for explain such things...I need to extend my dictionary

I know what you're trying to say, I think.

Basically, the key is to stay upright, not lean back as is the natural tendency, and let your legs turn over naturally.  Most people on a downhill tend to reign it back, or overstride. 

Thanks all....

Danke Schone, Ich fliege zum Zurich fur arbeit.   Bitte, meinen Deutch ist nicht zu gute.. 

Ich liebe, in den Alpen zu laufen

Eric

Good translation of what I intended to say...thanks! 

Here swiss are crazy for mountain running and the average level is ubelievable! 

Yes but it is a beautiful place to run, and if you try hard enough there actually are valley's, nice and flat!!

I visit SE Switzerland a couple of times a year, (Liechtenstein too).  I have considderd overlapping a business trip with a marathon, Zurich, or even Munich.

I look forward to my next trip

thanks and take care

I did Zurich marathon once and it is very nice and perfect for your PB.

For mountain running race, the best one is Davos Marathon where you get several courses, shorter or longer than 42k.

For triathlon, very nice is the HIM in Rapperswil, close to Zurich.

Let me know when you are around here. 

My first marathon was "God's Country" in North-Central PA... it ran over the eastern continental divide, and from miles 13-17ish there was a long uphill - known as "Denton Hill" to those who have done the race. I had done tons of hill training (running up hill) to prepare... to the point that when we drove the curse the day before, I said "denton-schmenton."

I cruised on up the 3-4 mile climb without much trouble, blowing by tons of people.  As I crested the hill, I felt on top of the world (or at least Pennsylvania) and was excited about opening up my stride and letting gravity do the rest of the work for the next several miles... until my legs instantly and completely gave out at the force of running downhill after such a long uphill.  I had trained my legs to go up, but my quads couldn't handle the stress of that extra millisecond of free-fall when running downhill... and I ended up walking dejectedly the next 4 miles... any time I sped up at all, my knees would buckle and I would go to the ground!

So no - I don't think it's wrong to consider the skills necessary to run a long downhill, particularly if it comes near the end of a long race or after a long climb.  With the elevation charts posted above, however, I think you'll be fine given your normal training routes.

Mensch!  Ich wuerde auch gerne auf den Alpen laufen!  Oder radfahren, oder schwimmen.  Macht nichts.  Einfach in den Alpen zu sein weare so schoen!  Leider bin ich hier in Utah, und werde auch bleiben, bis das Geld reicht!

At least you learnt the language so when you come here you are in advantage: you know german and how to run

Beside that, don't forget that Switzerland is 4 language country: german, italian, french and romansch. In the best part for mountains is either romansch or french. 

Eric, I hope you're running more than what your log indicates. It looks like you're only doing 20-25 miles/week. That's not very much when training for a marathon.

I did the Colorado Marathon earlier this year. It's a similar profile to Steamtown in that the first half drops about 700 feet or so. The second half is flatter, dropping about 400 feet, so the race is almost entirely downhill.

I spent lots of time running in terrain similar to where you train, except I was putting in substantially more miles. My standard daily route had me going up about 250 feet in the first 3 miles of my run, then down again, up again, then down to the finish, for a total of about 10 miles. That was 10 miles/day or 70 miles/week for several months. I did a long run of about 21.5 miles that had the first 5 miles downhill, then it leveled out for most of the remainder.

I think if you can go up and down your hilly area so you're getting 5-6 miles of downhill during the course of your run, and do it several times a week, you will be sufficiently prepared for the race.

FWIW, I PRed that marathon by almost 27 minutes on my way to a BQ and took 3rd in my AG (50-54).