Long Run Nuance
How you execute your long run really depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.
I got a question on my MarathonBQ Facebook group last week when I was traveling that I get a lot. I think I’ve answered this before, and remember my answers are based on my experience and your mileage may vary. (Get it?)
It’s probably timely as people are getting into their spring marathon plans. I’m talking primarily about training for a full marathon although some of the logic may apply to other distances.
The question is something around what the pace should be for the long run and/or how long?
It really depends where you are starting from and what you’re trying to accomplish.
I’d generally categorize people into 3 groups. First is the “I just want to be able to cover the distance”. Second is “I’ve got some experience and I’m trying to get faster.” Third is “I’m an experienced marathon racer and I’m trying to prepare for my next race.”
There’s nothing wrong with any of these groups. Everybody is walking a different path in life and will have different drivers and motivators.
The first group; “I just want to go the distance” is the largest demographic and I think this is why most of the traditional training plans are focused on that group. These traditional training plans are going to tell you that the long run should be a series of increasing distances that top out at a couple 20 milers and that these should be run at a relatively low effort level. The pace is typically 1-2 minutes per mile slower than your regular ‘running with friends’ pace.
There’s lots of complaining and whining about how these plans aren’t very effective for training but they accomplish exactly what they are intended to. This category of runners needs to get used to the distance and time on feet. They need to figure out how to fuel and how to deal with all the other absurdities that confront you once you get into the high teens of miles.
There is nothing wrong with the ‘just go and run some long miles at an easy pace for practice’ training plan if your goal is to finish the race. Like I said these plans typically top out at 20 miles. Partly because they figure if you can run 20, you can tough out another 6 and partly because there are diminishing returns on fitness for a road marathon after that, and the probability of injury goes up.
The second group, the “I’ve run a couple marathons and I’ve got some experience and I’m trying to get faster” group is who I’m usually dealing with in the MarathonBQ group. By the way, sorry if I’m getting out over my skis here, but MarathonBQ is a book I wrote back in 2014-2015 about how to qualify for Boston.
These are the folks who ran a couple races and got the bug, like I did and then want to go deeper. In this case they can take big chunks of time off of their marathon, like 20-40 minutes, by incorporating higher volume and structured speedwork into their plan.
Higher volume means there’s a big improvement if you can bump your weekly miles up to 50-60 from 20-30. After that you get diminishing returns. There’s also a ton of benefit in terms of speed, strength, form and cadence by focusing on some structured speed and tempo training. Especially if you’ve never done it.
But back to the long run. For these folks you really have a choice. The way I built my plan was to leave the long run as a slow base building run but increase it up to 22 or 24 miles. The reason I did this is that I was loading so much quality work into the week that turning the long run into another tempo workout would be overkill.
When people complain about this I tell them to go ahead and treat it as a fast finish run if they are feeling it. Meaning do the long slow run but if you feel like you still have gas at the end close it at race pace. That’s a good simulation of race conditions and gives you an opt-out if you’re doing too much.
In my plan the long run was to build aerobic fitness and confidence that you can cover the distance. The real benefits in pacing came from the speedwork.
The third group of runners are the “I’m an experienced racer and looking to race again” crew. Meaning that you have been doing structured training for a while and there really isn’t much incremental improvement opportunity. You’re just trying to set yourself up for a good race.
In this case the long run can pick up some of the slack from the tempo training. Typically for this group they already have the aerobic base and need more race specific training.
For this group you’re going to see a lot of race-like tempo training as part of the long run. You’ll have surges and step ups and long fast finish runs to simulate race day challenges.
My advice would be to check where you are and what you’re trying to accomplish. Are you trying to get faster? Are you trying to get to the starting line in racing shape? What is your aerobic fitness like? What is your experience with racing and structured training like?
Feel free to experiment with versions of the long run and see how they impact your training and racing. If you feel like you need more base then run them in a low heart rate and get the time on your feet. If you feel like you need more race specific then run them as a long step up or a fast finish.
A typical long step up for me is start in easy zone 2, step up to easy zone 3, then step up again to high zone 3 and close at zone 4. For example, a 3 hour run might be 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 with the last 5-10 minutes hard.
My coach has me do a lot of big step up runs. And by big, I mean closing the last hour of the run at raced pace minus 5-10 seconds. Both volume and tempo. These are daunting runs after a full week of training.
Play with it and see what works for you and your goals. Or even better get a coach for a cycle and learn how they do it.