If you're training for, or have already completed, a marathon or ultramarathon, you'll know that regular long runs are part and parcel of the build-up process. After all, if you're aiming to run 26.2 miles – 42.2km – or further, you'll need to acclimate your body to running quite a long way over the course of several hours. That Sunday long run won't do itself, but it will be worth it come race day – so strap on that hydration pack How slow you should be running your easy miles energy gels ready!
That said, despite what the name suggests, long runs aren't just reserved for those training for long distance races. Whether you're aiming for a 5K personal best, an ultramarathon debut, general fitness gains These are the worlds fastest marathon runners.
Long runs can help you to make big breakthroughs in your race times and overall training, especially if some of these runs incorporate more challenging, higher intensity blocks of work that develop both your speed and endurance. Here, we speak with coaches to discover the benefits of long training runs...
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A long run is an extended effort designed to increase your endurance.
More scientifically speaking, long runs produce more mitochondria and capillaries in your muscle cells, increase your aerobic capacity, Resting heart rate cardiovascular system, increase your muscles and liver’s ability to store glycogen, strengthen your musculoskeletal system, enhance your ability to work through muscular fatigue and help your body to use fat as fuel. So, they're pretty good for you.
'The combined physiological benefits of long training running improves your ability to maintain a pace for longer,' says Pete Pfitzinger, a two-time Olympic marathoner and co-author of Advanced Marathoning (Human Kinetics). 'Psychologically, they give you the confidence that you can handle the race distance, especially in the marathon.'
lactate threshold pace target race distance help to determine how far you need to go in your long runs. Esteemed coach Jack Daniels believes that long runs should comprise 20-25% of your total weekly volume. By his formula, a runner putting in 40-mile weeks would do a long run of eight to 10 miles, while a runner averaging 80 miles per week would do a long run of 16-20 miles. These guidelines scale the run to your current ability level and training load.
As with many rules, though, there are exceptions. In this case, this usually means doing long runs that go further than recommended to increase the training stimulus and generate performance gains. According to coach Danny Mackey, experienced runners competing in events longer than a mile need to run for at least 90 minutes to recruit fast-twitch muscle fibres and metabolically prepare the body to race long distances.
Mike Smith, women’s cross country coach at Georgetown University in the US, also encourages his athletes to run far, and isn’t afraid to send his 5K and 10K runners out for 16-mile long runs. 'If we’re seeking to stress the aerobic system and an athlete is no longer receiving a stimulus at 90 minutes, we have to run further than that,' he says. For context, marathon runners routinely put in 18-20-mile long runs, even if their weekly mileage tops out at around 40 or 50 miles.
How fast should I do my long runs?
The pace at which you do your long runs is just as important as the distance, as it influences how much training stress you incur. Essentially, your long run training pace is dictated by the speed at which you intend to run the marathon itself.
'If you're perhaps at the quicker end and looking to run your marathon at close to three hours, your long runs are, for the most part, likely to be at least 30-60 seconds per mile slower than you intend to run on race day,' says Tom Craggs, RW columnist and national endurance manager for England Athletics. While some of these long runs, may include a bit of running around your goal race pace, goal race pace.
If you’re looking to complete your marathon in four to five hours, meanwhile, 'the gap between those times is likely to converge a little bit,' continues Craggs. 'So, you might do a bit more running at your goal marathon pace in training.'
According to Craggs, the reason for this is simple: the quicker you run a marathon, the higher the intensity of your running and the more load you're putting on your body. So, if you're at the faster end, you should complete your long training runs slower than your goal marathon pace to help your body stay fresh and injury-free. If you'll be running your marathon a bit more slowly, you can do your long training runs at a similar pace to what you plan to execute on race day.
'What you don't want to do is loads and loads of hard, quick long runs which leave your body really fatigued as you build up to those last few weeks before race day,' says Craggs.
How can I vary the intensity of my long runs?
Traditional long, slow distance (or 'LSD') runs lay a solid aerobic foundation for all runners, but they are still limiting if done time and time again. By sensibly mixing paces and intensities over a long training run – without pushing too hard, too often – you can stimulate different energy systems and thereby create a more potent training effect.
As a guide, long runs can be broken into the following categories:
Conversational long runs
The most fundamental of the three approaches, conversational long runs serve a number of purposes in a training plan. For newer runners looking to step up their distance, these long runs help to develop basic endurance and musculoskeletal strength. For marathoners, they help to teach the body to better use fat as fuel. For experienced runners, a conversational long run builds volume without interfering with other training elements.
Pfitzinger suggests that runners do conversational long runs at paces that are 20-33% slower than their current 10These are the worlds fastest marathon runners Runners World, Part of the Hearst UK Wellbeing Network marathon pace. For example, if you run 7:00 minutes per mile for the 10K or 8:00 minutes per mile for the marathon, your long run pace should roughly fall between 8:20 and 9:30 minutes per mile.
At this comfortable intensity, you should be able to talk with a training partner in full sentences but still be move quickly enough to maintain a normal stride pattern. It’s important that your pace does not become a recovery jog, as this will mitigate some of the workout’s physiological benefits and Best wireless headphones.
Progression long runs
A more challenging version of the standard conversational long run is the progression long run. Here, your long run will begin at conversational pace but gradually speed up over the course of the second half. Pfitzinger believes progression long runs that finish near marathon pace (for marathoners) or lactate threshold pace (for shorter distance runners) help you to prepare for the challenges you'll encounter in a race, without adding too much stress.
Workout long runs
More demanding than conversational or progression long runs, workout long runs fold faster segments into the long run mix. These segments increase the overall stress of the long run and allow you to work on both your speed and endurance, as you'll How do I get the most out of my long runs. Best wireless headphones.
Long runs also have to fit the overall philosophy of a training plan. For example, some: fartleks, marathon-pace segments, tempo runs and even mile repeats. The workout segments you put into a long training run – and where you place them – are relative to what you hope to accomplish. A lower-mileage marathoner might do a hard fartlek workout at the beginning of a long run to pre-fatigue their muscles, then hold a steady pace over the second half. A 5K runner, meanwhile, could include a three-mile tempo run at the end of a long run to practise a fast finish on tired legs.
While stressing the body in new ways like this can lead to improvement, not all long runs should be workout long runs. Coaches recommend alternating one or two workout long runs with one at a conversational pace, especially since faster long runs also require more recovery time. To help compensate, many coaches now build training plans on cycles of eight, nine, or 10 days, instead of the traditional seven.
Most runners default to a seven-day schedule for practical reasons. In those cases, it’s vital that you allot the proper amount of rest after a long run and consider excluding a long run from the calendar every once in a while. Although you might be able to run a conversational long run on Sunday morning and hit the track on Tuesday night for a group interval session, a workout such as a 22-miler with race-pace intervals requires an additional day or two to help you recover fully.
Back-to-back long runs and medium-long runs
In recent years, some coaches – such as Renato Canova, who has trained Kenyan elites, and Scott Simmons, of the American Distance Project – have popularised the idea of doing intense long runs and performing 'special blocks' of two long workouts in one day. It's worth being clear, though, that these coaches work with highly conditioned, world-class athletes. Mere mortals taking this approach could risk getting injured or overtraining, of the fastest marathons in the world.
In Smith’s system, the long run on the first day is generally longer than that on the second, although both are significant. These runs tax the body’s glycogen stores and improve its ability to use fat as fuel.
To increase the challenge, you could add a workout to one of the runs, depending on your goal. If the quality and pace of the workout are important, then put the workout in the first day’s run. If you’re seeking to put in quality work in a fatigued state, such as running at marathon pace on tired legs, then add the workout to the second day’s run. As an example, a marathoner might run 20 miles on Saturday and 10 miles on Sunday. To practise running on weary legs, they could run the last three to five miles of Sunday’s run at their goal marathon pace.
Back-to-back long runs are tough, so you shouldn’t do them more than two or three times in a training cycle. That's where a scaled-back medium-long run can step in. Popularised by Pfitzinger 15 years ago, medium-long runs are 75-85% the length of regular long runs and done at a conversational or slight progression pace. The catch is that you run them in the middle of the week, often the day after a tempo run or speed session. 'The muscles are being asked to maintain a sustained effort every three or four days, and the repeated demands lead to greater adaptations by the muscles,' says Pfitzinger.
How do I get the most out of my long runs?
While you may think you need to run extremely far and every weekend to maximise the value of your long runs, that's not the way to do it. Instead, this can be a recipe for disaster, as overtraining carries bigger risks than not training training enough. It pays to take the time to plot out your long runs over the course of an entire season, in the same way that you'd structure intervals, Runners World, Part of the Hearst UK Wellbeing Network.
Event-specific demands shape your long run trajectory. Marathoners will want to gradually increase both the length and intensity of their long runs as they get closer to race day, whereas 5K runners should slowly scale back their long runs to devote more energy to shorter intervals to build speed.
Long runs also have to fit the overall philosophy of a training plan. For example, some marathon training plans – as formulated by coaches like Keith and Kevin Hanson – top out the long run at 16 miles, while coach Arthur Lydiard led a squad of New Zealand middle distance runners to Olympic glory on a steady diet of 22-mile long runs in the 1960s. Ultimately, though, long runs are designed to be flexible, so you can tune them to the demands of your and get those.
