Splitting Up Long Runs?

I've heard of people only doing a long run every other weekend.

Anybody got some N=1 advice? I'd settle for that.

What kind of mileage are you running?

Do you ever take down weeks?

Sitting right around 80mpw right now. It's been a while since I've had a down week. I felt like I didn't necessarily need one since I was supposed to be doing mostly base work, but I definitely have thrown some faster runs in lately. Could just be tiring myself out a bit....

Well, it looks like you do need down week after all! You don't have to cut back very much; maybe just cut your long run in half and run 70 miles that week instead of 80. You'll feel different the next week. I think I need a down week every month.

J0nathan wrote:

Sitting right around 80mpw right now. It's been a while since I've had a down week. I felt like I didn't necessarily need one since I was supposed to be doing mostly base work, but I definitely have thrown some faster runs in lately. Could just be tiring myself out a bit....

Agree with what's been said. Taking 1 of every 4 weeks as a down week is fine, especially when you're adjusting to increased mileage. If you're doing 80 with a 20 long run, that's 60 the rest of the week. I'd shorten a few runs during the week to get 50, and then do a 15 miler instead of 20. Gets you 65 for the week, and a nice down week.

I usually would not do any crazy, killer workouts that week either. Sometimes a good opportunity to get in just a nice tempo and a short rep session. Get a little zip in your legs with the recovery. And just let the rest of the runs that week come to you. No forcing them.

Doing that once every 4 weeks, especially in base or building for a marathon won't hurt you. It'll help.

Thanks for the advice. Looks like I'll finish out this week strong, and then dial it back a little next week. Definitely agree that my body, and mind, could use it!

There are various training formats to allow recovery. A 7 day cycle is convenient but may not be the best. If you can try a 10 day cycle. Another philosophy is short and long cycles. You have a 7 day short cycle but a 5 or 6 week long cycle. The week cycles are usual a gradual increase followed by a recovery week. You don't say how much your total training load is and what was your build up. If your tired you are not getting enough recovery time.

2 things:

1)

20 mi long runs are very far when you are running 80 mpw. Not necessarily too far, but I think that anyone might get fatigued by that run. Especially if you have not been doing that volume for very long.

When I first ran 70-80 it was prior to junior XC. I ran 40-50 during 9th grade winter; 50-60 during track; 60 for ten weeks in summer (one week at 72); tried 60-70 during 10th grade winter (think I ran too hard); then 70-83 for 12 weeks during summer before junior year. That whole summer I ran a long run of 15 on sunday, I started out at 1:45 and improved 1-2 min every week. The last three weeks I was getting so fit that I lengthened it to 17, then 20, then 23 for more of a challenge.

You may want to do the same. Do 15 every sunday until it starts to feel really good. Then lengthen it the last 8 weeks before your race to 17-19-21-17-19-21-23-19. I just used time and if you count 7-minute-miles every 2-mile increase is :15.

2:00, 2:15, 2:30, 2:00, ... you get it. If you are faster than that just scale it down by :15 total.

2)

I think everyone should have a down week, while they are still developing. That is the hard part is to admit we are still developing. I think that it needs to be about 70% of the volume you have been averaging for 5 weeks, not just last week. So it would be 55mpw for you. You get refreshed and are ready to tackle training again. If you really feel bad about cutting back, this can be a good time to cross-train more. Weights, or skating, or swimming, or cycling can make you lose more fat during the week you cut back.

Thanks for the advice folks. I forgot to mention that I live at 7,300 ft. All my runs pretty much fall in the 6,500-7k ft range, so I think ramping up the mileage at this altitude could also be playing a small role in some of the overall fatigue. I'm not sure I really have any runs that feel completely effortless. I've been living at this altitude for about 6 months, coming up from 5k ft before that.