Long run as percentage of miles

I don't think there's any cut and dried rule. In the summer/fall of 2007 I averaged 50-55 mpw. After running a "test" marathon in early September (3:39) and taking one recovery week, I then continued the same mpw average and ran LRs of:

18

18

19

14 (incl. 10 mile race)

20

16 (incl. 10 mile MP run)

22

I felt strong and controlled at the end of that 22 and ran a total of 54 miles that week.

The following Sunday I set my masters half-marathon PR (1:31) and felt great.

Ran 21 the following week, including a hard 12 mile tempo run, and pushed myself over the edge. My marathon three weeks later was a 3:30:59.

Some runners respond well to LRs that are a higher percentage of the weekly average. I'm one of those. But I jog 3-4 miles very slowly four days of the week, always take two of those days after every long run. My usual year-round LR is 14-15 miles (around 2:05), and I'll regularly notch that sort of LR when I'm averaging 40-45 mpw. I'm 50 and I'm racing better now than I ever have.

When I'm training for 5K/10K, I never run more than 15, and have better success with 14, pushing a little harder.

When I'm training for half marathons, I'll toss some 17-18 milers into the mix, and perhaps average 45-50 mpw.

It really doesn't matter to me what I'm "supposed" to be doing. This works well for me. I never feel overtrained, sluggish, unmotivated. I enjoy my training and racing.

I am open to a variety of opinions on this. Malmo seems to think it is the least important. In my situation, I have done weekly 15+ mile runs for at least 10 years and I think after hundreds of these, I can get by with fewer of them, especially when they start eating in my ability to get in other things that are as important. I can skip my long run for a week or two and if anything it feels easier when I get back to it. My ability to run long is not limited by cardiovascular endurance, but by my skeletal structure and leg fatigue.

My view is that everything you do is a tradeoff between training benefit and fatigue and you want to include elements that balance maximizing one while minimizing the other. For me, a 15 miler at 7 min. pace makes me feel as flat the next day as a 7 miler at 5:25 pace. And it isn't because I am not endurance trained - I have done a weekly 15 miler for years and 80-100 a week for years and years and my long run is always draining. Other people can workout the day after a long run so long as it is easy. I can run 11 every day, but I experience much greater fatigue for every mile thereafter in a single run.

If I had to rank how to apportion one's quanta of energy:

1)Weekly mileage

2)Some fair proportion of that at Half Marathon or a bit faster effort - either in structured workouts or spontaneous sections during other runs.

3)A "stamina" type track workout (6k+ of intervals at 3k to 5k race pace with short enough recovery to make it challenging)

4)A long run (and I am wavering in my support for this).

I think the worst way to apportion one's quanta of energy is to worry about running some "medium" pace on non-workout days.

Are we talking about marathoning, or just general training.

gjg wrote:

Specific example; Which in your opinion would be more beneficial for a marathoner who has become injury prone and is used to an ave. of 60 mpw with a 20 miler every other week?

1. Increasing to 75 mpw with longer daily runs and longest run of 2 hours(16 miles).

2. Staying at 60 mpw but gradually increasing the long run to 22 to 24 miles in the last month before the race.

B

What is the added benefit from adding 2-4M to a 20M long run? Aren't you running for longer than your goal marathon pace in training? That could be beneficial for your psychology and possibly for your legs/body chemistry, but I think the extended recovery period would be much worse.

You're burning about the same calories and oxygen as for the marathon from a lower exertion for longer time and maybe doing more muscle damage. What happens in that extra 2-4M that is so good for the race that it cancels that out?

"The Tue hard day, the Fri Kenyan run (every other week) and the Sun long run are the critical components. The other days are used to “restore” the body."

http://www.trackshark.com/blogs/division3blog/578/Interviews:+Will+Freeman+of+Grinnell.html

Coach K wrote:

I politely disagree with Malmo and Dean Martin. The benefits of the weekly long run for an endurance athlete are not things that can be easily achieved in another fashion.

Except Malmo learned what matters by DOING and was able to set American records as a result.

You... not so much.

Does it even make sense to express the long run as a percentage of weekly mileage?

I could understand a "not more than 25%" rule, for injury avoidance, particularly for low weekly mileage. But let's say we have two runners, one who runs 100 miles/week, and one who runs 150 miles/week. If a 20 mile run is optimal for the first runner, would a 30 mile run be optimal for the second? I'm not sure.

Coach K wrote:

I politely disagree with Malmo and Dean Martin. The benefits of the weekly long run for an endurance athlete are not things that can be easily achieved in another fashion.

Dean Martin wrote:

Except Malmo learned what matters by DOING and was able to set American records as a result.

You... not so much.

Do you have any idea who you are responding to?

Oh I just read the second paragraph for the first time.I would vote for increasing to 70mpw. But in my case, 20 mile runs are too long to do every week -- so I wouldn't look to make that one longer as a first option.

gjg wrote:

Allowing for exceptions, what is the optimal length of the long run as a percentage of weekly mileage during marathon training. I'm interested in personal training experiences.

If looking to improve from 60 mpw with a 20 mile max long run; is it better to go to 70 mpw/20 long or keep weekly mileage stable and increase the long run length?

Enlighten me

The Ghost of Will Freeman wrote:

"The Tue hard day, the Fri Kenyan run (every other week) and the Sun long run are the critical components. The other days are used to “restore” the body."

http://www.trackshark.com/blogs/division3blog/578/Interviews:+Will+Freeman+of+Grinnell.html

That is a good link, thanks. I like his description of the "Kenyan run", a 5 mile progressing pace run.

Coach Freeman's runners have a long run of 11-18M on Sunday. Would a run of 22-24M on Sunday prepare them well for a quality 8000m of repeats 60 hours later on Tuesday? I think it would not.

Dean Martin wrote:

Enlighten me

I guess you're new around here.

One more time. Enlighten me.

Dean, just search the forum. You'll figure it out.

I've spent a lot of time reading letsrun, and I have no idea who Coach K is. I do know who Dean Martin is, but I think that might be a different guy from the one posting here.

First of all the long run has a completely different purpose for marathoners vs nonmarathoners.

Marathoners: Burning fat and increasing endurance

Non Marathoners: Increasing Endurance

It definitely provides a different kind of endurance then intervals or tempos though, so it is not a complete waste. But always look at effort vs reward. For 800-10k Tempos, intervals and overall mileage are all far, far more important then the long run. There are more benefits to a 20 mile run then to two 10 mile runs, but there is also a lot more fatigue. The long run tires you out more and it produces a different type of fatigue-not the aerobic fatigue that tempos and intervals produce (and is easy to recover from), not the soreness from hills or sprints or weights (harder to recover from but still a matter of 2-3 days), but the general fatigue of the entire body, and of the joints. The long run always takes far longer to FULLY recover from then anything else.

In terms of percentages, I like to do 15% one week at a hard pace and 20% the next week at an easy pace with the last couple miles a little harder. So for me at 70-80mpw that is about a 10 miler and 14-15 miler.

However, you can't always go in terms of percentages. The novice runner hitting the roads 5 times a week is averaging 20% every run. The elite 10k runner might be doing 120 miles a week on 12 runs, but they should not be doing a 24 miler every week.

Runners doing less the 70mpw shouldn't be doing 20 milers every week. I mean, what the hell are you doing the rest of the week? Probably trying to recover from the long run in time for next week and missing valuable sessions of faster running.

I like the rule that the long run day should not be more then 2 miles longer then then next highest day. Also, I'm gonna throw out there the suggestion that it shouldn't be more then 5 or 6 miles longer then the average of the other 6 days in the week.

Mileage- Max long run for non-marathoners

30-8

40-10

50-11

60-13

70-15

80-17

90-18

100-20

Is it supposed to be a secret or something?

If you have a point to make then make it. Otherwise, shut the hell up.

Until then, I sure as hell at least know who Malmo is so I'm gonna go with him, thanks.

Not paying attention wrote:

Dean, just search the forum. You'll figure it out.

You can't search for Coach K. The search function will only recognize the word "coach" which will bring up thousands of posts about every coach in the world.

I'm a regular too and I don't know how Coach K is.

Also I would suggest an absolute cap of 20 miles or 32k for non-marathoners. After all, that is where you run out of fuel in a marathon, and that is where most of the fatigue seems to come from as well. After 20 miles you're body starts going into survival mode, which is pointless for training, as you are trying to build yourself up. Are there aerobic benefits to going beyond 20? Yea, probably, but not enough to possibly justify the increased recovery time. Again, obviously for non-marathoners only.