Breaking the long run rule

Thanks. It seems like there is some sort of a pre-Enlightenment vibe going on with him (I say it to be true so it is true, that's all you need to know) and some people follow along with the little game. There are plenty of former decent runners and good coaches on the boards who give reasons for what they say.

In any event, what you say about long runs makes more sense and matches up with how the vast majority of coaches and runners actually use the term "long run".

Please please don’t follow what Malmo says.

Long runs are a staple of every training program from 5km to marathon.

If long runs mean that you take 2-3 days to recover, then it would be more valuable to substitute other workouts that allow you to recover quicker and go at a faster pace that would be more likely to help your race pace get faster. That, I believe, was the rationale behind the no long runs idea. But long runs can be valuable where you aren't doing anything over 90 minutes otherwise, because you get the marked increase in capillary development and in mitochondrial development from runs over 90 minutes. By making them easy, you were able to recover well. Additional stimuli will get you faster, at least in the short term, and this was new at the time for you. However, there may be other more productive changes you could make.

Now replace the 2 hour run with 3 40 min runs and let us know if in 6 weeks you run even faster..... And how many weeks in a row was your park run stagnant before adding in the long run? After all of you weren't doing them every week, maybe you are just racing yourself into shape. Did that every XC season where we ran mainly mileage and then after 3 weeks of racing we were all 60s faster over 5k.

For 5ks you don't need long runs. You do need volume. And a lot of people find long runs a decent way to add volume.

This. Each person is different and as a 1500/5k runner I had many long runs of 12-16 miles but ultimately it’s a question of mechanics, quality, and frequency. Do you have a 7 day cycle, 10 day, or always 6+1off? Do you have any recurring injuries or niggles that will eventually become exacerbated (particularly if you lack or ignore proper strength or core routines, which haven’t been mentioned here and many runners slack on).

If you’re doing everything right no big deal, but as stated the vast majority of runners aren’t getting major benefits (that outweigh injury risk) beyond 90 minutes. Some athletes benefit far more from additional cross training or things like ~50-70 minute marathon pace tempos on the treadmill (to lower overall impact while keeping turnover high and keep them fresh for track sessions).

finally, you did 3 5k’s in a row, your body is likely also benefiting from learning how to suffer through the pain of the race and to some even unconscious degree your strategy (especially on the same course) May be improving finally. None of us are your coach so the litany of factors that are important here we can’t know and you would be, I will be direct here, foolish to attribute your sudden success merely to long runs.

I’m glad you’re seeing a breakthrough but be careful on how you interpret these results and responses here because as always, running is always ready to throw you a curveball. Def recommend working on mobility, core and strength as always though, increasing training like this makes it ever more important. Best of luck.

As a beginner, go for three days of running two to four miles every meeting, depending, obviously, on your wellness level.
Then keep your preparation load something very similar for half a month to permit your body to change.
At the point when you feel prepared, then, at that point, you can run more.
I'd suggest that you stay at a surrendered preparing load for to about a month then, at that point, go up.

This is like a whole new language!

5/10k are still mainly aerobic races and long runs of 90-120 mins are crucial to building and maintaining aerobic base. Nick Willis says that the long run is the one element of his training that he maintained all year round.

Just make sure it's easy enough that you recover in time for your next workout on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Well no, something else has changed, time.

Sometimes little breakthroughs take their time to show, those 70mile weeks have helped as have that 16 miler, as have everything else you have been doing. To me it sounds like you ran a fair bit last year, maybe got a little over trained. Now with the reduced mileage your legs are a bit fresher, your fitter and hey guess what you PR'd...

there must be other ways to get the capillary and mitochondrial development considering jakob never runs over 12 miles.

Better off focusing on all 7 days of the week before messing around with long runs. 40 mpw with a 15 mile long run is asking for trouble. You're leaving easy fitness gains on the table and risking injury.

Did you add 4 miles to your long run and then reduce the rest of your week by a total of 4 miles or did you simply add 4 miles to your week by making your long run longer?

When I was hovering around 70 miles in college my "long run" would be 10 miles, in a single Sunday outing. That was my lowest mileage day of the week, though. This never made sense to me.

You mean run 7 days a week? I can't do that without injury and getting bored. When I did the marathon I did 5 days a week with 1-2 long runs and some doubles.

The latter. I simply made the long run longer, so 2 hours instead of 90 minutes.

In the past when I did the marathon I did some 3 hour long runs.

Actually no I misread that. I still do 40 mpw but I simply increased the long run from 90 minutes to 2 hours.

Totally disagree.

Elite runners and coaches sometimes have ideas about training that don't carry over well to recreational runners with different abilities and training volumes.

The benefits of a long run are well-known, and they don't suddenly kick in when you get to some magical criteria.

You can do a lot on 40 mpw: e.g. 5 miles each weekday (including tempo and VO2 workouts), 15 miles on the weekend, and a day off/crosstraining.

Maybe not interesting to the elite runners of Letsrun, but must runners can definitely improve on this work.