Ultrarunner Camille Herron: Long runs are over rated.

Hsjuycj

Agree for road/flat ultras. For the mountains it is different and maybe that is why Camille has not been good there.

So sick of pro runners giving advice to hobby joggers.We all know they are on a boatload of "supplements" making there training programs totally irrelevant to the average runner .Two totally different worlds with no overlap .

This is a good point and that is one of the things that attracted me to the sport as well.

It also makes more sense to me that people are drawn to this type of training from a motivation perspective of what they enjoy or gives them 'bragging rights' and things like that than for pure performance or other things like 'time on feet' or 'learning to run on tired legs'. Anyone who has done ultras for a few years has learned to run on tired legs. And time on feet is going to be the same whether you do 10 hours of running split up across the week or do most of in 1 or 2 days.

She's just describing what she does. She isn't telling you to do it too. Relax.

The secret is quite simple: dimishing returns

After 2-2.5h of running you damage your body more than it is a training.

Bitter because you suck at running?

Only on Let's Run would some idiot claim Camille Herron is overrated, just to stir up some sh:t. Multiple times over many years she has run 100 miles under 13 hours. Sub 8 minute miles x 100. Oh, you got a response, well done. Never mind.

Camille Herron's training is focused on long runs, so the whole premise of this thread is a bit twisted. Ultra long training runs, that is anything over 2 hours probably aren't a good idea for most people, but that seems like common sense. Outside article below talks about how Camillr has been averaging 98 miles a week since 2007. Insane mileage.

outsideonline.com

Camille Herron Will Run Her 100,000th Mile This Week

Molly Hanson

The ultrarunning multi-world-record holder talks about sustaining longevity and the biggest thrill of her illustrious career

Open link

Yiannis Kouros, in comparison, rarely went over 80 miles per week.

letsrun.com

Q&A With Legendary Ultramarathoner Yiannis Kouros: "I Don’t Believe in Long Runs and I Am Against Doing Them"

LetsRun.com

We interviewed the legendary Yiannis Kouros before his legendary 24-hour world record that had stood for nearly 24 years was broken. Hear how he doesn't believe in training year-round or in doing long runs.

Open link

Camille is outstanding at 24 hours and really long distances, but objectively her best result was her victory at the Comrades Marathon in 2017. That year there were 2,704 female finishers and she placed first. I'd guess that far fewer than 2,000 women have ever tried to seriously compete at the 24-hour distance.

Interesting thread. I think it all comes down to what you can recover from. If you can't recover from a workout, then there is no point in doing it. If you get stronger from back to back 5-6 hour runs, then that is effective. But if you just end up having to chill for 1 + weeks after because you are too sore to do anything else, then you miss out other workouts.