Long slow distance vs. hard running.

My girlfriend like is long and slow when I am hard. Damn, that's a tough one.

How many days do you need to recover from a hard long run? It is different for different folks.

Advantages: Great workout

Disadvantage: You may be still fatigued two or three days later (by the time you have your speed workouts)

milers left out,

The downside to running a long run or any distance for that matter at a pace that one is inefficient during and unable to recovery from properly, will result in lack of adaptation. Every aspect of training should be efficient and our bodies should be adapting positively. These benefits can be seen in improved times at various distances, better recovery, more relaxed efforts, etc..Ultimately we want our race performances to be improved. If you don't see these things happening during your training chances are very slim that you will see improvements in your race performances. Btw- My long run currently is between 10 and 13 miles. I go by 150bpm avg.hr on these runs. I am training for races between 800m to the 10km. My goal is 3:50 mile. In the past I have run longer runs at closer to race pace, however I now save the hard efforts for time trials or races. Good luck!

milers left out wrote:

I want to be strong in the longer races, but I don't want to sacrifice my speed--I'd like to run 4:00 in the mile this season.

You won't be sacrificing your speed whether it is an easy long run or hard long run. You will be sacrificing it if you neglect your short sprints, strides, hills, drills, etc. You need to look at the big picture when thinking about your goals, and not just one aspect of it. It is going to be a combination of volume, tempos, intervals, speed, easy runs, etc. Good luck getting to 4:00!

long slow distance runs make long slow distance runners

intheknow wrote:

long slow distance runs make long slow distance runners

Yeah, Shorter sucked.

I had an excellent summer of racing 5ks and 10ks based in part on the excellent base I had from doing 15-22 mile runs with harder stuff incorperated into them. However, I have noticed that I would be extremely tired for the next 2-3 and sometimes even 4 days afterward. I am afraid that this fatigue will detract from the 200m sprints, form drills, and tempo runs that I will need to do to have a good base for the shorter races this winter. I realize that there's probably no magical answer to this. By the way what do you all think of doing 5-6 mile up-tempo workouts within a 16-20 mile run? Is there a downside to this?

chances are if you are mainly a miler...you are a speed guy. Long runs aren't your best workouts. Trying to run your easy days steady or at 6min pace or whatever is more likely to get you hurt because your are relatively inefficient at that pace...when compared to a good distance, shuffle-marathon guy. Furthermore, you would be tiring out your few Slow twitch fibers which would result in you not doing well in other workouts like long v02max sessions etc. This could put a hamper on your "speed"....if you'r really fast though you don't need to worry about losing that sub 50sec 400m because it will always be there. If anything all you need is a little endurance to run a 4min mile (assuming you've gone sub 1:52?). Tempo runs, and threshold Lt workouts are going to be giving you the endurance you need...so focus on these instead, nail your real fast speed workouts, do strides, and go ahead and do your long runs (and recovery/easy days) nice and slow.

PS to the post above: I don't think Shorter did that much LSD. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he did most of his very high -mileage around 6min/pace...which may have been slow given the times he went on to run- but thats not LSD for anyone.

milers left out wrote:

...doing 15-22 mile runs with harder stuff incorperated into them. However, I have noticed that I would be extremely tired for the next 2-3 and sometimes even 4 days afterward....

In other words, you are running your long runs to hard. Again, adjust your training based on what works for you and what your goals are.

Im all about long/slow distance for say a 20 miler, but I also like to do maybe 2x1 or 3x1 miles at about :15 above race pace during my long runs. seems to work for me, but im only like a 2:52 marathoner.

Dallas, Texas Meety Urologist wrote:

My girlfriend like is long and slow when I am hard. Damn, that's a tough one.

Huh? Use some proper grammar buddy.

Ghost of Ashenfelter wrote:

intheknow wrote:

long slow distance runs make long slow distance runners

Yeah, Shorter sucked.

Shorter used to run the second hour of his long runs at 5 min/mile pace. Not exactly slow...

Thanks that sounds like really sound advice. This is a completely seperate question but how long and how fast should my up-tempo runs be in my base training if I'm focusing on the mile and 3000m?As for my status as a "speed guy" I'm not really sure: I've run 1:52 in the 800m and 8:11 in the 3000m so while I lean toward the speed side of things I'm probably somewhere in between.

from my own experiance the best and most correct formula is

a combo of fast days followed by easy recovery days.

a formula that seems to work well with not only myself but some of my friends whove ive helped out was

Mon - combo of easy run finishing fast

Tues - fast run / intervals

Weds - easy / recovery

Thurs - fast run / intervals

Fri - easy / recovery

Sat - long run 10 miles or more, with 70% of it ran at a fairly fast pace. So basically what seems to work well is lets say you got a 10 miler, you go 1.5 miles easy sort of a warm up, a buddy of mine would go around 7:30 pace than follow that with 7 miles at roughly around 5:30 pace, than ease up and hit the last 1.5 miles in roughly 8:30 pace.

He said it seemed to work very well for him (along with the others) and as training progressed long runs progresed to where the fast portion was as long as 12 miles.

That sounds like a good schedule and not all that far off of what I've done in the past. What is on Sunday? Does this program have a day off every week?

There's no reason you can't do both, and get the benefits of both. If you are in a phase (or week) where your priority is getting in several faster speed sessions, cranking out two hours or more at 15 seconds over marathon pace is perhaps not the best way of being fresh for 400s two days later. That is the time to take it pretty easy -- you will still be getting a lot of aerobic benefit from throwing in the one long run a week. Pure Lydiard.

On the other hand, if you are in a phase/week where you want to concentrate on aerobic development running some of your long run hard can be very good for you. Opinions on how hard is hard vary -- some people would recommend that you don't go much faster than marathon pace, others would say that you can throw in portions at half-marathon pace. But you need to think of these harder long runs as a workout day in itself, which you may want to take an easy day after.

There are all kinds of variations on this, 60-90 minutes easy, followed by 30-60 at marathon pace, etc. Or start easy for 60-90 minutes, then move down through marathon pace to maybe finishing at 10 mile pace, or even quicker.

Long runs with hard sessions can be subtly tiring. You can feel great the next day, and not realize how tired you are until two days later.

milers left out wrote:

That sounds like a good schedule and not all that far off of what I've done in the past. What is on Sunday? Does this program have a day off every week?

Yes this is more of an in-season type schedule so a sunday is left as basically "open" meaning do as you please. I personally like to do stretching intervals of 15min 4x that day or ice bath. Some of my friends will do a very easy run and some will take the whole day off.