newname, I appreciate your sarcasm and skepticism, but I think you're misunderstanding the overall conclusions I've come to about the LONG RUN, which I repeat: are my personal conclusions and the conclusions that work for me.
Before I continue, I should note that there have been a handful of runner's who were successful using similar training methods (Van Aaken), however I should note that the LONG RUN was a part of their schedule.
A few examples would be:
Liane Winter of West Germany, who in the 1975 Boston Marathon set a women's world record in 2:42:25, prior to that in 1974 she set 2 German marathon records in Wolfsburg and Waldniel, and also in 1977 a 10k German record in Bruges (37:16).
Then there also was Christa Vahlensieck, who in May 1975 set a world record of 2:40:16, then in 1977 in the Berlin marathon set another world record of 2:34:48. From 1973 to 1989 she won a total of 21 marathons. Other notable accomplishments of Christa were:
-World record in the hour run: 16,872 feet, 24 May 1975 in Bochum
-World record in the 10,000-meter run: 34:01,4 min. 20 August 1975 in Wolfsburg
-World record in the 20,000-meter run: 1:10:50,2 h, 25 October 1975 in Essen
-Four world records in the 25-kilometer road race: 1:31:52, 23 March 1975 in Düren; 1:31:01, 13 September 1975 in Rheydt; 2nd In May 1976 Ameln, 1:28:33, 22 November 1978 in Griesheim
-German record in the 100-km race: 7:50:37, 4th September 1976 in Unna
11 times the German champion of the Federal Republic:
-Marathon in 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1980
in the 25-kilometer road race in 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980
in the 15-kilometer road 1988
Then there was Harald Norpoth, some of his accomplishments include:
-1500 m: 3:41,2 min, 20 September 1962 in Warsaw, German record
-5000 m: 13:48,4 min on 4 July 1964 in Berlin, German record
-3000 m: 7:55,2 min on 5 July 1965 in Karlsruhe, German record
-5000 m: 13:42.8 min, 7 July 1965 in Berlin, German record
-5000 m: 13:24,8 min on 7 June 1966 in Cologne, European Record
-2000 m: 4:57,8 min on 10 September 1966 in Hagen, world record
-3000 m: 7:45,2 min, 6 June 1967 in Munster, European Record
-4x880 Yards: 7:14,6 min, 13 June 1968 in Fulda (Bodo Tümmler, Walter Adams, Harald Norpoth, Franz-Josef Kemper), World Record
-5000 m: 13:20,6 min, 12 July 1972 in Munich, German record
Of course there were more who were trained in a similar fashion by Van Aaken but were age group runners; successful age group runners.
Prior to 2010 I was logging approximately 170-210 kilometers per week including a long run bi-weekly. So typically one week I'd do 10,5,5,10, 6 days a week plus a 30k long run, then the next week I would do the same 10,5,5,10, 7 days a week.
Where I differ is that in my experience I found that the long run for me when I was doing it bi-weekly seemed of little value in the sense of physical gains, again I'm not completely convinced that it is of no value, after all it still remains in my schedule, however my goal in the long run is not the same goal that is typical of the traditional LONG RUN. My goal in the long run is that of pace control, so what I mean by that is that during a typical day of training my training paces will be between 6:00 to 7:15 depending on the workout I have set up as well as the distance (and obviously much faster for the accelerations I have built into my mid-day 5k workouts), so I don't spend a huge amount of time at one given pace, what the long run allows me to do is to run at a predetermined pace for a continuous period of time. So when I say pace control that is what I mean, setting a continuous pace for a longer distance, I don't mean a long distance time trial where I'm running race pace to see what I'm capable of in a marathon.
Now where I want to be clear is that I think you're right in saying that those who maintain a larger volume of running 100+ mi are going to be the most successful that I will not argue with, but were I will argue is that I don't think everything has to be compressed into 1 or 2 longer runs per day in order to be successful I just gave you a handful of people who used a similar method and were successful. Sure I will give you the fact that those are old records, but I might add that the reason nobody runs 5 runs a day has more to to with the tradition of training and time constraints and responsibilities then anything else as dividing your days to allow 5 runs a day is time consuming and perhaps pointless for most who already are running successfully, so from that point of view I can understand why these training methods I use seem quite the exception rather then the norm. I would also add that dividing my days into multiple runs allows me to maintain a higher average weekly millage, perhaps you might be inclined to think that somehow 5 shorter runs is easier to run then 2 runs of the same distance, there I'd be careful in the conclusions you draw.
At this point obviously you are faster then me and I can't argue with the methods you've used to reach that point, however, I've only been running for 1 year and 11 months and don't have a track or XC background. So as far as the conclusions that can be drawn from my training methods and yours including my ideas on the LONG RUN, none can be made assuming you've been running for many more years then I have.
Respectfully,
E**2