Why are long runs Nessecary for Shorter Distances? 800-1500????

You won't develop your cardiovascular system as much with a hard track session as you'll likely do with a long run.

Stizzle wrote:

Seems like replacing the long run day with another hard track workout would be more beneficial if your goal is to get faster.

People who have actually gotten faster did those long runs.

Longs runs are not necessary at all for 800-1500m runners. They can help, but they are not necessary. I suppose you need to specific what counts as a long run though. 10+ miles or what?

I know several people that never did anything close to a 10 mile long run and ran very fast times.

Because they are aerobic events that require endurance. I probably ran 4 hours a week total when I was mile training.

The long run helps your body to adapt to the pounding of running. Doing a few 90 minute runs early in your training cycle will allow you to handle more/harder track work.

So if you have to chose between short sprints or a long run, you know which one I would chose and for which reason(s). But it depends on what you call a long run. Many middle diatance people--including Steve Scott--did long runs not over 90 minutes in length, because that is the point where you start to run out of glycogen and you get into depletion mode which causes your FT fibers to go slower and tire, not let you go faster.

Sebastian Coe, Wilson Kipketer, William Tanui, Japeth Kimutai, David Rudisha, and Hicham El Guerrouj did NOT have long runs in their written training plans. Jama Aden also does not have any long runs in the published schedules, though Kaki has gone up to 80 mpw.

If your choice as a middle distance guy is between 2 hard workouts plus a long run or 3 speed workouts, I think the choice would be obvious. But some of us coaching in D1 will have 3 speed workouts and a 60 minute long run is used for regeneration: If you can do this and still recover, you would do the long run.

Coe had long runs in his actual training though.

Dwight Stones claimed that Laura Roessler trained with sprinters all but one day a week. I took that to mean most of her interval workouts weren't even short recovery.

Marius Bakken ran close to 13:10 with no run longer than an hour, but he was pretty unique in this. No reason not to do some longer runs in base phase, but once the season begins, they are very much optional.

Brenda Martinez has no long runs in her published training weeks.

Just because so and so pro athlete didn't do long runs does not mean all runners should not do long runs.

dfgf wrote:

Just because so and so pro athlete didn't do long runs does not mean all runners should not do long runs.

And just because so and so pro runners DID do long runs doesn't mean all runners should do them. But that's not the question being asked by the OP. He's asking if they are necessary not whether or hot he should do them.

Les wrote:

Brenda Martinez has no long runs in her published training weeks.

Somehow she manages 70 mile weeks.

Not a Doc wrote:

Les wrote:

Brenda Martinez has no long runs in her published training weeks.

Somehow she manages 70 mile weeks.

https://twitter.com/bmartrun/status/415218504636194816/photo/1/large

Without any long runs. That is exactly what people are saying, there is nothing wrong with mileage, but there is no point, repeat NO point in concentrating a bunch of it into one run, and it's downright dumb if it means you can only get 2 track workouts in per week instead of three.

12 miles seems like a pretty long run to me at least for a middle distance runner.

luv2run wrote:

12 miles seems like a pretty long run to me at least for a middle distance runner.

12 mile aerobic tempo sounds like a fast long run or 'progressing long run' to me.

5:50 pace is pretty hard and i don't know many 4min 1500 runners who could do that.

Stizzle wrote:

Seems like replacing the long run day with another hard track workout would be more beneficial if your goal is to get faster.

Develops more central adaptations to training.

The research is clear: interval training is good for more peripheral adaptions, like mitochondiral density.

Long runs will have a more significant impact on central adaptions like stroke volume (total volume of blood pumped per heart beat). Higher stroke volume=faster 1500.

ask Peter Snell and his coach

MrGambinus wrote:

luv2run wrote:

12 miles seems like a pretty long run to me at least for a middle distance runner.

12 mile aerobic tempo sounds like a fast long run or 'progressing long run' to me.

5:50 pace is pretty hard and i don't know many 4min 1500 runners who could do that.

I know 4:10 1500m runners who could do this. It's by no means a leisurely run, but it's a good, solid effort for someone of that ability.