Is a long run considered a "workout"?

SOUL PATROL wrote:

Travis Bickle wrote:

Bullshit detector went off the roof.

Dude!!

Really???? Do you even know what I'm referring to? You need to be very careful when calling "Bullshit" on something you have no clue about. These Posts are obviously way out of your league and over your head.

P.S.

You need to throw away that "Bullshit" detector......and check yourself!!

Good Luck in your local Turkey Trot next week.

haha, I laughed bc of that post... I think I know who you are... I debuted in the same marathon as one very fast British runner that trained at Bushy Park at least some times, too... You for sure know him... Greetings from another European athlete that wants to kick a** next year on the roads ;)

Oh... What I wanted to post: I have to second you. I know many elite athletes that run basically everything sub 6 on their easy days. But I know many other fast athletes from training sessions (and we are talking sub 13:30/28ish/1:01 - 1:05ish/2:06 - 2:20ish athletes) that jog 7+ minute pace on easy days (haha, even two steeplers that ran faster than Malmo :P). People always said they would run faster with faster easy days but then they would get hurt, so 7'/mile was optimal for them as they weren't stable enough in their bodies (sry for my bad English). So I really feel like you have the let the pace come to you and focus in the bigger picture. Some days for a 13:20 runner 5:30s might feel like a jog. And other days you might feel like crap and run 7 or even 7:30'/mile. I feel like it's better to run easy days faster BUT: It's easy to overdo it and crash/burn in the specific workouts when you overdo it on easy days bc sometimes you just have to recover even as elite or "sub"elite runner.

Pikachu

Long run is definitely a "workout." It can impact your weekly glycogen storing, does a lot of repetitive stress, and can stress your nervous system. You need to take recovering from it seriously. Workouts are about stress and the adaptive response. Considering the elevated stress level that goes with longer runs, you need to consider them workouts and build in adequate recovery.

If by "workout" you mean any activity where you're training to improve your running, then yes. A long run is workout, and any easy run is a workout and cross training is a workout.

Personally I think of workouts as running intervals or where the running and recovery are segmented, so when i run 7 days, I usually say I ran 7 days, had a long run, and two workouts (Speed/VOMax and tempo) and four days of either recovery or regular running.

OH MY GOD!!!!........THANK YOU!!!!!

Pikachu...Shoebacca......Steigen.!!!! You all see the light. I was starting to question the running IQ of the people on these boards. All three of you TOTALLY GET IT. Easy/Recovery days are just what they're called.....Easy and Recovery. You run how you feel with the the priority being EASY and RECOVERY. There were many days my plan was to go easy and recover and I felt great and wanted to push the pace. I would simply find a good groove (sometimes 5:30 or 5:45 pace) and back off a bit to 6:00 min or 6:30. Some days I felt like total shit and 7:00 min was comfortable. The main thought here is that you realize your training plan for the day and to run easy and don't fall into the trap of having to run fast just because you feel good. I always tried to save those 'Feel Good' easy days for a hard workout day (intervals/hills, etc....)

Pikachu- Good Luck this year!!!

thanks!

How about "for the marathon, we're all in agreement that the "long run" is a very important workout."

Bad Wigins wrote:

malmo wrote:

If you are a 4:00 miler at least 85% (perhaps 90%) of your fitness will come from your easy runs, which would mean....drumroll...a 4:42 mile. It's the "icing" that gets you the rest of the way.

so if you can run a 4:42 off of easy runs, you're almost to 4:00 and just need to do some workouts.

No but it does illustrate why workouts are not the answer or most important part.

DeCastella once said that he marveled at how he could struggle through a ten mile run in an hour and then get in a race and run a minute per mile faster and keep going for another 16.

I guess you never trained with Deek.