There is no need to grind long runs: Change my mind.

"Time on your feet" is a meaningless concept. If that's something you're worried about, do the faster run but keep the duration the same.

I use my long run as a second tempo type of workout of the week. Just look up Canova comments on long slow runs.

I like to do long runs as progression runs. I usually start out really easy, and slowly drop the pace until I'm running right around tempo pace for the last couple miles.

Running your long runs hard will change your mind(set)

A fast long run is good for half marathon and up.

So, no, take your long run easy. Take everything easy now. Start going hard on other workouts later, but keep the long run easy (at 'conversational' pace).

Na its june. Take the long run easy, maybe pick it up the last 3-4 miles.

how about this instead? wrote:

"Time on your feet" is a meaningless concept. If that's something you're worried about, do the faster run but keep the duration the same.

Do you think “time in a HR zone” or “time at a given intensity” are meaningless concepts?

Third option: do it over a hilly course go easy on the flats and down hill sections; and do surges going up the hills.

I completely agree

Lydiard Cerutty wrote:

I use my long run as a second tempo type of workout of the week. Just look up Canova comments on long slow runs.

Canova argues that slow runs serve no purpose in improving fitness in athletes that are already very well trained aerobically. From the OPs post I'm guessing he doesn't fall into that category like a Wilson Kipsang would. Also, "time on your feet" is not a meaningless concept, at least not at the 'slow' pace OP mentions. Improving mitochondria quality and quantity is fully time dependent

I treat my long run as a second tempo session, or only tempo work if I'm not able to get in a true tempo that week. But those are just the limitations of my schedule. Since you're in base phase, there's no need to kill yourself, but dropping a 3-4 mile tempo effort in the middle of your long run can't hurt.

theJeff wrote:

how about this instead? wrote:

"Time on your feet" is a meaningless concept. If that's something you're worried about, do the faster run but keep the duration the same.

Do you think “time in a HR zone” or “time at a given intensity” are meaningless concepts?

What I really think is that the OP is too lazy to do his long run at anything but a crawl, and he came on here looking for affirmation of that decision.

theJeff wrote:

how about this instead? wrote:

"Time on your feet" is a meaningless concept. If that's something you're worried about, do the faster run but keep the duration the same.

Do you think “time in a HR zone” or “time at a given intensity” are meaningless concepts?

"how about this instead?" is an idiot.

Of COURSE duration of exercise is a meaningful concept. So is intensity.

Two cyclists bike 10k: one cruising through in 30 minutes on a flat at a slow 20 km/h, HR 120 and one straight up a mountain in 25 minutes, HR 170. Obviously BOTH measures are important.

You body (your heart, mitochondria, etc) incidentally, doesn't know if you covered 18 miles or 20 miles on your long run. It responds to WHAT STRESS IT WAS SUBJECTED TO, and HOW LONG IT WAS DOING IT.

If you are taking easy days before and/or after your long run, then run it faster to make it more of a workout to prepare for a race. If you are not resting very much, and instead trying to get high weekly mileage, then run it at a slower pace so you are avoiding injury risk while still packing in the miles.

In other words, what is the purpose of your long run in the context of your current training cycle? Answer this question, and then run accordingly.

The answer to your question depends on what else you have scheduled in your training week. What did you do yesterday? What are you planning on doing tomorrow? How about 2 days from now? If you did hills yesterday and have a longish tempo run two days from now, I wouldn't recommend running the long run that hard. If you have run easy for the last 2 days to get ready for the long run and are planning to take tomorrow off, followed by an easy run, you should be able to run the long run at a higher intensity. I usually find that my long runs end up being faster than a typical easy run, but I think that is because I do them on the weekends, when I am more rested and not after work. I treat the beginning of the run like an easy run and if I am feeling okay the pace will naturally pick up. Usually I run a workout two days later, so I run fast if it feels good, but never push so hard that it will compromise that next workout.

For some people though, there's not enough hard work built into the training schedule so if they don't get the work in during the long run, they never get it. On the other end of the spectrum, some people have enough intensity built into their schedule that to treat the long run as anything more than an extended easy run will almost certainly lead to overtraining or some kind of overuse injury.

how about this instead? wrote:

"Time on your feet" is a meaningless concept. If that's something you're worried about, do the faster run but keep the duration the same.

No, not exactly. Overall stress is not meaningless. Increasing overall stress can induce fitness gains. These are often related more to endurance and fatigue resistance than improved metabolic fitness, but occasionally you see gains there as well.

Of course, if you're doing 10 hours a week of quality training with 3 solid workouts a week...then even if you start doing 13 hours a week and all of it is easy you might not have raised the overall stress.

That said, I'd focus on progression in workouts much more than I would prioritize increasing overall training stress dramatically.

I tried the whole HR zone training and keeping everything easy I noticed I got slower.

HR training sucked there were times I were running 13 minute miles...I sh!t all over that method the theory is keep it easy and hard runs hard but they were too easy and my hard runs were slower because of it.

I like to gird my long runs. Just really encircle them. Belt them in good.

Saywhat2 wrote:

I tried the whole HR zone training and keeping everything easy I noticed I got slower.

HR training sucked there were times I were running 13 minute miles...I sh!t all over that method the theory is keep it easy and hard runs hard but they were too easy and my hard runs were slower because of it.

You were clearly doing it wrong...

Lol at you