Why Limit the Long Run to 20%?

kmaclam wrote:

HRE wrote:

This subject came up in another thread and I put this in response:

The 20% business makes sense for a certain range of mileage. If you're doing 70-100 miles a week a long run of 14-20 miles can work well. But when I was doing 140-150 mile weeks I'd have needed to do 28-30 mile long runs just because some formula told me to? If anything, because I was doing all those miles I think I'd need long runs LESS than if I'd done fewer miles. I have a friend who did 2:13 with no runs longer than 8 miles but with 120-130 miles a week. On the other hand, when I was doing 50-60 mile weeks and running marathons, I don't think a 10-12 long run would have been enough.

130 miles/week "with no runs longer than 8 miles"??? This thread is getting more bizarre by the minute.

Wondering how he schedule that, how many days a week did he run 3 x a day? Like if you ran 3 x a day each run being 8 miles, Mon - Fri and a 6 mile run on Sat and a 4 mile run on Sun that would be 130 miles. HRE update please.

Or, if one ran 3 x a day each run being 6 miles long, that would be 126 miles a week. I'm going try this out.

Running 3 times a day wrote:

kmaclam wrote:

130 miles/week "with no runs longer than 8 miles"??? This thread is getting more bizarre by the minute.

Wondering how he schedule that, how many days a week did he run 3 x a day? Like if you ran 3 x a day each run being 8 miles, Mon - Fri and a 6 mile run on Sat and a 4 mile run on Sun that would be 130 miles. HRE update please.

....not just 3 X a day, But his long run for the whole week.......3X a day!!

I trained for a while averaging 30 mpw on 2 runs so my long run was 60%. One of the runs was usually a race.

Jaxrunnr wrote:

I keep reading a common training rule that the long run should be no more than 20% of the weekly mileage, usually referencing Daniels (I think) ideology.

Is there a specific reason for this? High risk of injury, some other physiological reason?

Definitely feel like I get more out of a longer long run at good clip and having the rest of the week be solid quality, than having a shorter long run and having to do more junk mileage (long cool downs/warm ups).

I'm sensing a "hobbyjogger" vibe from this question and thread

Not sure that I agree, but, at least for high school runners doing summer (and probably winter) prep, Jay Johnson recommends a long run of 25% of weekly total mileage.

https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a20788646/summer-training-for-high-school-runners/

The 20% rule only applies to runners who are doubling. Even a decent Hs runner who takes 1 day a week rest and is running 40MPW, that would put the long run at only 8 miles. Obviously a good HS runner who is putting in 40 per week on 6 days, can handle a 10 mile long run which is about 25% of weekly mileage. Somebody who runs only 5 days per week can probably do 30% of their weekly mileage in 1 long run.

if you can do more than 20-25% of your weekly mileage in a single run, you should be running more the other days, but there is nothing inherently harmful about an occasionally really long slow run.

kmaclam wrote:

HRE wrote:

This subject came up in another thread and I put this in response:

The 20% business makes sense for a certain range of mileage. If you're doing 70-100 miles a week a long run of 14-20 miles can work well. But when I was doing 140-150 mile weeks I'd have needed to do 28-30 mile long runs just because some formula told me to? If anything, because I was doing all those miles I think I'd need long runs LESS than if I'd done fewer miles. I have a friend who did 2:13 with no runs longer than 8 miles but with 120-130 miles a week. On the other hand, when I was doing 50-60 mile weeks and running marathons, I don't think a 10-12 long run would have been enough.

130 miles/week "with no runs longer than 8 miles"??? This thread is getting more bizarre by the minute.

very curious about this training, especially regarding how this runner prepared to run 2:13. I can't imagine running a hard marathon, even if I'd done a bunch of hard 8 milers, going fast from when I stepped out the door. Wonder if it includes some 20-35k races as preparation which aren't mentioned.

Kind of like how lydiard training is 100 miles a week, but you find out they aren't counting morning runs of 5-8 miles. Or for another example, a guy running 60 miles a week, but doing 2-3 uncounted warmup and cool down that aren't counted.

They should do more on their other days? Some people have jobs that allow them to get a 4 mile run in which is enough if they are running 40 MPW with a 15 mile long run on Sundays.

It's just a rule of thumb. I think most of that advice was to prevent keep people from falling for so many of the beginner marathon programs where they were running 4M a day, then doing a 18-20M run and calling it 40M for the week.

Sure that is one way to get there, but a disproportionate amount of your week's work is done in just one workout- the long run.

From what I've read Yuki Kawauchi has reportedly done up to 200 kilometres a week in singles. And has done up to 100 kilometer long runs. So apparently Yuki sometimes does half his mileage as his long run.

kmaclam wrote:

130 miles/week "with no runs longer than 8 miles"??? This thread is getting more bizarre by the minute.

Haha, too true!

CoachB wrote:

I'd also like to echo what others have said about low overall volume and people running 3-4 days a week.

If training for a marathon on relatively low volume, you can throw that 20-25% rule out the window. But, if you're looking to be an overall well developed runner (Mile - Half Marathon), then the total volume is far more important than a long run.

This

tastefully striated wrote:

Um no. It really depends on the race you're targeting. If you're running 50 mpw to prepare for a 5K, then a long run of 10 miles might be fine. For a HM, it's not fine at all.

If you targeting a half-marathon you should be doing more than 50 mpw.

You must enter a name wrote:

Load of BS, make your own rules while training but only do what your body lets you. My long run is more like 33% .

I run 25 mpw (I’m have no desire to increase miles, I run for oure enjoyment and fitness) so I accept my slower times. I prefer to just get a 30 minute run in a day and then ever sunday night I run for 90 minutes and it is always the most therapeutic run of the week. Going by the 20% rule I would only be running for 55-65 minutes on my long run but I find the most thereputic feelings come in the 60-90 minute mark.

The 20-25% rule applies to people doing real mileage and actually training for racing. You run for general fitness so it doesn't really matter how you structure a week.

The thing you will pick out in Daniels is that he passively encourages runners to run 7 days per week and that his books do seem more geared towards mid distance and 5km/10km training. I've seen him use 25% of weekly mileage as a cap in his training plans as well.

Marathon Training, this rule goes out the window until you are running very high mileage (90+ mpw) and even there it still should not be a golden rule. You want to be able to at least pull in a few 20+ mile long runs, meaning unless you are training 100+ miles per week you can forget about the 20% rule. Even with Half Marathon training, you want to be able to pull in some 13+ mile long runs at the very least to get an understanding of race distance. This throws the 20% rule out the window for anyone running under 65 miles per week and the 25% rule out the window for those doing under 50-55 miles per week. And to really excel at that distance, you want to be able to throw down 15-17 mile long runs instead if not longer (and also to throw down the odd quality long run). This ensures the 20% rule is well out the window, even for moderately high mileage runners.

Likewise, lower mileage runners (25-40 mpw) regardless should seriously consider breaking the rule to a limited extent as for most runners, they seem to like throwing around the 10 mile golden standard for long runs. I remember doing 10-11 mile long runs on 35-45 mpw and getting some solid results for 5km running, granted I did not seriously bump the long run figure until I was approaching 60 mpw. Back to how Daniels suggests you are running 7 days per week. How about the runners that are running 5 days per week? 4 days per week? There goes the 20/25% rule out the window just like that. Another thing to consider is those that are running twice per day. I remember for 10km training when I was doubling, my long run would match the total daily volume of my other runs and wouldn't exceed it.

A much better rule of thumb, particularly for 5km/10km training, should be keeping the long run to roughly 50-67% longer than you average main training session (taking away any short shakeouts) but also with a reasonable cap on the overall distance of the long run.

- Say you are doing 7 days per week, a Monday shakeout of 4 miles and the other 5 runs average out to be 8 miles. Take the shakeout away from the equation and your long run here should be 12-14 miles as it doesn't go too long but also differentiates itself enough to be a long run.

- 4 days per week, 6 miles for your other 3 days? Your long run would be roughly 9-10 miles here (personally, I do not encourage 4 day weeks but am trying to get a point across).

- 6 day weeks, doubling 5 times per week on a 2:1 rule? Say your average shakeout is 5 miles and your average main run is 10 miles. Because your main run is averaging 10 miles, this is what you are taking your long run off of and in this case, something like 14-17 miles would be appropriate.

TL;DR - After race distance is taken into account, your long run should be based on the average distance of your other runs, not just the overall weekly volume.

From what I've read wrote:

From what I've read Yuki Kawauchi has reportedly done up to 200 kilometres a week in singles. And has done up to 100 kilometer long runs. So apparently Yuki sometimes does half his mileage as his long run.

But.... what's good for Yuki isn't appropriate for someone attempting their first marathon. That's a common error, trying to apply the training of great athletes to normal people.

Jaxrunnr wrote:

I keep reading a common training rule that the long run should be no more than 20% of the weekly mileage, usually referencing Daniels (I think) ideology.

Is there a specific reason for this? High risk of injury, some other physiological reason?

Definitely feel like I get more out of a longer long run at good clip and having the rest of the week be solid quality, than having a shorter long run and having to do more junk mileage (long cool downs/warm ups).

It's not an absolute, but a guideline. Not a black and white guideline.

I ran 2:32:50's running an average of 55 miles a week for about 10 weeks. Weekend long run was typically 17-22 miles. Easy runs 6:50-7:40 pace. Long run usually under 7:00 pace avg and mid-week workout w/ w/u and cool-down about 13-14 miles averaging 6:45. Usually took 1 day completely off per week.

I probably could run faster and could run more mileage, but I'm generally prone to injury and fatigue when i go over 65 mpw.

Some weeks my 22-miler was 40% of my total mileage......

-hobby jogger

tastefully striated wrote:

Um no. It really depends on the race you're targeting. If you're running 50 mpw to prepare for a 5K, then a long run of 10 miles might be fine. For a HM, it's not fine at all.

Right, but 50mpw isn’t fine for a HM so it’s kinda a moot point.

If you’re running sufficient mileage for anything longer than a mile then a 25% long run should be more than enough