OP.,,?(: wrote:
OP here. A lot of people have given their opinion on why it’s important but no one has referred to physiologically why it is important or not.
Saying “because so-n-so” did it isn’t a very good reasoning. n = 1. Also citing outliers isn’t helpful.
So since no one has answered this yet, why is doing a long run of 90-120 min important for the vast majority of elite milers to run fast over 1500m?
n does not = 1.
n = thousands when people say who does or does not do a long run.
And I don't know where you get your evidence that " the vast majority of elite milers " do a run of 90-120 min.
I know I've trained with a number of sub 3:40 1500m runners that never ran that far.
Or it certainly wasn't a part of their regular long run.
So, you provide evidence of this vast majority and then people can jump in with the physiology.
But more often than not, people look at what has worked before and go with that with some tweaks here and there.
But really people will do a regular long run to make their shorter runs feel easier and condition themselves to handle a higher volume of quality workouts all of which will make the races easier and faster.
I just don't know or believe if a 2 hour run is necessary to achieve that.