Ingebrigtsen long runs/philosophy

There is nothing traditional; about your thinking. You are doing it all wrong. They are doing it right.

Long runs should be proportional to your total mileage, and to the events you're training for. In general, 20-25% is too much.

Tempo runs should leave you invigorated, not beat down.

According to Gjert, their father and coach, they don't do longruns because he thinks it takes to long time to recover from. There is no room for it with so many threshold workouts every week.

there are many examples of athletes who run considerable amounts in doubles, but never really a long session. this is not mandatory for 1500m - 5000m. the ingebrigtsens max out at 120 miles per week in doubles.

They are 1500/5k guys so there really is no need to go over 90 minutes. Especially if their overall volume is as good as it is. Around 90 minutes is when you experience glycogen depletion. That’s why it takes longer to recover from a 2 hour run.

But they don’t need to worry about glycogen depletion resistance in a 5k. Of course if they did longer races (half or thon) then yeah they will need to bump that to 2 hours. But until then don’t fix what’s not broke.

There is an overemphasis on the long run in many training programs. Is it important? Yes. But it’s not so important that the long run should take away from the rest of your training. If you’re training for the marathon I do think there is value in going long. But don’t sacrifice the rest of the week for going long. I’d argue that, for distances shorter than the marathon, long runs aren’t all the necessary and that weekly volume, doubling every or nearly every day is more valuable.

In regards to tempos I do think many programs overemphasize the intensity over the volume. For instance, I do believe 40-60 minutes in the tempo zone is more beneficial than a 20 minute tempo rate at threshold. They seem to get a lot of that higher tempo volume in by breaking it into intervals with short rests. Also they’re adamant about their lactate levels and not stimulating acidosis. Basically they get a lot of their volume in their workouts as opposed to just a long run.

Saturday Long Run? wrote:

There is an overemphasis on the long run in many training programs. Is it important? Yes. But it’s not so important that the long run should take away from the rest of your training. If you’re training for the marathon I do think there is value in going long. But don’t sacrifice the rest of the week for going long. I’d argue that, for distances shorter than the marathon, long runs aren’t all the necessary and that weekly volume, doubling every or nearly every day is more valuable.

A nice example can be found here. I'd like to see her entire five-month log.

malmo is strictly a troll and baiter, change my mind

green dude wrote:

malmo is strictly a troll and baiter, change my mind

Based on what he posted here, a perfectly useful post about long runs? How so?

Traditional training philosophies emphasize "big" sessions- hard, fast workouts and long runs.

Ingebrigtsens training has fewer (no?) big sessions, but many, many easy to moderate stimuli. No session is a ball buster. They can fit more of them in in a training cycle and successfully complete workouts more often.

They are a major outlier in elite distance running that does not do runs of over 90 minutes sustained. Certainly we've seen plenty examples of EPO riddled groups succeed without the long run. However, I would caution copying their model without more data or knowing for certain they are clean.

Conversely, if one is training at very high overall volume, say 100-120 miles per week, arguably you are getting the same benefit without needing 1:40-2:00+ long sustained runs.

I would ask "what are the benefits of the long run you can't get elsewhere in training?" Some may say aerobic development, or fiber recruitment, or efficiency, but certainly these can be built elsewhere. Also, Gjert starting them training at a young age, and this may have led to the proper aerobic development etc without needing extremely long runs. Certainly threshold/tempos are not the same as longer progressive or sustained runs, but its nearly impossible to study this scientifically with any significance to elite runners.

Mahavishnu1500 wrote:

I would ask "what are the benefits of the long run you can't get elsewhere in training?" Some may say aerobic development, or fiber recruitment, or efficiency, but certainly these can be built elsewhere. Also, Gjert starting them training at a young age, and this may have led to the proper aerobic development etc without needing extremely long runs. Certainly threshold/tempos are not the same as longer progressive or sustained runs, but its nearly impossible to study this scientifically with any significance to elite runners.

I agree with that. We are talking here about guys with a race duration from 3.5 minutes to 13 minutes - when already doing 110+ mpw, turning a 90 min run into a 120 min run isn't gonna do anything for the whole system, the only thing that could happen is fatigue that lingers around for the next few days.

Many recreational runners do BIG long runs because they don't have time to train on other days. So when they only have 3 days of running, doing 6+6+15 is better than 6+6+10. But here we are talking about runners doing 15+ miles every single day of the week, and training since 10+ years. A longer long run is not gonna make them any stronger aerobically. Their base has been laid down long ago.

The famous exception is, if the Ingebrigtsens were to move up to a marathon (race duration ~2:06). Then they really need to get in the longer runs, preferably on pavement to prepare their bodies for the pounding and also mental challenges they will face in a marathon.

diii alum wrote:

Traditional training philosophies emphasize "big" sessions- hard, fast workouts and long runs.

Ingebrigtsens training has fewer (no?) big sessions, but many, many easy to moderate stimuli. No session is a ball buster. They can fit more of them in in a training cycle and successfully complete workouts more often.

I would still say they follow the same principle of easy days easy and hard days hard, just that they often do two moderate workouts in the same day rather than one big one.

Total running volume may be more important than single run volume with the Marathon and up being the exception. When a runner does something like 8mi AM, 8mi PM 6x per week and a 90min run the other day, that is 110mi/wk. Every run starts with a tired runner and may achieve the benefits of a single longer run (already glycogen drained so fat and fast twitch recruitment happen sooner).

Unless training for a Marathon, 90-120min long run is plenty given a reasonable total volume and training plan.

Lydiard obviously disagreed and believed (with some scientific backing) that full aerobic benefits occurred around 2:00 hours of sustained running at near max aerobic efforts. For example, he purposely had his boys running an average of roughly 6:00-5:30/mile for 20-23 mile runs.

Certainly the top American coaches are on a similar page, as BTC/NOP etc all do regular 1:40-2:00 efforts pretty much year round for 5k+ runners. The top American college coaches are on the same page. Most Kenyan/Ethiopian groups do the same with some exceptions.

Lydiard was a firm believer in the log run, normally two to two and a half hours. But I have seen schedules he wrote with nothing ;longer than 90 minutes.

There's more than one way to skin a cat right? Most successful groups do 2 hour runs but that doesn't mean that every successful athlete needs to.

ShilohDoesntCare wrote:

There's more than one way to skin a cat right? Most successful groups do 2 hour runs but that doesn't mean that every successful athlete needs to.

I can't think of any 1500-10k guys who are consistantly doing 2 hours runs. 90 mins in plenty until you want to race marathons.

True. What sense would it make to run slow for 2 hours for a 13 minute race that is very aerobic to anaerobic? I think people are thinking way to much in terms of marathon and longer where a long run is most certainly critical.