Forums >Running 101>Long run distance
Good Bad & The Monkey
When training for a marathon, what benefit is there to long runs of 22, 24 or even 26ish miles? Galloway recommends this. Serious discussion...
I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.
Poor baby
old woman w/hobby
i am very interested in the answers to this question.
i am following master run coach in prep for my first marathon.
and i'm getting nervous with long runs that is even shorter than these.
steph
Runners run
What kind of training would support that?
Consistently Slow
None. 3 --- 20 miles. Galloway also recommends walking. To tired to find the quotes.
Run until the trail runs out.
SCHEDULE 2016--
The pain that hurts the worse is the imagined pain. One of the most difficult arts of racing is learning to ignore the imagined pain and just live with the present pain (which is always bearable.) - Jeff
http://bkclay.blogspot.com/
But Mikey, you have 24000 lifetime miles, with well over 2000 a year. That's not enough?
ARRRRMY TRAINING, SIR!
Bobbie, for a beginning marathoner, it will take many weeks to gradually build up your mileage and long run and allow your body to adapt to them. Although it is tempting to think that you should do a 26-mile long run, few beginners have the base mileage to recover from a training run this long or the biomechanical integrity to do this without risking injury. So longer runs should only be done by experienced marathoners who are running more miles and are willing to put in the extra time and risk to improve their performance.
A 20-mile run at a proper long-run pace (about 80% as fast as your per-mile marathon goal pace), will put you on your feet for about the same length of time it will take you to do the marathon. This is adequate to develop the long-term energy metabolism you need to complete a marathon and to get used to running for the duration of the marathon.
Patti and Warren Finke are RRCA-certified coaches who have helpedrunners and walkers for over 25 years. They are the founders anddirectors of the Portland Marathon Training Clinic and authors of Marathoning, Start To Finish.Patti, M.S., is an exercise physiologist and the Chairman of the RRCACoaching Committee. Warren is the webmaster of a number ofrunning-related websites, including rrca.org.They have both completed over 170 events at the marathon distance orlonger and teach coaching-certification seminars. For more information,visit teamoregon.com.
I decied to seach
Technically the 24,000 miles just in the last 9 1/2 years or so. It's somewhat more than that lifetime.
But the question for me was never whether I could finish a 24 mile training run, that was never my goal. My goal was to race a single marathon as fast as I could, or at least as fast as I could on a work-a-day hobbyjogger's training schedule. I never felt like doing 24 or 26 mile training runs was the best use of my training time and energy, in the context of everything else I was doing.
I think, as we've covered ad nauseam on this board, the long run is way over rated. Most people would do better to worry about all the other aspects of their training (i.e. the other 6 days of the week) than to do longer long runs. But hey, to each his own.
Options,Account, Forums
I'd suspect that it depends how long of a marathon you're interested in. Seems like you do some of the longer ones, sometimes.
As for me, I suspect the main problem with my long runs is that they aren't nearly long enough.
It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.
"It's not how long you make it, it's how you make it long."
(cigarette slogan from the 60s)
Feeling the growl again
This.
I've got limited use for anything over 20 miles. If a 22-miler takes about as much time as racing a marathon, why do I need to run over 22 miles in practice?
Given the training mileage of the average marathoner today, I think they need to justify to me why they think they can even benefit from 22+ milers.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
Why is it sideways?
Mikey's pretty much nailed it. Psychologically it can be good for first time marathoners to go that long. Physically, it's probably not beneficial and maybe even detrimental in the sense that it will keep you from the regular day-in-day-out work that is what makes a runner a runner.
I'm not sure why Galloway recommends it, and I don't have any desire to read his advice. (I'm pretty unscientific when it comes to training which I'm sure will sneak up on me someday and derail any serious aspirations, but whatever.) However, our local marathon star does his training based on time with his longest run being as long as he plans to spend running the actual race--2:30 or 2:40, I assume. At his pace, I'm sure that works out to beyond 20 miles.
I can only imagine that it is some kind of psychological thing. I know the 20 mile wall has been built up to scare people (and maybe it should, but I don't know because I've never run a marathon). Maybe getting people to go beyond that wall breaks some kind of psychological barrier in the mind?
MTA: I see this has been covered by those above.
There was a point in my life when I ran. Now, I just run.
We are always running for the thrill of it
Always pushing up the hill, searching for the thrill of it