Splitting long run on two (Read 2300 times)

Interesting discussion. Isn't the answer as easy as this: many people have run very close to their potential in the marathon without running over 2 hours in a single training session. This fact suggests that it is not necessary to run very long runs in order to reach the finish line in the marathon feeling good. If you like doing very long runs, then by all means go for it, but they are not a necessary component of a marathon training plan. My advice to the OP as a beginning marathoner is to find a way to maximize the time you spend running and the pleasure you get from it given the constraints your life presents. If that means going out and running 5 hours once a week--if you find that to be an enjoyable and sustainable way to train, then go for it. The real key to improving is building a sustainable relationship with getting out the door. Turning your attention to this will be much more productive than worrying about the length of your longest long run.

So good to see you here. I know, I know... You're probably disappointed in me with my behavior with our (in)famous friend, Richard99 at CR. But I was just messing around, having fun (as I actually mentioned there) for my last hurrah there. I kinda ignored that part of the thread. Actually, that was an interesting subthread about endurance riding / running we had going. I hope the guy found the list I pointed him to. Oh, you're talking about the main thread. I've learned to skim / ignore stuff as need be. Active did such an amazing job of torpedoing CR, that that was the only active thread. Interesting business plan. Anyways, this splitting idea; it actually came from coach Bill Squires. It might have been me posting it at CR thread; it could be from someone else who actually trained under Coach who mentioned it somewhere else (Joey raising his hand saying "I'm Ken Adams!" in "friends"... Remember that episode? "I was back-packing in Western Europe..."). I kinda sorta vaguely remember him (Coach Squires, not Ken Adams) saying that it's physiological as well as psychological. He, as do I, thinks spending over 4, 5, 6 hours on the road continuously IN TRAINING can be pretty tough on your legs; so you break it up. You still run the entire required distance (or duration) in the day's end so you feel it was a success. I thought he said something about taking a couple of hours break; just enough to change, slip into clean dry clothes, get your feet up and relax a bit, have something to eat and drink; then get out again... I think psychological advantage of this type of set-up can be quite important. It seems that most people trying out a marathon believe that they'd have to run 22-miles in training (or whatever the distance) in order to feel comfortable and confident to tackle marathon. For slower people it may take, well, a long time. My reasoning for 3-hour cap is simply muscle trauma issue. OK, thanks. That's a bit different approach, but I suspect it has a similar idea to the run/walk approach (not Gallowalk as it seems to be practiced), just that the work / recovery is longer. In my view of running, what works for most people is certain ratios of work to recovery - from the small scale involved in intervals (minutes) to intermediate scale (frequency of running - 2/day, 1/day, 1/ 2 days) to longer scale (cut back weeks, and even longer perhaps a recovery year). In a normal ultra runner on flat terrain (ie using time rather than terrain for breaks), I suspect a ratio of 15 min run / 2 min walk might be used. I know at least one elite has used something like 25/5 to win US natl 24-hr championship. The saying is if you wait until you have to walk, you waited too long. That 2-5 min break may be used to lower hr, eat and drink. So you're constantly refueling and giving legs a break. Note that the walk breaks are "walking with a purpose", not "mall walking" - and they are practiced. In contrast, a 3-hr continuous run is likely to tighten muscles, and they may recover in 2 hrs. But I wonder for someone training for that duration marathon, if their recovery would be that fast - or if 2 hr would hit them at an awkward time. For me, I generally drive somewhere and run a route that should take me x hours. It would be really inconvenient to take a 2-hr break partway through. However, there have been times when I'd run / powerhike up a hill, spend some time (maybe 1 hr) on top, then run down. Or run someplace, then stop for 45 min of pictures partway back. That does provide a break (at that time they were my long runs) for legs, and they didn't get too stiff in that time frame. For ultra stuff, it's more than confidence. The eating and drinking is a major issue and trained people can usually get through 3-4 hr with minimal eating. I couldn't originally, but if I'm carb loaded now, I'm happy for several hours, although I don't consider myself trained (never will). I generally don't eat a lot before 3-4 hr runs now so that I can get more experience with eating on the run. Esp. in winter time, finding what foods work without breaking one's teeth. Granted, I could leave the stuff outside overnight and see what foods can still be bitten into in the morning. How to keep one's camelbak unfrozen for hours. Do the foot traction devices start having issues at 4 hr that didn't show up at 3 hr? etc. I agree with you that "the wall" is partly mental, partly somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I've often wondered since many people only run 20 mi or less in training before a marathon, if the less experienced just "hit the wall" because they didn't train beyond there, don't understand how to go beyond 20 mi, are expecting to hit it (and therefore do), etc. My experience was a little like your wife's. I didn't believe in the existence of the wall, and of course, there's no mile posts on the trails, and in particular, there wasn't one labelled "20 miles The Wall". However, there were a series of cabins that I could use as well-defined split markers (vs some unnamed streams). Based on a trail guide ahead of time, I estimated how long I thought it would take between cabins based on distance and elevation change, and allowing some slack to refill cb, get more food out, etc. The main splits I carried with me were time to arrive at each cabin and time between. (I'd have to find my actual sheet again to see if I had mileages with me.) Up until the last cabin (mile 31.2, 9:53), I was pretty much right on time. The last 7 miles took about 2.9 hr vs the 2.2 I had planned. Rain and no doubt fatigue were playing a role by that time, and I walked the bulk of it. I reached the trailhead at 12:48 (38 mi, 3500 ft, about 8 hr in rain). My longest runs had been about 8 hrs (20mi/4000ft, 23 mi/3000ft, iirc), but had 3 in the 6.5-8 hr range. IOW, if there was a wall out there that day (vs excessive leaky bladder from downhill in rain), it was closer to 31 mi. Interestingly, as I was doing my last long runs, I was feeling better trained for 26-30 mi, which was about 2x my previous longest race from the prior year. Because I wanted to do 60k the year I turned 60 and there weren't any stepping stones between 15 mi and 38 mi, it was a matter of giving it the best shot I could or treading water. (Keep in mind there's no roads, no aid stations, so we have to carry gear and food with us. Refill water container from streams and treat with iodine.) While it was a slow effort, but until the last leg, it was consistent with my training (splits were within about 1 min of predicted time until the trailhead). I wonder if a marathon didn't have mile markers, if people would still hit the wall? (no using gps units) Regarding overtraining for first timers, something I've noticed on many canned pgms, is that they tend to build fairly rapidly. Or start slow then pile on a bunch at the end. IOW, I wonder if it's the volume or the rate of buildup that's the problem. I know I felt non-springy through a lot of my last training last year but recovering enough to do the next run. That also coincides with some transition from snow to roads during breakup then finally to trails - not to mention the volume and duration of runs as well as hills and carrying a pack. Last long run was 3 wks out and longest long run was 5 wks out (fairly standard protocols for ultras). After that race, I just did some hiking, trail work, and other stuff to recover for about a week and did a few very short (10 min) runs to test recovery. About 11 days after, I felt ok to run a normal trail easily. As it happened I bumped into several other people (much faster) that had run the full 50 or 100 mi race (I only did 38mi). I knew better than to follow them, esp. on a downhill start, but I started after them and had them in sight for about 20 sec. While my legs were still somewhat sore, they had springs in them that I'd never experienced before and did one of my best training runs on rolling hills. Those springs were there for a couple weeks before I did a 3+ hr hill run a little too hard (about 3000ft up then down with the bottom 1800 ft being very runnable). I had never been able to sustain that level before for that duration of a run. What I've wondered is if (1) I should've backed off some in training before that race or (2) the springs were a result of the 38 mi of slow running and my few fast twitch fibers had a major vacation then showed up after the race. I'm trying to see if I can replicate that by late Feb-mid March, so I'll have springs when I start doing my 7-8-hr long runs in April. Enough babbling from me.

I agree with those who say that in marathon training the long run is the most important single run but I think it still gets too much credit by most recreational road racers. It is the most important component for those trying to "cram" for the marathon, but it's not close to as important as weekly mileage or several other components. For my last marathon I did a grand total of 6 runs longer than 2 hours and zero longer than 2.5 hours, spread out over a couple of months. My longest run in distance was 20 miles. Before those 6 long runs I had not done a 2 hour run in over 3 years. I ran 2:55 and broke a 5 year old PR. I faded a bit--though much less than the average runner to be sure--but that has much more to do with overestimating my fitness and aiming for a 2:50 than any long run. If running were my top priority and I wanted to be the best I could be would I do longer long runs and/or more of them? Possibly. But first I'd just run more miles. A lot more. I'd work on big tempos and hills more. I'd work on bringing my 5k and 10k times down. That would have a much bigger impact on my marathon times than any single run. Bill Squires has been mentioned more than once on this thread. I was fortunate enough to be coached by him for a brief period a few years ago. He's a great intuitive coach and really made me think about my training differently than I ever had--particularly with regard to working at multiple paces in a lot of runs and workouts an simulating race conditions. To me he never really emphasized the long run and he wasn't fixated on a making sure to run a certain distance for a long run. Perhaps his recommendation to split the long run in two was a way to appease those who are fixated on covering x distance (22 miles for example) in one day for psycological reasons when in reality that's probably not a great idea.

I wonder if sometimes we get the causality backwards. Do beginning runners need a long run because they run less weekly (and monthly mileage)? Or does focusing on the long run cause them to run less overall mileage because they think of their preparation as centering around a single run on a single day instead of as the accumulation of various stimuli over a period of months and years? There is probably no single right answer here, but I just wanted to suggest that overemphasizing the long run may distract attention from what, for me, has been the single greatest factor in any kind of success I've had: consistent and varied training over months and years.

I can speak for myself and I'm reasonably sure the mistakes I made in my preparation are very common. I think your point has a lot of validity. When I decided to run my first marathon, I was better prepared than many folks, but that's not nearly the same as being well prepared. In talking to some more experienced runners, the general consensus was "Long runs are the most important part of your training" and I think that's very true for a beginner. However what I heard was "Your other runs aren't as important as your long run" so parts of my training were way underdeveloped. I'm really looking forward to seeing what running a marathon with adequate preparation feels like.

I wonder if sometimes we get the causality backwards. Do beginning runners need a long run because they run less weekly (and monthly mileage)? Or does focusing on the long run cause them to run less overall mileage because they think of their preparation as centering around a single run on a single day instead of as the accumulation of various stimuli over a period of months and years? There is probably no single right answer here, but I just wanted to suggest that overemphasizing the long run may distract attention from what, for me, has been the single greatest factor in any kind of success I've had: consistent and varied training over months and years.

Jeff: That's a good point and an interesting way to look at it. And here I'll be blunt. ;o) When I was training more seriously, I was following the Lydiard schedule. That means I'd do a long run of about 2-hours on weekend plus two 1:30+ runs during the week. Looking back, I think I was biting more than I could chew. It's not that Lydiard's schedule was wrong; but I was jumping to do 100MPW. After talking to the original "Arthur's Boys", I realized I should have probably started somewhere around 60 and put more effort into it and look at 100 4 or 5 years down the road. The bottom line is; if you can't recover from the previous day's workout, it's too much. Now, I changed that "philosophy" (if you could call that!) a little even. I believe there are certain "point workouts" that you'd need to do and you take as many "recovery days" in between. Sort of like Kenny Moore approach which, interestingly, many Japanese runners/coaches do as well. In the case of Kenny Moore, as I'm sure you know, he was rather fragile and he needed to take more than 1 easy day between hard days. So he would go out and hammer a 30-miler followed by 3 or 4 days of easy days in which he would do something like 3-mile jog and swimming....something l ike that. Had he done a program of 10-10-10..., he probably wouldn't have been a marathon runner. The point is; he had to do a 30-miler. Well, he may not have HAD to do it; but it helped. If someone comes to me and tells me that he/she wants to become a marathon runner but their background is rather scattered; then I would put him/her a program of about 30~40MPW for a while and see how he/she performs. He/she would run some 10k race and a few half marathons... He/she would be running, more or less, 5~8 mile range during the week, maybe one or possibly two faster stuff, with a long run of about 10~12 tops. Then maybe 2 or 3 years down the road, we'll look at a marathon. In most cases, things are a bit different. People would come to me and say, well, they run about 20MPW and they want to run a marathon in 3 months. They usually have a good reason for that--because they HAVE to run one. Well, I also happen to believe; if you can run an hour comfortably (COMFORTABLY), it is POSSIBLE to run a marathon (survive) in 3 months. I wouldn't recommend it; but it's possible. I would lay out a training plan in which you would increase the duration of the long run up to 3-hours along the course and see how many days you'd need to recover from it in between. In such situation, I would say those long runs are the most essential. Take, once again, the case with my wife's first marathon. At the time there was a friend of hers who was also running a marathon. I think she was running 6 miles 5 or 6 times a week. On the other hand, my wife did a long run on weekend (I think we started with 1:30 and worked up to 3) with 2~3 mile run twice, maybe 3 times sometimes, during the week. She ran 3:54 and her friend was something like 4:20. She wasn't too happy because she felt she "worked out harder". I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that I feel there are waaaaay too many people running a marathon when they probably shouldn't; they are, plain and simple, not ready for it. But they want to. So, as a coach, you'd have to accommodate whatever the best way to make it happen in the least painful way! ;o) So, yes, in a way I contradict myself. But I also believe THE most important thing in coaching people is motivation. It's whatever makes them "tick" or "click". I'm coaching this young lady as an 800m runner. She wanted to run a marathon first. To be honest with you, I wasn't too thrilled about it; but that's what brought her back to running after a 10-year blank. Why restrict it? She ran 3:41 after training for 5 months and, lo and behold, she got injured and couldn't run for 2 months. But I figured it was a good introductory way to marathon type conditioning and a good way also to give her a break physically and mentally.

JNow, I changed that "philosophy" (if you could call that!) a little even. I believe there are certain "point workouts" that you'd need to do and you take as many "recovery days" in between.

FWIW, this seems like a very good way of thinking about training to me as well, and I can see how that would be consistent with emphasizing the long run. I also agree with your latter, "blunt" thoughts. Spaniel, I'm interested in how you made the jump from 2:36 to 2:29. Perhaps ciauxc1980 can weigh in, too. I've created another thread here so that this one doesn't get hijacked further.

Spaniel, I'm interested in how you made the jump from 2:36 to 2:29. Perhaps ciauxc1980 can weigh in, too. I've created another thread here so that this one doesn't get hijacked further.

I'm not Spaniel (and furthermore, I'm ignoring your effort to keep this thread to the original question and your starting a new thread...) but just wanted to give my 2 cents on this. I think this is a perfect question to say; it's all individual. You seem to be a hard-core runner and it is admirable to seek "extra" to squeeze a PR but the thing is; it could be a numver of ways to achieve 10 minutes improvement. For some, it could be he/she needs more long runs; it could be one or two of solid effort runs like 10-mile at threshold pace (as you probably already know, Japanese like to do things like 40k tempo runs). Or it could also be he/she has been running too much and may even need to cut down the mileage and, insead, work on speed by doing drills, etc. Some people may be able to cut 10 minutes off their marathon time by simply working on their mechanics (be more efficient). A good coach, even if you're coaching yourself because then YOU be your own coach, has to be able to identify what the athlete's strengths and weaknesses and work accordingly. Some fast guy comes on board and may say, "Oh, I started doing a couple of 28-miles and boom! I improved my time by 10 minutes!" but that could very well be counter-productive to you. This one guy came to me and said that his running buddy told him that he runs funny. Well, I can't tell because I never seen him run! He may be able to run much better/faster and injury-free if he straightens his running form but, without seeing and analyzing his form, it could very well harm him more. I'm sure you're not seeking an instant "word of wisdom" from others; you are most probably just interested in what others were doing. But just wanted to drop in my thought on "seeking advice" from message board such as this one--I do think it's great to get to know others and gather other's experiences; otherwise, I won't be here!--but, in the end, it's got to be taylored to YOU. YOU have to identify your own strengths and weaknesses and work accordingly. Just my 2 cents!

The bottom line is; if you can't recover from the previous day's workout, it's too much. Now, I changed that "philosophy" (if you could call that!) a little even. I believe there are certain "point workouts" that you'd need to do and you take as many "recovery days" in between.

Thanks for sharing Kenny Moore's and your wife's experience with what worked for them. The thing that's always been emphasized to me most is recovery. It seems some people get hung up on frequency of running or hard/easy (vs hard/easy/easy or whatever) rather than paying attention to *their* recovery. But it also gets down to what is recovery? If we completely recovered from one run before we did the next, we'd never need to taper. I think Pfitz suggests 4-5 days between similar workouts to give that energy system a chance to recove - like 4 days between tempo or 5 days between VO2max or whatever (just winging this off top of my head since book is downstairs). I think Hanson's program has a 9-day microcycle - SOS (something of substance) workout followed by 2 recovery/easier days, repeated 3 times. I think I first read about "point" or "key" or whatever term (not saying it was first written there, just where I bumped into it) in Kevin Becks's book (I believe it was the Joe Rubio chapter). Structure your key workouts in a way you can handle then fill with easier runs. If there's 3 kinds of harder workouts and you can handle 1 of those besides long run per week, then you might need a 3-wk microcycle. If you can handle 2, then you can work with a 2-wk microcycle and do one of those workouts a 2nd time. I know last year I struggled with the 2 on / 1 off and the amount of hills I was doing (but they're specific for my trail races). I was considering returning to the every other day or something similar this year so I could increase the quality. But after I recovered from summer races, I found I couldn't go back to the every other day - my body wanted to be out there more. In fact, I found I could do 3 days in a row, if only the first was hard. I don't do big hills in early part of base until we get enough snow cover (and no ice) on the mtns that I can get some reasonable traction uphill. I'm hoping that what I struggled with last year gave me the strength base that I can increase the quality of the same quantity this year. While 7 day microcycles are convenient for work week, there's nothing physiologically binding about that. Initially long runs can be every week, but as they get longer may be every other week or even every 3rd week. As a % of the microcycle, they might be 20-30%, but as % of week they might be 50%. But if a person is using a 2-wk or 12-day or 15-day microcycle, so what. But as you said, Nobby, it comes down to getting the point workouts in and allowing for recovery. And everyone is different - not just physiologically, but in their goals.