Forums >General Running>Long Run = 1/3 of Weekly Mileage, then..?
according to dr.jack daniels he suggests that you cap your long run at 1/3 of your weekly mileage.
and if over 40mpw, then 25%.
and/or 2.5hrs long run time cap.
so I'm wondering how many 1st time marathoners etc.... are capping their long runs at 1/3? say they get up to 36mpw....that means along run of 12 miles....
I've seen plans like 5, 7, 5 , 20 miles runs in a week....
also then those running a 20 miler in training are running, 60-80mpw??
I doubt most marathoners are running 60-80 that are running those 20 mile races or long runs in training...
So I wonder say you peak at 39mpw....and training for a marathon, should you run a 13mile long run?
seems like most would want you to run a longer long run...
300m- 37 sec.
Do you think many 1st time marathoners are following a Daniels plan?
Do you think Daniels recommends weekly mileage of 36-39 for marathon training?
It's just a guideline. If you plan to run a marathon, it's good to get your body used to longer runs, even if you are at lower mileage and doing so exceeds the recommended percentage. But really if you want to run better marathons, you should be running higher mileage anyway, and the percentage then starts to make sense.
Dave
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What Dave, said.
1st Timers would probably do one 20miler . . . and that's just to get advance notice on how much the race is going to suck . . . and to provide some mental encouragement that "if you can do 20, you can survive six more."
1st Timers are usually just looking to finish.
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I've done 2 marathons and never done a 20 miler. I admit I went in undertrained both times for various reasons. I'm not going to debate that.
Will I do a 20 miler if I decide to do another marathon? Not unless I suddenly get faster. I have no interest in a 4+ hour long run that ruins my ability to complete runs for 3-4 days afterwards. The long run is an important part of training but it is not the only thing.
I think a lot of runners who have done a lot of marathons and those gifted with speed sometimes forget or don't understand what it's like for slower or newer runners to train for marathons.
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The cookie cutter plans have runners doing 20 milers and in many cases having runners doing 4 hour long runs and long runs 50% or more of weekly miles. I cap off runners at 3 hours generally for long runs. I like to stack length. For example, I had one of my runners do 9 miles yesterday with last 2 miles faster. Today she is doing 17.2 miles that will likely take 3:10. This will be her longest long run. I am good with this because her body is feeling great 14 weeks into our plan. She will run 26.2 miles in 24 hours and be confident and recover well so next week we keep working.
Part of issue is the perception that running a marathon is a miracle event and if you finish it is a crazy feat. So, many going into the event are not as fit as they should be and tackle the event without confidence. They're conditioned to believe the long run is most important and if you can't do a 20 or 22 miler in training there is no way you can do event. So, lack of confidence is there throughout even late in training program. Kind of frustrates me to hear this and also hear, I don't have time to put miles in during the week so need that long run. What happens is that without a lot of base and mid week miles of strength, these long runs beat the hell out of runners and frankly the body recognizes them as huge feats and significant breakdown occurs to the point where in many cases runners HAVE TO FOLLOW THE PLAN and go into the marathon overtrained and broken down and still lacking confidence. I personally will not coach this type of runner because I don't coach runners who use the plan to get in shape. The runner I have doing 17 today will have a 50 mile week. 33% is good by me and my general guideline.
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If you’re looking for a plan without 20 milers, then Hansons is a good plan with 16 milers every other week and back to back 10s on the in between weeks. You will however need to run 6 days a week. If you were just curious how weekly mileage was constructed, one way is to set it up with your midweek run being half of your long run. So if your Saturday run is 20 then Wednesday would be 10 and your other runs would be 5. As Dave and others said, more consistent weekly mileage is key. I’ve done marathons both ways—consistent running with higher weekly mileage and barely running during the week but doing the long run. The latter is definitely more painful.
What do people think of the 2.5 hour long run cap?
I am planning to run my first marathon at 9:00 pace and am doing my long runs at about 10:00 pace, some a bit faster, but certainly no faster than 9:30. At 10:00 pace, that would mean 15 miles for the longest run, which seems risky. (Perhaps Daniels is implicitly saying if you can't run your marathon under, say, 3:15 or so you should find a shorter race.)
In any case, my baseline plan was two 20 milers off a peak of 50 to 55 mpw. But I do wonder about the wisdom of running over 3 hours.
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What do people think of the 2.5 hour long run cap? ...
...
It is a good approach. The goal of the training is building, not beating your body up to the point that the training run tears down your fitness.. just to get to a set distance.
On a good day you cover more miles on a bad day you cover a few less miles...
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I have done long runs over 50 percent of my weekly miles with no problems
It is a good approach. The goal of the training is building, not beating your body up to the point that the training run tears down your fitness.. just to get to a set distance. On a good day you cover more miles on a bad day you cover a few less miles...
I train by time instead of distance. It's much easier to listen to my body that way.
Sure, but why 2.5 hours? Is there something physiological that happens at that point?
I’m no expert, but based on the experiences of everyone I know, I’d think a 3 hour long run is reasonable for most recreational marathoners.
What do people think of the 2.5 hour long run cap? I am planning to run my first marathon at 9:00 pace and am doing my long runs at about 10:00 pace, some a bit faster, but certainly no faster than 9:30. At 10:00 pace, that would mean 15 miles for the longest run, which seems risky. (Perhaps Daniels is implicitly saying if you can't run your marathon under, say, 3:15 or so you should find a shorter race.) In any case, my baseline plan was two 20 milers off a peak of 50 to 55 mpw. But I do wonder about the wisdom of running over 3 hours.
I've done one marathon & the goal was to finish upright. I also made the decision about 6 weeks before the race..... That said, my long runs were about 3 hours. I think the longest one was 16 miles. I also did what Tchuck mentions and would do a roughly 90 minute run Sunday and then the longer run on Sunday.
I think your base will come into play. I had been running 30 miles per week consistently for almost 2 years when I decided to do a full. So the jump to high 30s/low 30s was not a huge stretch.
For me, the big thing about going in with lower mileage and shorter long runs was to be really honest with myself about what a realistic pace was. It's really easy to get caught up in the excitement of a race (and a 2 mile downhill), but if you start too fast, it will come back to bite you in the butt. I passed a lot of people in the second half who ran the first half 10-20 minutes faster than me and then finished after me.
Are we there, yet?
What do people think of the 2.5 hour long run cap? I am planning to run my first marathon at 9:00 pace and am doing my long runs at about 10:00 pace, some a bit faster, but certainly no faster than 9:30. At 10:00 pace, that would mean 15 miles for the longest run, which seems risky. (Perhaps Daniels is implicitly saying if you can't run your marathon under, say, 3:15 or so you should find a shorter race.)
There's a higher correlation between weekly mileage and marathon success than there is between time/distance of long run and marathon success. Note that Camille Herron, world record holder at 100 miles, 12 hours, and 24 hours, rarely runs farther than 20 miles at a time.
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What do people think of the 2.5 hour long run cap? ... Perhaps Daniels is implicitly saying if you can't run your marathon under, say, 3:15 or so you should find a shorter race.)
Perhaps Daniels is implicitly saying if you can't run your marathon under, say, 3:15 or so you should find a shorter race.)
I don't know if he's implicitly saying that, but he definitely wrote his books with faster people in mind and probably didn't really contemplate older or slower runners. Daniels did the bulk of his work and formed his training philosophies while coaching Division 3 college athletes.
In my experience overall weekly mileage is the most important thing, and long runs are the 2nd most important thing for marathon training. So if I had to chose between 70 miles a week with a 15 mile long run or 55 miles a week and a 20 mile long run, I would always go for the former.
But if you're planning to cap your mileage at 55 anyway they getting your long run up to 20 ish miles can only help, imo.
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I don't know if he's implicitly saying that, but he definitely wrote his books with faster people in mind and probably didn't really contemplate older or slower runners. Daniels did the bulk of his work and formed his training philosophies while coaching Division 3 college athletes. In my experience overall weekly mileage is the most important thing, and long runs are the 2nd most important thing for marathon training. So if I had to chose between 70 miles a week with a 15 mile long run or 55 miles a week and a 20 mile long run, I would always go for the former.
Both of these paragraphs are absolutely spot on, especially the second. Probably the biggest mistake most new marathoners make in planning their training schedule.
I view the 2.5 hour "limit" as someone running sub 3 hours. Otherwise, I think 3 hours is a good limit. Nobody should be doing 20 mile long runs at 12:00 pace.
5K: 16:37 (11/20) | 10K: 34:49 (10/19) | HM: 1:14:57 (5/22) | FM: 2:36:31 (12/19)