LONG RUNS – The Long Run is what it suggests: a longer-than-normal run.
Each week a trainee will run daily (or almost daily), manageable distances to get the body fit. Every weekend, or every other weekend, depending on your training schedule, you’ll run a longer distance until you reach 20 miles, at which time you’ll taper back until the Big Thing. Whether running according to time or distance, the long run is important to training because it teaches the body mentally and physically to prepare for the marathon while conditioning the body to burn fat for fuel.
Some describe the Long Run as 6 miles or more, or 10 miles or more. Some describe it as 60 minutes of running or more, or 90 minutes of running or more. However you choose to describe it, the Long Run is longer that your daily routine, and its distance increases weekly or every other week until you reach 20 miles. The longest of Long Runs, of course, it the marathon itself, but beginning and intermediate runners should not try more than 20 miles while preparing for the Big Thing.
Things to keep in mind when running the Long Run:
How far? Maximum: either 20 miles or more than 3 hours.
- How fast? Not fast at all. Speed is not so important. You should concentrate only on running a targeted time or distance. Work on speed during speed training. If you run far at an increased pace, you risk injury.
- How many? Depending on the schedule YOU designed, every weekend, or every other weekend until reaching 20 miles, then tapering weekly until the marathon. Do only one 20-miler. If it is your first time, finishing is the most important thing. The long run prepares you.
When I trained for my first marathon, each long run was filled with excitement because each weekend was a distance I had never run before. Essentially, each weekend was a marathon, a Big Thing, because those distances were something incomprehensible to me before making the decision to run a marathon. I look back at the pride I felt when, each Monday while sharing weekend stories with colleagues, I could say something like, “Oh, that sounds like a good movie. I’ll have to see it sometime. I couldn’t this weekend because I ran [pause for dramatic purposes] 15 miles [then look away as wistfully as if you’re in a reverie of some fond childhood memory or something patriotic… again, for dramatic purposes].
It is wise, in my opinion, to establish 6 miles as your first Long Run, increasing miles every week until 10 miles. Upon reaching the 10-mile Long Run, increase your distance every other week until you reach 20 miles, and then begin the Tapering program.
Every runner should customize their approach to Long Runs just like they should customize their entire training schedule. My preferred method is perhaps unorthodox, but it is realistic and useful… for me. My average jogging pace is about an 8-minute mile. That’s my leisurely, non-race pace. To be conservative, I budget 10 minutes to run one mile. I do that to give myself leeway in case I get tired and achy along the way, but also to allow me to easily measure my distance.
In other words, if I plan to run 4 miles, I give myself 40 minutes in which to finish. When I’m feeling strong, I easily finish 4 miles in 40 minutes. In fact, since I’m strong enough to run faster that 10 minute miles, I usually run five miles because I normally run an 8-minute mile pace. I keep track of this by setting the timer of my watch to 20 minutes. I run for 20 minutes, the alarm goes off, I run the same path home. This way I feel pretty confident that I’ll reach my goal or better because the first half of the distance is when I’m performing at my best. I’m not running at a 5K or 10K pace. I’m running a comfortable, easy pace. This is how I measure all my runs. Whether it be a short, fast 4 mile run, I’ll run for 40 minutes, which as I indicated early means I’m more likely to run 5 miles. If I run 16 miles (or 160 minutes) I set the timer to 80 minutes or 1 hour 20 minutes. I run for this amount of time, stop when the alarm goes off and return. If you’re like me, and stop the timer at stoplights and intersections when you have to pause, remember to start the timer as your resume. Too many frustrating times it happens that I become distracted on a street corner by a pair of something or other and realize several minutes later that I have forgotten to resume the timer. I’m probably the only idiot who does that, but there’s your warning nonetheless.
There are also different approaches to increasing the Long Run mileage. Some prefer to increase by 1 mile at a time. Some prefer 10 percent increases. Since I don’t think 1 mile is enough, and because I would fail at the mathematics of computing 10 percent, I prefer to increase by 10 minutes, which increases the Long Runs by 2 miles.
For example, for a 16-mile Long Run, I will set my time to 80 minutes for my outbound run. When the alarm sounds, I return on the same path. That amounts to 8 miles out and 8 miles in for a total of 16 miles. For the next Long Run – which occurs 2 weeks hence – I will set the timer for 90 minutes, thereby adding 1 mile to my outbound journey and 1 mile to my inbound return trip. Voila!
If you did this using my method (i.e., run 80 minutes then return), you would only add 10 minutes to the first leg of your journey. So one week you run 80 minutes and return. Next you run 90 minutes and return. This is really an easy way to measure and plot your training strategy and amounts to adding 2 miles (1 mile per 10 minutes) to the overall run.
To minimize the agony of the Long Run, start slow… then get slower. Think of the Long Run as a “Dry Run” for the marathon. Famed running Jedi Knight Jeff Galloway suggests walking 1 minute for every 5 minutes of running. Personally, I prefer walking 1 to 2 minutes for every 10 minutes of running because it helps pace me for one-mile intervals before I take a breather. Also, water stands are usually placed one to two miles apart, allowing me to take my break while consuming water (instead of running, grabbing the water and spilling it all over me while I try to drink from a bouncing cup).
