LSR - Morning or Evening?

Izoard

Hi,

I've traditionally always done my lsr in the early morning beacuse a) least impact on family time and b) generally mirrors the time you'll be doing the marathon.

However, I've an achilles strain that means it is pretty stiff in the mornings, so I'm considering switching to doing the long runs at night when it is fully warmed up.

Are there any other advantages/ disadvantages to doing the long stuff at night over the morning?

cheers,

MCOS

A couple spring to mind.

I do the LR in the morning also, even though I am not a morning person and perform better in the afternoons. The legs are usually stiffer and take a while to 'wake up'

As you said, less impact on family time etc..

It also just gets it out of the way so your day is free. Having a 2-3 hour run hanging over your head means organising your whole day around it. I used to do mine on sunday afternoons but somtimes missed them due to other things, as soon as I switched to saturday morning my weekend felt 'longer'

I said it before, but those clouds of bugs at dusk...

tdlynch

It has to be first thing in the morning for me. Otherwise, I'm liable to talk myself out of it and feel guilty for the rest of the week!

Wally Runs

Much like yourself I am confined to the morning due to family time. I either have to run before they are up or after they are in bed.

I find that by getting it over and done with in the morning I have the whole day to stretch and work out any niggles. If I run in the evening I tend to only get in the post run stretch and then to bed.

After evening LSRs I sometimes can still feel my legs running while in bed and I find it hard to shutdown etc.

Might you try and break your morning LSR into a full warm up session and then streching exercises and then continue the run. If you have loose some time at the end so be it. Look on it as quality not quantity at this stage of the training.

rovers_runner

Do all my running in the evenings.
Noticed lately though when I moved to late evenings to accomodate increasing traffic and fueling myself for longer distances that finishing after 10pm leaves my too tense to sleep well.

Am going for 18/20 this afternoon straight after work so as to finish before complete darkness.

Wally Runs

I would also add that depending on where you run (and your gender) the risks are higher the later you run.

Where I live (North Wicklow) there are a number of runners who are very difficult to spot in poor light when they are wearing dark clothes (black being the favourite).

Ah but I run on the footpaths, in town you say! Well yes but you still need to cross at junctions, step off the pavement to pass other users and dodge dog turd.

Add to that you are pretty knackered by the end of the run and your ability to 'dash' across the road etc is pretty poor.

Get a reflective vest!

gaf1983

tdlynch wrote: »

It has to be first thing in the morning for me. Otherwise, I'm liable to talk myself out of it and feel guilty for the rest of the week!

Ditto.

nortal

I think there may be a physiological reason why some runners prefer morning running than others – personally hate mornings get tried much quicker – slowly getting used to it, but not in enough time for the 27th

Racing Flat

rovers_runner wrote: »

Do all my running in the evenings.

Even weekends?

Izoard

Absolutely agree with the "getting it out of the way" approach, although I was wondering if some of our more scientific contributors had a blinding physiological reason for one or the other..:D

Anyways, I'll give it a crack one of these evenings and we'll see how we go.

cheers...

rovers_runner

Racing Flat wrote: »

Even weekends?

Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of time at weekends.
I'm always either away, playing golf or somewhere that I can't commit 2/3 hrs to a run.

17.5 miles yesterday evening in 2:40 and still finished by dusk.
The 7am starts have their benefits I suppose....

messed_up

I much prefer my LSR in the mornings. Having it hanging over me for the rest of the day just stresses me out and if I miss it for some reason I am like a demon for the remainder. I also find that exercising late - say, after 9pm - leaves me unable to sleep for hours.