Long Run Advice

adrian522

A few questions on the doing the long training run at the weekend:


Water - Do you take water with you, I usually don't but now that the run is getting to be around 2 hours I'm thinking it may be of benefit.

Increase distance or time - The piece of advice I've seen most often is to increase by 10% per week. However I'm wondering should that refer to distance or time?

For example a number of weeks ago I had a long run of 17Km in 2 hours. Since then I've had another race and adjusted my paces accordingly so last night I had a run of 19km but the time was 1hr58, so should I stick to increasing the distance by 10% or just increase the time by 10%?

Recovery - Should 1 day rest be sufficient for recovering from one of these sessions, also do people normally take a rest day prior to the long run?

Thanks!!

Peckham

Here's my tuppence worth...

Water: Definintely, especially in this weather. Can be a pain to carry water, so can be handy to drop the water off (hidden in bushes etc.) in advance, or do loops that bring you around by the house every 40 minutes or so. Alternatively carry some cash and buy water on the way. Much nicer after 90 minutes to have chilled water than lukewarm water!

Distance/time by 10%: Should be pretty much one and the same thing. But in your situation I'd be upping the distance by 10%. Important to build in stepback weeks also rather than it being a constant series of increases.

Recovery: Each person is different. Can be good to do some long runs on legs that aren't particularly fresh (prepares you for latter stages of a race). Also, active recovery can work better than rest after a long run - either a short, very easy recovery run the following day or something like swimming.

adrian522

Thanks Peckham, good advice there.

One more thing, How long should the long runs go? I'm aiming for the Dublin race series Half Marathon in September. Currently the long run is not that fair off the HM distance.

Should I keep increasing the distance up until September or leave it at 13 miles once I get to that?

FrClintPower

adrian522 wrote: »

Thanks Peckham, good advice there.

One more thing, How long should the long runs go? I'm aiming for the Dublin race series Half Marathon in September. Currently the long run is not that fair off the HM distance.

Should I keep increasing the distance up until September or leave it at 13 miles once I get to that?

I'm going to be running that HM too and I'm planning on doing 3 or 4 15/16 mile long runs before then. I've read it can be good to go over-distance for HMs, the race itself won't then be at the limit of distance you've run.

adrian522

Yeah, that's what I read also, Will it be your first HM? I plan to run the 10 mile also, think it's very good value €35 for the 2 races.

FrClintPower

adrian522 wrote: »

Yeah, that's what I read also, Will it be your first HM? I plan to run the 10 mile also, think it's very good value €35 for the 2 races.

Yeah, first HM for me too. I'm doing the 10k, 10 mile and HM, although I don't think I'll go flat out in the 10mile, I might treat it as a traaining run for the HM.

clear thinking

Bring €2 with you and buy a lucozade / water around half way, saves you having to carry a bottle for ages.

adrian522

Sounds like a plan alright...may try to incorporate a few laps and leave a bottle nearby somewhere also...

RunMD

Always nice to replicate race conditions also , (Ie) drinking at the same time as in the race 5, 10, 15k ect .. or where ever the race position water/feed stations .. Race route maps always show this