'Long run' distance?

Sauve

Quick question for ye-

How long should the weekly long run be when training for 5/10k races?
I plan on doing mainly 10k's this year, with a few 5k's, and am training 5 days per week atm.
Two interval sessions, one hill session, one handy pisstake 30min run, and one long one.

So should the long one be 10k? Would you do more than that, ie 12k so that the race is a bit handier?
Or would you do less, say 8/9k and rely on stubbornness on raceday?

ecoli

A decent thread regarding 10k training here

Personally my views is there should be very little mileage difference training for 1500 - Marathon, the biggest difference is the emphasis and how the mileage is distributed

pconn062

Generally for 10k you would try to run more that 10k on at least a few occasions, what is your long run at the moment?

Also I don't know anything about your training but two interval sessions and a hill session is a lot of quality work in one week and I see very little easy running in between to balance that out. If you add a long run in in top of those three sessions it could be a bit too much!

Sauve

pconn062 wrote: »

Generally for 10k you would try to run more that 10k on at least a few occasions, what is your long run at the moment?

Also I don't know anything about your training but two interval sessions and a hill session is a lot of quality work in one week and I see very little easy running in between to balance that out. If you add a long run in in top of those three sessions it could be a bit too much!

Thanks a lot, appreciate the input

At the minute I'm doing anywhere between 9 and 12k for the long run. I keep it slow enough, wouldn't be under pressure with it.

One of the interval sessions is fairly easy going, it's typically a 10' tempo with 1' rest x 3, and then I do a very easy run by myself.
So really the only 'hard' runs are one interval session (12x400m or similar) and the hills.

Would you add another easy run on top of that?

Itziger

There's little doubt that a 16k run or so would stand you on the day. Try to do a few and though you can and should take them easy, I'd look to up the pace a bit towards the end of a couple of them.

pconn062

Sauve wrote: »

Thanks a lot, appreciate the input

At the minute I'm doing anywhere between 9 and 12k for the long run. I keep it slow enough, wouldn't be under pressure with it.

One of the interval sessions is fairly easy going, it's typically a 10' tempo with 1' rest x 3, and then I do a very easy run by myself.
So really the only 'hard' runs are one interval session (12x400m or similar) and the hills.

Would you add another easy run on top of that?

I would consider adding another easy day if you think you could handle it without injuring yourself. But if it was me I would replace one of the sessions with an easy day, maybe the hill session. Easy aerobic runs are important for building fitness and the interval sessions are just the icing on the cake. Instead I would do a hill session maybe every three weeks in place of the interval session. The tempo is important for 10k running so I would leave that in. Also consider lengthening your interval session to get some work at race pace (10x600m, 8x800m, 6-7x1k, 5-6x1200m, 5x1 miles all at 10k pace).

With regards to the long run I would consider adding a bit more to it, but gradually. 1k a week extra is loads until you're at 16-18k, this will stand to you in the 10k. Keep the pace easy, conversational.

Sauve

Great pointers there pconn, thanks a lot

wrstan

In Daniel's 5k to 15k plan, during the base building phase he recommends that your long run should be 25% of your total weekly mileage or 1.5 hours, whichever is less.