Many runners all around the world attend the church of the long run every weekend. Routinely incorporating long runs into your training regimen is critical. However, always doing easy, conversational long runs is not the best way to improve your race performance. Incorporating a variety of long run workouts into your half marathon training can help improve certain physiological traits (such as lactate threshold), as well as breaking up the monotony of long runs.
Benefits of Long Runs
Performing routine long runs in your running training has many benefits. One of the biggest physiological benefits of long runs is increasing the number of mitochondria in your cells. These are the “energy factories” of the cell that power cell respiration and human movement. Another major benefit of incorporating long runs into your running training is increasing capillary density. Capillary beds surround our muscles and help deliver oxygen to those hard-working tissues. Lastly, long runs help build stronger muscles and connective tissue. Not only will running for prolonged periods of time help build stronger muscles in the legs, it will also help improve strength in the respiratory muscles such as the diaphragm and abdominal muscles. Ultimately, there are a number of benefits to incorporating routine long runs into your running training.
How long should your long run be?
The exact distance of a long run is somewhat arbitrary. Many coaches will say your long run shouldn’t be more than 20% of your weekly mileage. To be honest, there is no scientific evidence to back that up. The distance of your long run will always be relative to two things: the athlete and the race distance. How experienced you are as a runner will have a direct impact on what percentage of your weekly mileage you can handle in your long run. The distance of the race will also play a role in determining that percentage as the longer the race distance, the longer the long runs will need to be. Ultimately, it is best to either try things out on your own and see what works best for you, or seek the help of a coaches or training groups (Like Fleet Feet Tucson) to guide you through your training.
Running long and slow week after week can get redundant and boring. You might not be making the most of your training by doing ONLY LSD (long, slow, distance) training for your long runs. Incorporating workouts into your long runs is a great way to break up the monotony of the long run, build mental strength and ultimately elicit key physiological adaptations (another topic for another day). Let’s take a look at the 5 best long run workouts to incorporate into your next half marathon training program.
5 Best Long Run Workouts
- Fast Finish
Adding a little bit of pep to the end of your long run is a great strength building workout for half marathon training. This workout is performed by running anywhere from 50-75% of your long run at an easy pace, and finishing the last 25-50% around race pace.
Example Workout: 10 mile long run, 7 miles at easy effort, 3 miles at half marathon goal pace progressing the last mile to finishing near all out.
- Mid-Run Fartlek
Adding a fartek into the middle of a run can be tough, but is a great way to incorporate a bit of speed into your long runs. These workouts are great for preparing your legs to run faster when tired. Mid-Run Fartleks are often performed by doing about 50% of your long run at an easy pace. Following this easy effort you will perform a series of hard intervals (often a specified time) followed by an easy interval. These hard intervals are meant to be faster than race pace. This will help add some speed to your long run, which can also help improve running economy.
Example Workout: 10 mile long run, 5 miles at easy effort, 3 miles of 2 minutes hard, 2 minutes easy, 2 miles easy.
- Steady State Long Run
Steady state long runs are critical for any half marathon training plan. These runs help build strength in multitude of ways (aerobically, muscularly, and mentally). A steady state long run is also one of the simplest forms of a long run workout. To perform this workout, you simply do 80-90% of your long run at a pace that is between an easy run pace, and half marathon race pace (often times Lactate Threshold). The reason this workout is difficult is that you are running for a long time at a slightly uncomfortable effort. This simulates, to an extent, what many feel on race day and prepares you both physically and mentally to get through those rough patches in a half marathon.
Example Workout: 10 mile long run, 1 mile at easy pace, 8 miles at 15-30 seconds slower per mile than half marathon race pace, 1 mile at easy pace
- Long Run Progression
The ability to vary and alter a progressive long run (or long run progression) is one of the many things that makes this a staple workout. Long run progressions are performed by starting out at an easy effort and progressing your run down to race pace or faster. The great thing about these progression workouts is that you can vary the interval at which you progress. Mixing it up between progressing every mile, every two miles, every quarter, or every third of the run adds a great amount of variety to this particular workout.
Example Workout: 10 mile long run progression starting out at easy pace and progressing 5-10 seconds every mile. (again this can be varied by progressing at different intervals)
- Mid-Run Tempo
Tempo runs can often be some of the hardest workouts for runners. These workouts simulate the race environment as closely as any workout can, and ultimately help improve key physiological traits like lactate threshold. Now think of adding an already tough workout into your long run! While this long run workout is certainly hard, it is very beneficial to helping improve your half marathon training. Mid-run tempos can be performed by doing 25-50% of your long run at an easy pace followed by a portion of the run at a tempo run pace or lactate threshold. This pace will be somewhere around 10K-Half Marathon race pace depending on the athlete and their fitness level. You want to make sure that you follow this hard effort up with a small amount of easy running before competing the long run.
Example Workout: 10 mile long run, 4 miles easy, 4 miles at 10 seconds per mile faster than half marathon race pace, 2 miles easy.
In the end, long runs are a staple ingredient to a successful training plan. Mixing up the way your long run is performed is great to help break up the monotony of training. Long run workouts can also elicit certain physiological benefits, like improving lactate threshold, that will help you tremendously in your next half marathon. Hopefully you can use some of these workouts in your next half marathon training plan to help you achieve your goals!