The Long Run

“The Long Run is the Golden Key to unlocking the door (potential) to becoming a better runner!” – Alec Riddle 

The one key component of developing your ability as an endurance runner, is the Long Run, so try and do 2- 4 long runs a month (experienced runners can do a midweek long run of 90 minutes). One cannot develop a decent Base, without long runs and variety is, in my opinion, the spice in a runners life, so don’t try and do the same course, at the same time, same pace, week in, week out, or your motivation may wane.

How long is a Long Run? I would say 90 minutes or longer (45-60m+ for juniors)

Doing a Long Run in Kona (Energy Lab) with Kyle Buckingham 2012. Young Jamie in the foreground doing his ‘long’ run!

How fast should a Long Run be? In the inital stages of Base Training, I think err on the side of caution and run very easy, as just running long is stressful enough. Time spent running, or Time on Legs, is more important than the quality and running too hard in the Long Run can be self destructing. As you adapt and become more comfortable running long, then you want to run closer to your Aerobic Threshold/Limit for part of the run. (or most of the run for experienced runners).

Adap-tability is important in running & in an IronMan and improving your ability to adapt to various situations can be improved, while developing your base.

I once went to a talk by Arthur Lydiard inthe early 80’s, arguably one of the greatest running coaches of all time and he said that running two hours or longer is vital. He said that you stimulate & (re) awaken dormant muscle fibers and the more muscle fibers/capilliaries you are able to recruit, the better and more improved the bloodflow, resulting in more oxygen for your muscles. (Even Peter Snell Olympic 800m Champion did 22 mile hilly runs weekly under Lydiard’s guidance)

Awesome hills/trails in Boulder, Colorado

Incorporate hills and/or trails into some of your long runs, as this will help improve all round leg strength. Do at least one of your long runs, or part thereof for inexperienced runners, say once a month at a steady pace (for IM athletes remember the marathon run in an IM is much slower than your normal training pace and it is just as important to train at this ‘slow’ pace, for specific conditioning). In my earlier days a lot of South Africa’s top distance runners, including 9 times Comrades Champion Bruce Fordyce, used to focus on ‘time on legs’ runs, whereby you just go out enjoy the run, stop for drinks and spend time on your legs. I used to enjoy those runs immensely.

At the same time we don’t always want to run slowly (the plods), so when doing an easy long run, incorporate 2-3 ‘steady’ sections into the run. Example when running a Long Run run mostly @ an easy pace, do 20 minutes at a slightly faster pace (not too  hard simply a little faster), recover for a km or two and repeat 2-3 times depending on your level of fitness, finishing off at your easy pace.

One of the biggest mistakes made by ultra runners/triathletes is believing that they will lose endurance if they don’t run long regularly in the build up to their key race. DO NOT do Long Runs (longer than 90 minutes) within 3 weeks of your target race, as you may find your legs won’t recover sufficiently in time.

Additional benefits of the Long Run:

The Long Run builds both muscular strength and fitness. If your body is not strong you can push your body too hard, leading to injury. The Long Run strengthens the joints, ligaments & muscles.

The Long Run helps prevent injuries, as it provides a foundation that enables you to do faster work as you build to your key race. Think of a building, the bigger the fundation, the higher the peak.

The Long Run importantly assists the body in the utilization of energy sources. Most people try and run too hard and burn Carbohydrates (or Glycogen) which is very inefficient. Running long (and slower) enhances your ability to burn fatty acids as an energy source, thus sparing the more limited carb stores.

Hydration is important during Long Runs

Ironman Tip/s: We will talk more about specificity in a later Tip, but I would suggest running the odd long run, after a medium bike ride, as this will assist you to ‘slow’ down.

I thoroughly enjoy reverse bricks to improve running endurance (and reduce the chance of injury) and have found these to work very well for me. This involves running first and following up with a decent bike ride. For me, this is a common 3 hour workout, where I would run 90 min and then bike 90 minutes. This was a tip I picked up in Korea from Brendon Downey of endurancecoach.com, coach of many world class Triathletes.

Illustrating the importance of building a Base in the link below…..

http://ironmansa.com/2014/04/14/the-bigger-the-base-the-higher-the-peak/

 

Base Training

Base,Base, Base!!! You have to develop your aerobic engine and the bigger the base, the more solid the foundation, the higher the peak. Build gradually, steadily
and frequently, interspersed with regular recovery sessions.

Putting in the hard yards!

The more consistent the pressure you put on your plumbing system(cardiovascular)  the better and the best way to do that is to train at a more consistent ‘effort’ level in base training, so be careful of taking the hard/easy methodology of training too literally.

I am a great believer in what I call steady state running. In an ideal world, discovering your  aerobic threshold, lactate turnpoints and key heart rate zones would be great,
but it is not absolutely necessary. Steady state running is running just beyond
conversational pace and upwards and there are two ways to judge when you have
‘maximised’ this form of training. (In other words just below the red line, as when you are red lining it you are upsetting the blood’s ph levels which can also lead to injury/illness).

One method is to do your steady state runs on set routes and the tempo/pace gradually increases automatically as you improve, or become fitter. Initially you will detect substantial time improvement, at similar effort,  session to session, or week to week, with some improvement thereafter,  although not as rapid. Once your improvement is negligible you are ready for  the next phase.

The other option, for those with heart rate monitors, is to run a set route and
either run at the same pace, while detecting a simultaneous lowering of the
heart rate, alternatively to run with the same effort, but faster due to the
natural progression and detecting a similar heart rate as previous sessions.
Once you find the effort, time, or heart rate is sticking somewhat you have
achieved your objective in this phase. Raynard Tissink used this methodology in his Base Training a few years back and the results were quite amazing.

Example: I was training 3 athletes for their marathon debut on this type of steady state training, just building a strong base and suddenly a local marathon popped up on the scene, with a US$2,000 bonus for a sub 2hr 15 min win. It was 2 months earlier than we were planning for so we had done no speedwork, not track, just steady state running and fartlek, but we decided to go for it on 8 weeks base training.  Simon Mpholo won on debut (2hrs 14) and the other two ran 2h15 (Norman Dlomo) and 2h16 (Petrus Sithole) respectively.

For me the key is to keep consistent pressure. So if I was running ‘hard’ twice a week interspersed with two easy runs (plus my long run), then I’m getting a graph where the peaks and valleys are quite far apart. So instead of woking on running the ‘hard’ runs harder, I would run those at a similar effort, or slightly easier and rather work on upping the effort in the easy runs, bringing the peaks and valleys closer, ensuring more consistent pressure on my plumbing/cardiovascular system. See pic below illustrating that in this phase of training, the graph on the left is the ideal!

Caution: Most runners are far too impatient and want instant results, so test themselves and as soon as you test yourself, you need ample recovery, which defeats the object. For this process to work you need to be patient, very patient and let the body adapt in its own time. Do that and you will be amazed at both the interim and end results.

Important tip for Triathletes: Learnt from 5 time World Champion Simon Lessing of Boulder Coaching: Runners and Cyclists often tend to neglect their swimming as it is a small component of Ironman or Triathlon, but doing more swimming is vitally important. It not only improves your swimming time (even if it is negligible) but it builds your aerobic engine with little chance of injury. As Simon says swimming helps cycling and running but it doesn’t work the other way around and good swimmers are able to be competitive in triathlons a lot sooner than good cyclists or runners. I totally agree with this, so do not neglect the swimming!

A Dream is a Wish until commited to a Plan!

 

Rest and Recovery

Cleansing your system and Recovery

Too many athletes race in training and do time trials to convince themselves that
they are on track. The body has a limited supply of ‘competitive juices’ and
you can either utilize them in the big event itself, or waste them. I have had
great results from athletes, once they have followed a training programme after
a rest, be it a planned rest, or an enforced rest. So cleanse your system by
giving your body a break before embarking on your programme!

After your Goal Race, or after a period of consistent running, you should be looking at a 2 week recovery period, before getting back into the routine of training. Most of us are so motivated the week after a race, that we start too soon and get sick or injured, or we lose our motivation within a few weeks. The reason being your body needs Rest and Recovery!

Once you have started your preparation and you are following a training programme, which should include mandatory recovery days and/or weeks, it is vitally important that you don’t get sucked into racing in training. Stick to the plan, it will pay dividends in the long run and believe in your plan, don’t commit  the cardinal sin of testing yourself in the build up to the big day, or you  will leave your best race on the training turf. (Do not dig up the potatoes,  you may ruin the crop)

Rest  is an integral component of a training programme. I liken the body to a sponge.
If you treat it well, it will always return to its original shape (after
training) and if you abuse it (overtraining), it will wilt. Most South Africans train too hard, too long, too fast with insufficient recovery and I have had the most coaching success with enforcing less over more.

Ockkert Brits once said embrace ‘recovery’, it is the only legal steroid available!