March 2017 Running Challenge

SLIMn2016 wrote: »

Hi I'm new to running (treadmill mostly)... I'm just starting here middle of the month with a target of 35 miles. I also Spin and weight train... but I want to get better at running, especially after losing the grunt of my weight.

WhatMeRunning wrote: »

Orphia wrote: »

WhatMeRunning wrote: »

Orphia wrote: »

I'd like to know what percentage of our weekly total others think our long runs should be.

I do no more than 33%.

Thanks. That sounds reasonable.

Just had a thought. It might be different when you're tapering. You don't want to run 80 km in addition to a marathon that week.

So true. But you should not be following your normal "training progression" during a taper period. The idea of the taper is to maintain your fitness level at the peak you raised it to during all that training by remaining active, yet reduce your fatigue levels during that entire period to go into the event with the largest gap you can manage between your "fitness level" and "fatigue level", which equals your "performance level", so the greatest performance level you can manage on race day.

In @girlinahat's case of running 4 days a week and trying to make long runs 50% of weekly mileage, I would recommend a change. My recommendation would be to maintain your currently weekly mileage, but add in a 5th day of running. Set your long run to be between 25%-33% of your total weekly mileage, then figure out what the remaining 4 runs will be. For example if you are running 24 miles/week, make your long run no more than 8 miles and do 4 miles on the other 4 running days of the week. Do that for 3 to 4 weeks, then take a down week of about 20% reduced mileage. Then start up a new 3-4 week cycle with your choice of either maintaining that same weekly mileage and adding in a 6th day of running (keep same weekly mileage and long run formula), or stay with the 5 days/week running and add 3 to 5 miles/week to your weekly goal distance.

For long distance running training, I really think running 6 days/week should be the target for most. But you MUST carefully build up to that of course. Don't just start doing your nromal daily run distances but do them 6 days/week all of the sudden. If the goal is long distance events, meaning long runs are your big training thing, then you can get the biggest opportunity for safe long distance mileage if you have 5 other runs that week to provide you the cushion for rather large long run mileage. Plus you get a recovery day. I like my recovery day the day before a long run, some like doing it the day after. I'm not sure there is a correct answer of where to put it, just so long as you have one. Of course, this is just me, so it is personal, but there is also a degree of biology and math involved where that really just seems like the ideal thing to do.

I suspect it is purely fatigue making the runs suck so bad, because the body is never getting the chance to recover enough from the 50% weekly mileage long runs to have the "fitness level" outmatch the "fatigue level" equaling a positive "performance level". Dropping that long run mileage in favor of another day of easy running will help in the fatigue department while not sacrificing fitness. Plus, with the added day of running, as you build up your weekly mileage over time, that 25%-33% long run can get up to 12 miles regularly rather easily with just a 36 mile per week training schedule. I also think (and this is just from personal experience) that when you have adapted to regularly doing 42 miles/week that you can be a half marathon beast, running HM's basically every weekend (running them, not racing them, do take some down weeks just to be safe).