The goal with easy long runs is to deplete the muscles of their stored glycogen. The body responds to this stimulus by learning to store more glycogen to prevent future depletion. The faster you run, the greater the percentage of your energy will come from carbohydrates. Mitochondria are the microscopic organelle found in your muscle cells that contribute to the production of ATP energy.
In the presence of oxygen, mitochondria break down carbohydrate, fat, and protein into usable energy. Therefore, the more mitochondria you have, and the greater their density, the more energy you can generate during exercise, which will enable you to run faster and longer. Two researchers, Holloszy and Dudley published some of the defining research on optimal distance and pace for mitochondrial development. In short, Holloszy found that maximum mitochondrial development occurred at about 2 hours of running at percent of V02max.
Likewise, Dudley found that the best strategy for slow-twitch, mitochondria enhancement was running for 90 minutes at 70 to 75 percent V02 max. So what does this mean in real-world terminology? You are less likely to get injured if you complete your longer runs at a slower pace. Making your longer runs slower will mean more people are able to join you for all or part of the run.
Running more slowly means you can experiment with different types of fuelling and refuelling. Aim to do most of your longer runs a minute per mile slower than your target marathon pace.
Slow Long Runs. You Can Train More A 20 mile run at marathon pace will take at least a week to recover from, particularly for a less experienced runner. You Can Try Out Different Types Of Refuelling Running more slowly, particularly at the start of a run, means you can run sooner after a pre-run meal or snack.
Too frequent of long runs can also compromise the quality of training in between — and those runs matter too! Most experts, included famed coach Jack Daniels, agree that 20 to 30 percent of your weekly mileage should be devoted to a long run.
A runner averaging 80 miles per week would go miles. An elite marathoner running miles a week would be running 20 miles in their long runs. These guidelines scale the run to your current ability level and training load. Check out this article on how many miles you should run a week by The Mother Runners head coach Laura Norris. Related: Self-care tips for busy moms. Long runs should be performed at a pace that is comfortable and conversational.
This pace is roughly one minute slower than your marathon race pace, or around 90 seconds per mile slower than your current 10K pace and two minutes slower than your 5k pace. Running at these easy paces teaches the body to tap into your fuel sources efficiently so that it learns to use both carbs and fats.
Slowing down trains your body to use both energy systems — and helps bonk-proof your marathon. Eat a carb-dense meal of about calories about an hour before. Take a gel about every minutes with water. Eat a carb and protein-dense snack of about calories or more within 30 minutes of completing your run.
Then eat another meal full of carbs, proteins, and healthy fats about 2 hours after your run. This is key to recovery. Focus on fueling! Eat a carb-dense meal about an hour before. Eat a carb and protein-dense snack within 30 minutes of completing your run. Then eat another meal full of carbs, proteins, and healthy fats about 90 minutes after that. Focus on hydrating starting the day before your long run.
Drink water or electrolytes before and after your runs. Aim to get your weight back to pre-run weight when hydrating. Drink to thirst during your runs.
The articles explain this more. Hope this helps, and if you need any more information, please let us know, and we will be happy to help! Keep up the good work! The biggest problem I have is keeping my heart rate in Z2 whilst going uphill. Advice on breathing techniques would also be useful too please. When running at normal pace I breathe in for 2 steps and out for 2 steps but find this kind of breathing increases my pace and therefore increases my hr? Thanks in advance. Hi Rich, thanks for reaching out.
Any more advice you could offer me? Hi Rosco, thanks for reaching out. You are not alone, most runners are guilty of doing this at some point.
Great post which has successfully prevented me from getting any work done today because I then had to listen to one of your podcasts with Matt Fitzgerald and then keep researching. Hi Matthew, thanks for reaching out.
Glad you enjoyed the article and podcast. It is best to just stay in the zone, try not to become too caught up in the numbers one of the reasons we do not recommend HR training :P , as long as you are within that zone, your body should be recovering, so it should be helping.
Does this answer your questions? Listening to other pod-casts on your site there are elite athletes who mention going a lot slower than that. How do you run slow? Maybe it will just come with time as I get more used to running and get some of my fitness level back. However, it will just take practice. You could use a heart rate monitor, or just focus on keeping your form correct. If you are going slow, you do not have to think about pushing through, so it should give you some time to really think and focus on form until it feels a little more natural.
You should be taking less pounding strides as you are moving slower, so there is less force from the speed.
Thank you for the reply and articles. I want to do more easier runs but right now nothing feels particularly easy! Having never run more than 2 miles continuous run prior to last week, I look forward to learning more about this foreign concept called distance running! Hopefully as I get more attuned I will use it less and rely more on body sensing. Thanks for a great article. My long runs are typically at pace. I read your article and thought it was time to give this a try.
I was surprised by several things:. I honestly believe that I am giving all I have on the 5k. Confused how they can be so different. Maybe a 7 of Hi Scott, thanks for reaching out.
We do not believe anyone is too far gone to not be able to incorporate the easy running. The best things we can recommend are to read more articles on this topic to see if any of them help the message stick. Hi, thanks for the great article that backs up the results I saw in this past season. I had been a high mileage runner in the past but this year brought my mileage up to road miles a week, with much of my recovery runs done in trails or in a pool.
I did cut quite a bit of time from my marathon, but understanding that race specific improvement is key to training for thay particular race oddly my 5K time worsened by about 20 seconds per mile. Whoops, I somehow submitted that too soon. But I was surprised that my 5k times had dropped, especially considering aerobic base still makes up such a large part of a 5k. Just curious if increasing miles and running slower could hurt times at distances shorter than the half or full marathon, or if I had been doing something incorrectly?
Hi Amie, thanks for the support, happy we were able to help you see how important those easy runs were. Race specific training is very important. Running slower will definitely help you, as you will be able to run faster when it matters, check out these 3 articles to see why….
Just now found this article and read with interest. This is running as easy and comfortable as I can and yes extremely slow. Your email address will not be published. Sarah Russell. So what does that mean for you? How do you put this into practice? How slow? Using heart rate as a guide But how slow is slow? If you want to go down this route then use the following calculations: 1.
Who We Are. Why the VO2 Max on Your Garmin Watch Is Ruining Your Training In the never-ending quest to give runners more data and more reasons to upgrade and spend more on their watches , watch companies are squeezing every.
Heart Rate Recovery We have looked at the ins and outs of using a heart rate monitor to track your training in our article a few months ago. Thanks for your feedback. I think you have the best running website on the web. Certainly the best advice. That is wonderful to hear, thank you Andrew! We appreciate that. Good luck! Hi Tina, This is quite an interesting article as I, like many others I know, run too hard on average, certainly taking your article into account and it is very difficult to get out of the mindset.
Thanks, Neil. Hello Coach Tina, thanks for such a wonderful article. If not, let us know, and we can research further into it for you. Thanks for an interesting read! Thanks in advance Rich. Thanks in advance Rosco.
Hiya, Great post which has successfully prevented me from getting any work done today because I then had to listen to one of your podcasts with Matt Fitzgerald and then keep researching. Thanks again for the reply!
Definitely something to work on!
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