 Alright, today we're gonna talk about the long run. In my opinion the most important work out in any long-distance running program. We're gonna get into why that is How to do it, how long to go, how often to do it, etc. Stay tuned So the simplest way to look at it is if you're gonna be running for long periods of time You have to practice it. So if you're running marathons, you better do some long runs because that's specific to the marathon. But Arthur Liddiard would even have his milers People running a mile Would still do long runs in training. Why is that? That doesn't make as much sense. Well, here's why. The body has two energy systems Generally, we could say it has three actually, but Aerobic and anaerobic, you probably heard about it. Generally speaking, I'm not gonna go in depth on the science But the aerobic means with oxygen anaerobic means without oxygen Basically aerobic metabolism is when you're breaking down fuels with oxygen and it can fuel you for a long time Takes from the fat, but also some carbohydrate Whereas anaerobic burns down the carbohydrate stores and it goes very quickly down, but you can run really fast on your anaerobic Metabolism, but it only lasts for a little while. So if you want to go long and long is defined as anything longer than a minute It's mostly aerobic. If we're looking at the sprinters We see that the energy that they need to produce that fast speed for like a hundred meter or 200 meter Even 400 meter it comes mostly when we're looking at the metabolism of the body It comes from anaerobic metabolism for the most part Anaerobic breakdown of fuel But there's a crossover point there around 800 meter where Where you get to the 800 meters, but 5050 anaerobic and aerobic and then you get longer than that now we're talking mostly aerobic Metabolism providing the fuel and there's no there's not a point where you're like 100% aerobic or 100% anaerobic Even sitting here now. There is anaerobic metabolism going on in my body, but mostly it's aerobic. So the higher the intensity the more anaerobic contribution there is That means that if we're running long distances We're relying on the aerobic system and therefore we need to train and develop the aerobic system, okay now that that's out of the way the sort of scientific rationale How do we train the aerobic system well the aerobic system is trained by time for the most part, okay, so we develop it by Volume right so even easy running will develop your aerobic system as long as you do enough of it Okay, and that's relative to where you're at and your training history and your goals, etc But usually up to a point. It's the more the better And so all the training you're doing in the week it contributes to this aerobic development on top of that sometimes you might be running pretty hard, right and there's a large anaerobic contribution to that workout Well in that case you're getting both some development of the anaerobic system and a lot of development of the aerobic system in that case but the number one workout To develop your aerobic system and focus on your aerobic system is going to be your long run That's why Arthur Lidier has his milers run Two and a half hours on the weekend Because it's developing their aerobic system and even in the mile The large Majority of the energy produced is coming from the aerobic metabolism. What's the definition of a long run though? Well, that depends if you're a beginner a Long run could be 45 minutes, right? If you're really advanced if you're an ultra marathon runner your long run might be five hours, okay, but typically For a normal person maybe training for a half marathon or marathon or even shorter I would say personally is my opinion that Anything longer than 90 minutes is a long run one and a half hour That's that's you know from from the physiological point of view where you're developing the aerobic system to an extent that's significant You'll even develop it just running half an hour. So if you run half an hour every day That's great But once in a while you want to go for a little bit of a longer effort because there are things that happen in the body After an hour and after 90 minutes especially and once you hit that two-hour mark It's like a different world than the one-hour mark. So Anything from 90 minutes one and a half hour up to like two and a half hours even three hours, perhaps That's a that's a nice sort of range Where the long run will be very beneficial for developing your aerobic system and you build up to it over time Obviously, you don't want to just jump in and do like two and a half hours right off the bat Got a build slowly but surely over time Jack Daniels says and by the way, I'm a certified V dot coach by Jack Daniels. So if you're interested in coaching check out my coaching website I'll put a link to it here where I offer customized training programs and and personalized coaching so he says about 30% of your weekly mileage Should be the long run or something around there 25 to 30. So if you're running a 100k a week Then you'll be running a you could you could run a 30k long run. That would be fine if you're only running 30 Kilometers a week, you know, maybe you're a beginner running 30 kilometers a week Your long run should probably be in the ballpark of around 10 kilometers or a little less maybe but 10 kilometers is probably fine So you see how in order to get that long run to last One and a half hour two hours two and a half hours It's probably good at it to start building your volume up in general in order to handle it There are exceptions, of course, if you can only do four hours a week of Training you should still probably devote two hours of those to one single long run session And it's because when you're out for that long run You are it takes a bit of time essentially to rev up that a row aerobic engine To get that fat burning happening where your body is prioritizing the metabolism of fat through aerobic means as opposed to Glycogen which is carbohydrate and that takes a bit of time to get revved up, you know usually after an hour, that's when we're seeing it's really coming into play and Also, you want to the other thing with the longer is that it empties out your your glycogen stores by the end of the run you're pretty empty and That's a good stimulus for Increasing your carbohydrate stores for the future, right? So which means you can go for longer when you're doing your marathon for example It also is a muscular thing, you know being out there for a long time If you're running a marathon if you're training for a marathon, you've got to be used to being on your feet for a long time That's another benefit of the long run Personally, I love the long run is my favorite type of run What kind of intensity though should you be doing for your long run? Well, I would say It depends, okay typically easy easy is fine and easy is defined as Somewhere between perhaps 60 and 70 ish percent of your max heart rate So we're talking really easy. It's conversational pace shouldn't be straining just slow and easy Two and a half hours That's it. That will develop your aerobic system really well Even if you're just running easy, you don't have to feel like you're running a race Well, you shouldn't because you'll burn out that way if you feel like you're running a race every time you go running Particularly these long runs that because they're pretty long. They're taxing anyway Even if you're running slow, they'll be taxing you just because you're going for a long time Probably a good idea to bring some food along with you, you know some fuel some water on these long efforts That's a good idea. How often should you do your long runs? Well, I'd say just because of the essential nature of the long run in a long-distance program I'd throw it in there once a week Okay, so I do it once a week, but Every now and then you might want to do a week where you don't do a long run because it is a taxing run if you're going for very long So perhaps you could do three weeks where you have a long run every week and then one week no long run But typically the long runs are done easy and you should be able to handle them every week really You can even at times throw in another Medium long run in the middle of the week for example where so suppose you have a long run of two and a half hours on the weekend We'll throw in a medium long run on a Wednesday of say 90 minutes, right? And then around there you could have a couple of intenser more intense workouts and a bunch of easier running to cushion it all so Once a week something like that. That's probably a good starting point at times Perhaps as you're getting closer to competition It's probably good that they also to throw in some faster paced long runs, okay? So that means maybe you're starting easy But you're building in intensity and pace as you go through the run and perhaps you're finishing your run at Somewhere like marathon pace or perhaps you're playing around with half marathon pace or threshold pace towards the end So mixing it up in terms of intensity could be a good idea, but remember that's more taxing Which means that you're new you'll need more recovery So you got to be careful when you schedule those Types of runs and that's why it's a good idea to have a training plan and a coach like myself Who can actually tell you? When to do it and when not to do it and to schedule out an actual plan so that you're like, okay Let's put a hard long run in there and another one there Make sure there's a week in between with an easier long run perhaps and so you don't overdo it a plan is always You know the backbone of any athlete the training plan is is really key. All right. Thanks for watching Please subscribe check out my patreon where I offer exclusive content like Q&A videos every month Check me out on Strava. Check me out on Instagram. There's links in the description And of course if you're interested in coaching check out my coaching website There's a link in the description where I offer customized training programs and Coaching anyone wanting to get better at running. You don't have to be really great or you can be a beginner or you can be advanced Whatever you need. I'd love to help you out. Thanks for watching. See you around