{"id":13905,"date":"2011-05-19T11:37:02","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T15:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/?p=13905"},"modified":"2020-02-27T16:42:46","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T21:42:46","slug":"long-run-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nomeatathlete.com\/long-run-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Your Long Runs Be Doing More Harm than Good?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone knows that the cornerstone of any marathon training program, and especially any ultramarathon plan, is the long run.<\/p>\n

Well, guess what?\u00a0 It turns out everyone might be wrong.<\/p>\n

Eliminating the sacred long run<\/h3>\n

\"NoBrian Mackenzie and the people at CrossFit Endurance are training their athletes to run 100-mile ultramarathons on less than 30 miles per week.\u00a0 Even more incredible is that they do this without running more than a half marathon<\/em> in training.<\/p>\n

How?<\/p>\n

The idea, as detailed on the CrossFit Endurance FAQ page<\/a> but explained in more depth in Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Body<\/a>, is based on the distinction between aerobic and anaerobic exercise.<\/p>\n

For those who somehow avoided the lesson on the two systems in gym class, here’s the two-line version:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Your aerobic system is what’s working when you do low-intensity exercise, like the long, slow distance (LSD) that gets us all up early on weekend mornings when we’re training for a marathon or half.<\/li>\n
  2. Anaerobic exercise, on the other hand, involves shorter, higher-intensity workouts.\u00a0 Weightlifting, speed training, etc.\u00a0 You know, the stuff that hurts.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    What Mackenzie and others are saying is that it’s easy to develop your aerobic system.\u00a0 If you can run a strong 10K pretty comfortably, then you’re pretty much set for a marathon or 50K, at least as far as the aerobic system goes.\u00a0 While you can improve it with long, slow distance, the additional gains to be had from adaptation to this type of exercise are minimal.<\/p>\n

    What they’ve found is that you can get these benefits to your aerobic system, along with a host of others, with far less volume of training if you focus on anaerobic exercise.\u00a0 For them, this means speed sessions of only about a mile (say 4 x 400 meters or 2 x 800 meters) and tempo runs of 5 or 6 miles at high intensity.<\/p>\n

    The downsides of running long<\/h3>\n

    In addition to the obvious time commitment, the CrossFit page cites as by-products of the increased cardiovascular function that comes with running long:<\/p>\n