Club runner? Why you should consider switching your long run days
Planning what days you run, for what distance/time and at what intensity, can be a tricky thing to do. In preparation for marathons in particular, you have to do some tough long runs, lasting up to around 3 hours or 20 miles, usually on a Sunday morning. Here’s why you might want to change that.
Don’t miss a key session
Key sessions are those which will have the biggest impact on your marathon running, and therefore must be done regularly. Your long runs cannot be skipped as they build your aerobic fitness and muscular endurance.
Your club run which will likely be based around intervals of some sort, are also a key session as they increase your anaerobic fitness, improve the body’s ability to remove lactate from the muscles and will work your hamstrings to a higher contractile strength than any exercise. For these reasons, the club planned session is also a key session.
Monday club night?
Many, if not most, running clubs meet on a Monday evening. If you’ve followed the traditional pattern and completed your long run on Sunday morning, you’ve had less than 36 hours to repair and recover properly, meaning you won’t get the best of what we’ve already discussed is your 2nd most important run each week.
If you factor this in over just 1 marathon training block of 4 months, you’ve not trained optimally for 14 sessions! Assuming you’re running 4-5 days per week, that’s the equivalent of 3 weeks of training with lower success than you could have. This will potentially mean minutes of extra running come marathon day.
If not Sunday, then when?
Well the easy answer would be Saturday morning instead. The extra 24 hours of recovery will leave you feeling much more refreshed by the time your club session comes around. This might not be an option for you due to work or Saturday being a family day, but where possible, try to make the swap.
If you just can’t do any day but Sunday, then you do have options. My best suggestion is to find, if possible, club mates who are your speed and also in marathon training. This means you can do the interval session together on another night potentially, since doing these on your own may not get your best effort without the external motivation.
If this too isn’t an option you have available, then your best way forward is to use Monday as your recovery run day, and do the club planned interval session on your own.
We can’t control every variable in our marathon training, but if you can make the subtle changes I’ve suggested here, I promise you’ll be able run your next marathon faster than you expected to. As the title suggests, you don’t have to do this but it’s worth considering.
Written by Kyle Brooks, Running Coach based in Norwich, Norfolk
