Mach3Multisport.com

The long run should be a staple in any triathlon training program.  Usually done on a weekend or on an easy day at work, it is important for building aerobic Endurance.  You know that.  What you may not know is that the benefits of the long run are far more than just building endurance.  Yes, your body adapts to long events at a low heart rate, about zone 2, by producing more capillaries, reducing restrictions to blood flow, and gaining efficiency at moving and processing oxygen in the bloodstream. 

The long run is also responsible for building strength and speed.  While moving at the long run pace, you are using muscles for not only making your legs go forward and back, but in stabilizing and sustaining your body.  Over time this adds up, as does lifting weights in the gym.  This builds muscular strength—but also mental strength in making your body go for a long time, and through soreness.  Speed is build automatically when your slow twitch muscle fibers tire out.  After about 1.5 to 2 hours, your slow twitch muscle fibers, responsible for movement at easier efforts, tire out and need a little help.  Your fast twitch fibers, generally reserved for shorter, harder, faster efforts, come to their aid like the Cavalry.  Therefore you stress your fast twitch fibers.  In this case, you are gaining speed by running slow! 

The mechanics of the long run are pretty straight forward.  The pace is slow, heart rate zone 1 or 2, or easy to moderate on effort level.  You should be breathing, but should not be winded to the point where you can’t hold a conversation.  It’s best to take a friend with you so you can talk the entire run.  Talk and listen to each other and slow down if you need to.  Pick a distance you have run before to start with, and then each week increase that distance from ½ to 1 mile.  Be conservative, you have time to build up, but you don’t have time to get injured by increasing too quickly.  As you gain experience and distance, begin to pick up the speed slowly over the course of your long run to where you are finishing about 1 to 2 minutes per mile faster than you started.  Afterwards, stretch well and get some recovery calories in.       

The long run also builds confidence.  By starting at an easy distance and easy pace, and slowly speeding up and increasing the distance as you gain fitness, you will be running further than you thought you could in no time.  You’ll be ready for that triathlon, mentally and physically, before you know it.   

Brian 

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