Long Run

It doesn't necessarily need to be every 7 days, but this fits well with people’s lifestyles, so the most common thing for people to do is go out and do their long run on a Saturday or Sunday morning. There is no reason why, if your lifestyle allows it, that you shouldn't do the long runs on a cycle of anything from every 4 to 10 days – it really depends on your flexibility and how your body is coping with the training.

Beginners to marathon training need to be quite careful that they don't progress this too fast, the 10% rule for increasing distance week on week is a good guide here. Alternatively, we like the idea of working at 1 mile a week increase, as it is simpler.

Photo Woman jogging on street

As stated on another page, if you are new to running, this might mean 6 months to build up to the sort of distance that you need to be confident of running your first marathon.

The pace of these runs should be slow, roughly around 30 seconds to a minute slower per mile than your target race pace. You should be running at a pace where you can carry on a conversation with someone else (whether you actually have someone there or not!).

Planning your Long Runs

As stated on another page, if you are new to running, this might mean 6 months to build up to the sort of distance that you need to be confident of running your first marathon.

Don't panic if you have less, but do plan carefully how you build up the mileage.

Another thing the long run will allow you to practice is taking on fluids or food whilst on the run. See our nutrition page for more guidance on this, however, running for over 2 hours will completely deplete the body’s glycogen stores, causing the marathon 'bonk' or 'hitting the wall'.

Photo Snack bar for energy

Therefore it is normally advised to ingest some sort of carbohydrate as fuel during the race. Eating or drinking in the middle of your run can upset your stomach at first, so it is important to practice doing so and the best time to do this is during your long runs in training. This helps to train your stomach so it will be ok on the big day! It also enables you to work out what food sits comfortably with you as this greatly varies from person to person.

At Momentum Sports we believe in two additional elements to the Long Run

1. Take a lighter week every 4-6 weeks, where you run maybe half the distance you have built up to.
2. Do some of these runs as races. This will allow you to learn your comfortable racing speed and learn all about what the races involve. So, you might look for a 10k after 6 weeks training, a half marathon 3 months before the big day and a 15-20 mile race about 6 weeks beforehand.

We don't like to specify exactly what distances you should be running for these sessions as it is a totally individual thing, and will depend on your fitness at the start, how you progress as you go along, the amount of time before the race day etc etc.

However, using the guidelines here, you can make a good start on building a plan that will work for you.

Remember, if this all seems a bit daunting, we can put together a schedule prepared specifically for you from our team of experienced coaches with our Online Coaching.

Learn more - Marathon Index »