For KDerOll :O)
Looks like we are out of the woods. They say a lot of rain, but on Friday, and Karen just posted about doing her 20 miles on Friday night; hope the rain is gone by then! Good luck!!!
Looks like my 17 is on for Saturday morning as planned, but if the rains linger into Saturday morning, we'll adjust if necessary. :O)
Karen asked "Why not 10 in the morning and 7 in the evening?"
Very good question, and I have been known to split up a run, but generally only when its a mid-week longer distance (8 miles) where I will do a few in the morning and finish up in the evening. And typically this only occurs in the Summer months because its so darn hot!
I have never split up a long run when training for a marathon, but I know there are those that do and think its quite ok, and I would tend to agree only if its done once or twice. Life happens and when it does, we take measures to acoomodate that.
However I don't think one could get away with splitting up all their long runs no more than I think one can necessarily run all their long runs on a treadmill and expect to do well (especially if its your first one).
Its not so much the physicality of it, but the mental aspect. You really need to know what it feels like mentally to be out there for x number of miles and x number of hours.
I don't know, sometimes its hard enough for me to split up 2 short distances in one day...I don't know how my mind would handle running 10 in the morning, then knowing "Ugh, I have to do this again in less than 12 hours?"
What do you think? Splitting up long runs is OK to do? Have you done it (more than a few times in one marathon training season)?
5 comments:
I've thought about splitting up runs, and probably would, so long as it wasn't my only long run, or my longest of the long runs. I know that this fall, I'll probably end up doing that some weekends to force the running on tired and sore legs, and probably only because I've most long runs by myself. I agree that the mental aspect is definately the harder part. I don't think that most people get that until they do it; I know I didn't. You might try heading out to TH. I've done most long runs there, technically by myself, but there are usually a decent amount of people out. The trail meets up with GB. I wouldn't recommend doing GB without a water bottle. I did that twice (because I was stupid) There are only a couple of water stops, one at 3 and one at somewhere around 9? and then again at 10/11 (I turned around, somewhere around 9). GB is much more isolated and I lost cell phone service for awhile.
I don't split up the long run. In fact, when my Kenyan Way long runs are longer than what Sean schedules I try to time my "additional" miles before the organized run so I get back to base as close to run start time as possible.
During the week - different story.
Roger that Jamoosh. When I get back to base too early I just generally take off on the route. The longer I stand around, the harder it is to get going again.
Last night during my run, I stopped off at our BCRR wed night fueling stop in the church parking lot to get some P'ade for my last 2 miles home and just standing there talking for 15 min made it difficult to go again. It was like starting all over again :(
I have done the same thing - split up the longer mid-day runs (so that I don't have to wake up earlier than stupid-thirty). But, for my long runs, I'd much rather just get them over with all at once. I will also be running a lot of mileage before the big groups meet up and then run my final miles with them. I think there are instances when you might have to split up the distance, but I agree that it should be done only every so often.
Like you, I have split them, but only maybe once or twice during a marathon training season. And when I do, it's usually doing one thing and then driving immediately somewhere else to do the rest. For instance, I've run to a race site, ran the race, and run back to my car to get in all my miles and there are brief breaks between those. I have read articles on how there's nothing wrong with splitting, but I don't personally agree with that except for the occassional time when the split can't really be avoided... and try to keep the time between the split as short as possible.
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