Hi, this is Debbie Boyle's coach at Mojo for Running with podcast number 38. Break it up. Let's talk about

breaking up your long run. And by that, I mean the customary once weekly long run.

Logically, most people do the long run in one piece, which of course makes sense. But there's

no reason why you can't break it up,

at least some of the time. Now, I would even argue that this is a good idea. Now, I know what

you're saying to yourself. Well, does that defeat the purpose? If you break it up, it's two

runs, not one long run. Yes, I get that. But the point is that breaking your long run into two

shorter runs of equal or slightly longer mileage and doing them within a 24 to 26 hour period

is virtually the same thing, but it may have many benefits. I encourage you to break it up sometimes,

and I think that is actually beneficial

to your training in some cases. In this podcast, I'll explain why this might be advantageous

and how you might want to do it. Lately, I've come to believe that too many people and too many

training plans stipulate an unnecessary number of long runs.

Of course, this is all relative to your experience and fitness.

But I do want to throw out some ideas for you to consider.

Don't get me wrong, I very much believe all runners should do one run per week that is longer than the rest,

usually considerably longer.

But when it comes to half marathon and marathon training,

and when we're talking about runs in excess of 16 miles,

in some cases the law of diminishing return may kick in.

Perhaps most important is that if you are an average runner, say running, let's say 11 minutes per

mile for that long run, then if you do a 20 mile long run during marathon training, it'll take

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