Build to a breakthrough long run with these 3 pro tips from Sam Long
Yo, Yo, Yo! Listen up.
Self proclaimed “strongest legs in triathlon,” pro Sam Long swears by these three things to nail your long run.
Long is taking to social media again to offer training tips to age group athletes. Recently it was the bike. This week it’s the run. His advice centres on being consistent and keeping it simple. Pacing, progression and pyramids encompass his key strategies when going long.
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Flaming out
In order to finish your long run strong, start easy, advised Long. There is only so much gas in the tank. Don’t be a “Silly Sammy” and burn through it at the start. Long coined the phase, explaining it’s the name he gives to athletes who start too hard and drain the tank too soon. He compared it to going to the bar with friends and doing too many shots at the bar early in the night. When everyone else is up dancing, you’re being taken home and put to bed.
Long said the goal is to negative split the run. Star easy enough that the second half of your run is faster than the first. It takes knowing how to pace well and being in tune with your body on the day so that you can gauge the right speed at which to go out.
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Practicing this skill is imperative to being able to execute the same smart pacing in a race. It’s not going to happen by accident. By getting to know what kind of effort you can maintain over the long haul, you can choose a pace at the beginning that will have you passing others in the final stretch.
Progressing wisely
Don’t get ahead of yourself. As you progress week to week make sure it isn’t too much too soon. It’s possible you can get away with extending your weekly runs by more than 10 per cent, but doing so puts you at risk of injury, and you may only get away with it in the short term.
“It’s really quite simple,” he said. “You might think you can go 15 per cent, and yeah, maybe you can, but there’s a risk involved. It’s better to build that 10 per cent per week.
Building a pyramid
Change the “style” of your long runs over time. Long suggested beginning your training program with the classic easy paced long run. Once you’ve gotten enough of these under your belt it’s time to transform from a tortoise to a hare.
“You want to think about category or style of long run you’re doing,” he explained. “We start with being the tortoise. The distance is enough and we start off nice and steady.
“The second level is a transformation. A long run where you’re going to do tempo at the end. You start off as the tortoise and then you add five miles of tempo towards the end.”
The third and final level is what Long compares to becoming a jaguar. Now you are ready to go hard the whole way.
“Level three, you turn into a jaguar and the whole run is fast. An interval long run. You’re meeting the distance and the pace. Progress those as the year starts.”
His advice is cautiously ambitious. The key to improvement is a smart approach to mileage, gradual progression and varied stimuli. It’s a challenging but calculated way to elevate you run this season.