long runs: 15 mile rule



B

Bear G

Guest
At a marathon prep lecture last night Bobby McGee
(www.bobbymcgee.com) mentioned a "15 mile rule." Basically you
can do a training run up to 15 miles without special preparation
or recovery and can run another 15 miles the next week without
problem.

Over 15 miles you need an explicit recovery period and another 15+
run the following week is out.

It sounded like time isn't a factor. Some people can do this in
90 minutes and shouldn't run longer, others will take 3 hours and
that's not a problem.
 
On 2004-09-25, Bear G <[email protected]> wrote:
> At a marathon prep lecture last night Bobby McGee
> (www.bobbymcgee.com) mentioned a "15 mile rule." Basically you
> can do a training run up to 15 miles without special preparation
> or recovery and can run another 15 miles the next week without
> problem.
>
> Over 15 miles you need an explicit recovery period and another 15+
> run the following week is out.
>

Looks like I'm a naughty boy, I usually do 16-18.

Just like any other "rule", you can ignore it if you like.

He's probably trying to make the point that if you're training for a
marathon, you shouldn't necessarily do your 20-22 milers every week.

> It sounded like time isn't a factor. Some people can do this in
> 90 minutes and shouldn't run longer, others will take 3 hours and
> that's not a problem.

One of the problems with "rules" is that they also appear to implicitly
grant permission. For example, the "10% rule" which says no more than a
10% increase per week allows you to double your milage in 8 weeks.

It's generally important to avoid interpreting guidelines as permission
to do something dumb.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/
 
Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
> Looks like I'm a naughty boy, I usually do 16-18.

Every week?

> He's probably trying to make the point that if you're training for a
> marathon, you shouldn't necessarily do your 20-22 milers every week.

Yes, and speaking to his audience. He knew there were a lot of
first-time marathoners present who would like to maintain their
fitness over the winter. I planned to follow something similar
the BoulderFit schedule (e.g., 15-10-13-11-18, weather permitting)
after recovery but people following other programs might be more
aggressive.

> One of the problems with "rules" is that they also appear to implicitly
> grant permission. For example, the "10% rule" which says no more than a
> 10% increase per week allows you to double your milage in 8 weeks.

I went from 4 mile long runs to 13 in three months, injury free.
But my weekday mileage held constant at 10-12 miles so the total
mileage less than doubled. Even that was a... challenge.
 
On 2004-09-25, Bear G <[email protected]> wrote:
> Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
>> Looks like I'm a naughty boy, I usually do 16-18.
>
> Every week?

Yeah. Sometimes I'll do 14 or 15, but I'd consider that on the short
side. For me, 18 takes about 2:10, and 16 is under 2hrs.

My rule of thumb is that a typical long run should be around 2hrs at most,
but I don't sweat it if I'm a few minutes over that. I think the usual rule
of thumb for long runs is 1.5-2hrs.

The longest I go for is about 2:30 or so, with some of my marathon-training
friends, but I only do about one of those beasts a month.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/
 
Bear G wrote:
> At a marathon prep lecture last night Bobby McGee (www.bobbymcgee.com)
> mentioned a "15 mile rule." Basically you can do a training run up to
> 15 miles without special preparation or recovery and can run another 15
> miles the next week without problem.
>
> Over 15 miles you need an explicit recovery period and another 15+ run
> the following week is out.
>
> It sounded like time isn't a factor. Some people can do this in 90
> minutes and shouldn't run longer, others will take 3 hours and that's
> not a problem.

Since it was in a "marathon prep" lecture, is it a correct assumption
that it was oriented toward people that had gradually built up to 15
mile long runs over months and may be doing 30+ mpw. For curiosity, what
weekly mileage or time did this training pgm peak out at and how often?
Just curious.

Just in case a newbie reads this and thinks that this says it's ok to do
a 14-mile run every week with no prep or recovery (which is the way I
read it), regardless of your training and buildup, "listening to your
body" may be a more general rule that might be a better guideline to
avoid injury. Just a thought.

Dot
who likes the simple guidelines

--
"So many people get stuck in the routine of life that their dreams waste
away. This is about living the dream." - Cave Dog
 
Dot wrote:
> Since it was in a "marathon prep" lecture, is it a correct assumption
> that it was oriented toward people that had gradually built up to 15
> mile long runs over months and may be doing 30+ mpw. For curiosity, what
> weekly mileage or time did this training pgm peak out at and how often?
> Just curious.

There were people from different programs there, and at least one
guy who's run more than 10. BoulderFit/USA had weekly mileages in
the high 20s for a slow runner like me. I think BBTC (which
trains for both Boulder and CIM) is higher but I don't know by how
much. As I've mentioned elsewhere USAFit is a program geared to
take light runners to the next level, not one for serious runners
looking to better their BQ times. It's also not uptight about the
times - I usually ran about 20 minutes longer than the scheduled
times.

Most (all?) of our coaches have run Boston or are serious triathletes.

> Just in case a newbie reads this and thinks that this says it's ok to do
> a 14-mile run every week with no prep or recovery (which is the way I
> read it), regardless of your training and buildup, "listening to your
> body" may be a more general rule that might be a better guideline to
> avoid injury. Just a thought.

Definitely. I was following up to an earlier discussion on the
length of long runs.
 
As long as you've gradually worked up into it.
Running 15 miles when longest run this year was 5 or 10 miles will
make you very sore.
 
>As long as you've gradually worked up into it.
>Running 15 miles when longest run this year was 5 or 10 miles will
>make you very sore.

No it'd make RR's idiotic moron Ricj sore, but it may not make you sore. Try it
and see. Ignore the monkee.
 
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