Sunday Long Run: 40,000 Steps

Short Sunday Long Run Thoughts For The Newcomers!

40,000 steps. That’s how many steps you will take over the course of a marathon.

If you believe in the law of compounding effect, the second half-20,000 are an order of magnitude more impactful than the first half by at least ~2x. For those at home not so great at math, that’s 40k quickly turning into, and feeling like, 60,000 total.

Mitigating the effects of each progressive step in your race should be a top priority for any runner, no matter if you are running a 2:30 marathon or 4:30. The idea behind the how and why stays the same.

Why?: So you don’t bonk in the last 10K of your marathon.

How?:

Forget about the word cardio. You can have the “cardio” to go the distance but that doesn’t mean your legs are ready. (ie think about having to ride a bike for the time it takes you to run a marathon, at a similar effort level. Much easier, because you have the “cardio”, but less stress on the legs.)

When you’re training for your a race you can’t just look at your long runs progressing. A common question in marathon training is “what is your long run at?”

That matters, but you need to stack weekly miles first and foremost. You can get away with running ~3-4 times a week and get to an 18 mile long run, which is perfectly fine cardio to get across the line. But when it comes to race day and you need to go 26, your legs are going to be hurting down the stretch.

+ Read the ‘Art of the Long Run’ to get a better idea of what I am talking about.

The last 10,000 steps of your race is going to max pain if you do the bare minimum, and you’ll probably end up walking. Get used to stacking consecutive days of 10-15k steps leading up and into your peak weeks. You need to be walking when not running, and you need your long run under 50% of totally weekly miles.

The only time you’re on your feet *cannot* be solely when you’re running. Going from bed—>desk—>run—>bed is a poor schedule. Time on feet is a requirement, whether it’s walking or strength training (lower body—link directly below), hours need to be accumulated on feet.

Cross Training As A Runner

To do this via running, making your long run to a lower % of your weekly mileage is the best way to force yourself to stack weekly miles and condition your legs. Ideally, keeping your long run in the range of 30-40% of *total weekly miles* is the gold standard. This is where the greatest gains are made in running. In order to do this, you may need to go from 3-4x running a week, to 5-6x a week.

Always increase frequency before intensity/volume. Example: go from running 4x a week, averaging 5 miles a run, to 6x a week, averaging ~4.5 miles a run (numbers used as an example). Get comfortable with a higher frequency over higher volume. This increases your total weekly hours on feet and “time in cardio” in a safe manner (versus bumping volume per run first).

In order to increase your time on feet, you have to decrease intensity. So if a previous normal 1-hour training run was 7 miles in distance, it is not 5.5-6. You will also notice your heart rate will take a large drop as well—this is where the real benefit is. In order to recover more quickly intra-day, we must put less stress on the body while maximizing output. To do this, we simply focus on hours and zone 1-2. It’s the only formula to be able to put large amounts of hours on your body while lowering the downside risks.

If you can get to 9+ hours of time on feet + cardio combined, there’s almost a guarantee of a back half negative split come race day. (Think of this as daily walks, normal daily activities, + dedicated running workouts.)

Conditioning your legs for the marathon distance is the hardest battle in training…getting the needed cardiovascular output is the easy part.

Happy Sunday!

—BTR