Plus, we explain how to pace, fuel, and gear up for your next long run.
By Ashley Mateo
Long runs serve as the cornerstone of any runner’s training plan. These essential workouts are necessary to help you build up your mileage gradually overtime so you can confidently run the distance you’re training for come race day.
Whether you’re gearing up for a 5K, half marathon, or a marathon, or just want to set aside one day of the week to log some extra kilometres, the long run is beneficial for both your overall fitness and your mental game.
However, if you haven’t full dove into the long run yet, or you’ve shied away from them for one reason or another, you may miss out on all the magic it has to offer. Enter: This guide on how to tackle the long run.
Why You Need Long Runs in Your Training Schedule
The benefit of running long—regardless of the distance you’re training for—is the aerobic gain you’ll make during those kilometres. “Long runs force the body to become more and more efficient,” says Ben Rosario, executive director of the Hoka NAZ Elite team in Flagstaff, Arizona. “The heart learns to pump higher amounts of blood with each stroke, which then carries more oxygen to the body.”
Aerobic (or endurance) running also strengthens your slow-twitch muscle fibres, which can fire repeatedly with minimal fatigue (compared to fast-twitch fibers, which are used during short, explosive efforts but fatigue more quickly). These fibers are also important because they’re full of capillaries, mitochondria, and myoglobin (an iron- and oxygen-binding protein), all of which are crucial to getting a steady supply of oxygen and energy to the muscles.
“Long runs force the body to create new capillaries, giving the oxygen a smoother and faster path to the mitochondria—a.k.a. the ‘power plant’ of the cells—where energy is produced and stored. And when we run for long periods of time, the size of those mitochondria increases, allowing them to produce and store more energy,” explains Rosario.
One of the other major benefits of the long run is how it teaches your body to use fat as fuel over carbs, says Joe McConkey, a Boston-based exercise physiologist and USATF-certified running coach. “That allows you to be more efficient with your different forms of energy, so you can run faster without depleting your reserves.”
Translation: The long run prepares your body to run more efficiently no matter the distance—even in a short race, when you need to produce energy and get oxygen sent throughout the body fast.
And you can’t overlook the mental angle: To prepare for the psychological challenge of racing for hours, you have to train for hours. Even if you’re not racing, a long run offers your mind the chance to tap into the ever-elusive runner’s high, and research shows running can boost your mood and improve your mental health.
What to Know Before You Start Regularly Doing Long Runs
A long run is, inherently, long. And the more time you spend on your feet, the more stress you put on your body. “The long run does ask a lot of our muscles, tendons, and ligaments due to the duration of exercise required for a run to be considered ‘long,’” says Rosario.
Generally, your cardiovascular system adapts to changes more quickly than your musculoskeletal system. So if you start running long before your body is prepared to run long, you could put yourself at an increased risk for injury, including overuse injuries like plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendonitis, runners’ knee, iliotibial band (ITB) syndrome, and shin splints.
“If you’re experiencing any little niggles or asymmetries before the long run, the long run will only make those worse with the thousands and thousands of steps you’re putting on your body,” says McConkey.
It’s super important to listen to your body and, if you feel like something is off during the long run, acknowledge that it may be more major than you think. “The only sensations you should feel during a long run are a slight challenge aerobically as it gets longer, and general fatigue or a sort of bilateral soreness,” he adds.
How to Determine the Distance of Your Long Run
There’s a huge amount of variation in how long a long run should be, depending on the type of runner you are.
Some coaches suggest long runs cover one-and-a-half to two times the distance of what you consider a normal-length run. Most experts, like Jack Daniels, agree that a long run be about 20 to 25 percent of your overall weekly mileage. So if you’re running 64 kilometres per week, your long run will be 12 to 16 kilometres.
“I typically don’t like the long run to be more than twice the length of a regular recovery run,” says McConkey.
According to the Road Runners Club of America, a long run technically isn’t a “long run” unless it’s over 90 minutes, so the exact distance depends on your running pace.
But your long-run distance becomes more specific if you’re training for a certain distance. Remember: You need to go further (and slower) in order to run faster at shorter distances.
Most experts recommend working up to the below peak long run for each distance:
- 5K: 8 to 9 kilometres for beginners; 16 to 19 kilometres for intermediate/advanced
- 8K/10K: 9 to 16 kilometres for beginners; 19 to 22 kilometres for intermediate/advanced
- Half marathon: 19 to 20 for beginners; 25 to 28 for intermediate/advanced
- Marathon: 28 to 35 for beginners; 28 to 48 for intermediate/advanced
Yes, some of those distances are longer than the race itself. “But logging those kilometres shows you’ve spent enough time at sub-max speeds to allow the necessary aerobic adaptations to happen,” he explains.
The Gear You Need for Long Runs
Running is a pretty simple sport in terms of gear, but when you start clocking runs that last more than 90 minutes, there are some things you’ll want with you beyond a good pair of shoes and clothes you know are comfortable.
The most important addition is a way to carry fuel and hydration, whether that’s a running belt, a handheld water bottle, or a hydration pack. You can also use this as a way to carry a phone, credit card or cash in case of an emergency.
Your might also want to wear headphones to play music or a podcast to keep you from getting bored while you’re running long.
How to Fuel for the Long Run
“If your long run is longer than 90 minutes in duration, you’ll want to make sure you’re carrying electrolytes [and carbs] in the form of a drink or gel,” says Rosario.
The 90-minute cutoff is so important because, “if you don’t fuel properly, after 90 minutes—and especially after two hours or more—you’ll start depleting your glycogen stores,” explains Rosario. “Glycogen equals energy. If you’re not replacing what you’re losing through prolonged exercise, you could run out of energy.” That’s what runners call bonking or hitting the wall.
In general, runners should take in 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrates per hour during a long run. McConkey recommends consuming some kind of fuel every 15 minutes or so, alternating between a liquid and solid form.
Speaking of liquids, even minor dehydration leads to a reduction in endurance performance, as well as a higher rate of perceived exertion.
If you’re training for longer than an hour, you should be drinking anywhere from 680 to 907 grams per hour of your run (sipping sporadically, not chugging in one go). You can actually calculate how much fluid you need per hour by weighing yourself before and after an hour of running sans water; each pound of weight loss is approximately equal to 453g of fluid deficit.
How to Pace Long Runs
No matter the distance, your long run should be run at an easy pace, says McConkey. We will repeat: easy pace!
What does that translate to? It’ll be different for every runner, but an easy pace should fall on the lower end of the rate of perceived exertion scale. Your heart rate should be 50 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate, and you should be breathing naturally and able to hold a conversation effortlessly.
“I advise people to run as slow as possible, as long as it’s mechanically comfortable,” McConkey explains. “I challenge people to not look at pace until they’re done, but just focus on something comfortable. You shouldn’t feel like you’re doing slow-motion single-leg squats; there should still be some spring to your step.”
That pace is going to change as your fitness changes. “When you develop more strength and running efficiency, you’ll be able to run faster at the same RPE or heart rate,” says McConkey.
For shorter distances, long runs can generally be slow and enjoyable, says Rosario. But half marathoners and marathoners (at least those with some experience!) may want to approach their long runs with a little more structure.
“Half marathoners and marathoners, in my opinion, should be adding faster-paced running into their long runs: things like alternating fast-pace and medium-pace kilometres, surging for two minutes at the beginning of each kilometre, or simply running the last 5K of their long run fast,” says Rosario.
This can help train your legs to get used to running fast even with lots of kilometres on them—and that will help at the end of races.
How to Recover After a Long Run
You may run your long run at an easier pace, but the sheer amount of time you’re spending on your feet warrants more rest and recovery.
For starters, “the quicker an athlete can replenish after a long run, the sooner they will recover,” says Rosario. “Shoot for a mix of carbs and protein, preferably at a 4:1 carbs to protein ratio—that particular ratio has been shown in labs to be the most effective at replenishing muscle glycogen stores and thus limiting muscle damage.”
McConkey recommends taking the day off after a long run. “Instead of running, just walk around for 20 to 30 minutes and spend 10 minutes on a foam roller to open up your body,” he says. “Those two things can really expedite recovery.”
There are also plenty of other trendy recovery modalities for you to choose from, but ultimately you should do what works best for you as there’s conflicting research on exactly which methods are most effective.
For example, in small study published in Frontiers in Physiology foam rolling postrun resulted in acute alleviation of inflammation and greater blood flow in half marathon runners. However, the study authors noted the effects of foam rolling only lasted for 30 to 60 minutes postrun.
Compression boots may also provide you with some relief as a systematic review and meta-analysis published in Biology in Sport in 2024 suggests it might reduce perceived muscle soreness. The review highlights 20 to 30 minutes of about 80 mmHg of pressure to be the most used option to optimize recovery among the 17 studies reviewed.
You can also look to ice baths for some relief. A systematic review and meta-analysis published in Frontiers in Physiology in 2023 notes cold water immersion resulted in declined delayed-onset muscle soreness and perceived exertion in the 20 studies reviewed. The group of researchers recommend athletes immerse in cold water immediately after exercise, and note it can help reduce muscle soreness and accelerate fatigue recovery.
Most importantly, prioritize a good night’s sleep—research from 2019 in the International Journal of Sports Medicine argues it may be the single most important factor in exercise recovery. After all, that’s where the real recovery magic happens: when your body truly has time to rest and rebuild.
