Episode 404: Do You Medium Long Run?

So then let's dig into it.

What is the medium long run? So we'll start with the what and the why.

What is the medium long run? It's ideally the second longest run of the week.

You build it to that anyway.

You're, you're building it to the second longest run of the week.

You know, there's a lot of programs that emphasize or prioritize doing two quality workouts, two speed workouts a week, and we would say, no, you need one speed workout, but your second dairy challenging run during the week should be a medium long run.

It's a run that builds, you know, up to probably 10 to 14 miles for our experienced athletes, might be 6 to 10 for those that are building and at lower mileage levels currently.

And so it's building to that higher level, becomes your second l- longest run of the week, and it's also typically an easy conversational run that's helping you build aerobic capacity just like the long run.

And as I said earlier, it's, it, I think, becomes this unsung hero of particularly marathon fitness, but really of any fitness, because you're getting that really rich, formative, aerobic ca- capacity building stimulus, especially in those later miles of the medium long run.

So that's the what, but what, what's the why? What would you say is the purpose of that run?

You know, um, I think, like, to back up, it's rooted in a lot of what we talked about, um, um, last week about the long run, but everything about distance training has to do with oxygen out of the sky, into the lungs, into the muscles.

Um, you know, if you were to ever just s- oversimplify and say, "What am I doing when I'm training?" It, like the, the, the best answer I think there that's the most simple is teaching my legs how to get oxygen.

Like, that's the name of the game, and so that's why we have so much emphasis on aerobic base building.

So then the more, uh, uh, uh, I think a simple logic flow that I could present here would be like, okay, well then if we have an opportunity, we know we're giving them the quality, that's gonna change things biochemically, muscularly, all of that.

Um, and we also have the long run, and we're hitting it there, so then why this...

It's like we have that third day, and you were comparing to the people who do double qualities, et cetera.

For us, we're saying, "Can I get a second stressor?" I like the word stressor 'cause you stress the body, let it heal, it gets stronger.

And so it's like that secondary stressor, what do we want it to be? W- that fork in the road, we answer, well, we want to further support aerobic development.

And so we're going to pick the stress that takes them a little bit longer and emphasize this concept of a medium long run to get that secondary hit.

Because it's not only in that run that you're getting benefit, but also because that run is taxing in that way, y- your, y- the rest of your week or wherever it fits in, it, it, it raises the overall stress load for the total week combined.

And so I think we've always landed on this idea of, like, the medium long run is so important, um, and it needs to be emphasized 'cause it's a secondary stressor for the endurance component, the aerobic component, the getting the oxygen to the working muscles.

Yep.

And at a minimum, I think, in this conversation about what's more important, you know, you, you talked about the long run and the quality.

I mean, the medium long run is kind of the third leg of the stool-

Mm-hmm