Long Slow Day Training
How Not to Prepare for the Biggest Endurance Session of the Week
Athletes targeting distance events may underestimate the value of long, slow training days. These days must be treated with respect to avoid common mistakes.
You’re now getting into the business end of your training. You’ve overcome the half-way doldrums and your goal is in sight, if maybe still several months away. The longest training session of the week has morphed from under an hour to more than 90 minutes.
It’s fairly easy to make these long sessions—the three hour run, the 21-kilometre indoor row or the long swim-bike-run combination—a total waste of time. Here are some (tongue-in-cheek, of course) tips on how to minimise the benefit of that long session.
1. Don’t Understand the Reason for the Training. Your family and friends will seek explanations for your long absences. Do not explain that you are teaching your body to convert fat to energy-producing glycogen, learning how to resist fatigue, pushing the boundary at which you will “bonk” on the bike or “hit the wall” in the marathon. Definitely don’t say you are learning how to move efficiently, or that long sessions will improve your recovery rate. No, if people ask why you are doing this, an answer along the lines of “because my training programme says so” will probably do.
2. Don’t Use the Sessions to Test Equipment and Nutrition. There’s plenty of time to work out the bits and pieces. Although it would be nice to know before race day if that energy gel makes you sick, the borrowed wetsuit is too tight, or your rings make your hands bleed on a long-distance row.
3. Don’t Learn How to Function Without the Clock. Olympic athletes need to focus every step of the way, right? Well yes, but for most mid-pack sportspeople, survival depends on cultivating an almost meditative state, a rhythm, at least for a good chunk of the event. If your eyes are always glued to your watch or training monitor for your long training sessions, you’re unlikely to have a relaxed mental attitude on the day.
A related counter-tip would be:
4. Don’t Practice Mental Tricks. Only weak-minded athletes need to learn things like dividing the course mentally and tackling it one chunk at a time, or choosing upbeat music for a marathon row, eh? Actually, provided you’ve done the physical work, well-practiced strategies to stay positive may make the difference to reaching your goal on the day. And everyone is different in terms of which “tricks” actually work.
5. Don’t Make A Careful Decision About Training with Friends or Alone. Yes, Sunday may always be the long run with the mates. But if on race day you will be tackling vast distances on a mountaintop alone, it might be an idea to get used to the experience ahead of time. The converse is also true—if you generally train alone and are facing a mass start with thousands of, for example, cyclists, it’s a good idea to practice some pack riding.
6. Do Have a Big Night Out the Day Before. This one is probably self-explanatory. The problem is, as we get fitter we tend to feel that we are bullet proof and can train regardless of prior-night alcohol consumption or lack of sleep. That may be true, but the effectiveness of the training is bound to be reduced. The best approach is moderation or a nice night in before a very long training session. Learn to get your sense of “weekend” from the exercise buzz.
7. Don’t Pack Food, Drink and Dry Clothes for After the Session. Possibly feeling a bit vague after observing counter-tip six, many new endurance athletes begin a long session with only water and the bus fare home. But even if home is only an hour away, you need to begin re-stocking nutrients right after your session if you want to recover well. And if you have pushed yourself to the physical limit, you’re not going to be a pleasant bus-passenger in wet gear. Packing a recovery bag is also good practice for race day.
You can see the common theme in these bits of counter-advice: if you regard the long session as “only training”, you are not going to get the best out of it. Among the many resources available, a couple that provide good information on this and other endurance training topics are Jon Ackland and Brett Reid’s book, The Power to Perform, Auckland: Reed Publishing, 1994 and 1996; and Advanced Marathoning, by Peter Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas, published by Human Kinetics in 2001. So read up, treat your long session with respect, and reap the rewards when you reach your goal event.
