Bull Session 2: The Long Run

Over 200 runners showed up for Bull Session 2 at Bonifacio High Street earlier this morning.

- Photo courtesy of Craig Allan -

Bull Sessions head coach, Lit Onrubia, gave a talk on long runs to prepare TBR Dream Marathoners early on in their training.

LIT’S KEY POINTS:

The LSD (Long, slow distance): putting increasingly larger building blocks in place to support you through 42k.

Emphasis on the “L” and the “S”. L = We start at 50mins and we build to 30k. S = slower than marathon pace.
How slow is “slow”? 55-75secs/km slower than marathon pace, especially once your LSD starts going longer than 14k.
Why run slow? Bec you get the same endurance benefit but lessen injury risk and receovery time compared to a faster run.

Do’s and Don’ts:

Don’t run the day before or the day after an LSD. Rest and recover. If you need to exercise, do something “non-running”.
Don’t use the LSD as a race rehearsal (i.e. running LSD at marathon pace). There’s a time and place for that and the race rehearsal gets longer for experienced runners (i.e. those who’ve been running for over a year and have done three 21Ks).
Don’t ignore the walk breaks at the early stages of your run. The more you bank early, the more you’ll have later on.

5 Marathon Books that Lit Recommends:

Then, we were off on a 55 minute run following the TBR Dream Marathon Training Program by Coach Jim Lafferty.

We split up into 4 groups and applied the run-walk technique with varying intervals per group.

We were like a mini-race with Gatorade stations at both the start and midway point of our run.

We ended with a cool down led by Coach John Lozada.

No better way to cover the long runs than with fellow future marathoners, right? It was great fun. Until the next time!

- with TBRDM Batch 2 alumni “Kots Mike” and Macel, volunteer pacer Miriam, Jun, and Lit -

Posted on 11.12.11 to 01 Bullish Insights. Tags: Bull Session. Subscribe to follow comments on this post. 13 comments. Add your thoughts or trackback from your own site.

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13 Responses to “Bull Session 2: The Long Run”

Hi, Ms. Jaymie and fellow runners. I was a bit late, so I have a lot of questions. Just to clarify, are the weekend long runs in our program the LSD runs? So, we should run it slower than the marathon pace?

Also, another bagito question, how do you compute (?) for pace? I completely spaced out and got confused when Coach Lit whipped out the chart. Does a 6:30 pace on 3:1 or 4:1 run/walk interval seen as 6 mins and 30 seconds PER kilometer? Do we need to buy gadgets to monitor this? Thanks (and sorry for the barrage of questions).

Bianx said on Nov 13 11 at 1:35 PM Reply
- Argh, grammar and confusion. Can’t resist. –> I think I meant: Does a pace of 6:30 on a run with a 3:1 or 4:1 run/walk interval mean that you average out 6 minutes and 30 seconds per kilometer?
  
  Bianx said on Nov 13 11 at 1:39 PM Reply
- Hi Bianx! From what I understand, our weekend runs are supposed to be LSD runs. So yes, we should run it slower than our planned marathon pace. For instance, finishing a 42K in just under 5hrs means an average pace of 7min/K. LSD pace should be 55-75 seconds slower than this, or roughly 8min/K during training.
  
  As for the pace groups, you’re right, the average pace should ideally be maintained every kilometer, but a bit of variance is tolerable. I know runners who get by without fancy gadgets, though having a GPS tracker does help.
  
  scout said on Nov 14 11 at 9:29 AM Reply
  - Thanks so much, scout! The answer’s very helpful. I just don’t know how to monitor my pace, so I’ll look around/ask around as to how I can do that. Thanks again!
    
    Bianx said on Nov 14 11 at 10:30 PM
  - It’s easier if you know the distance of your route. For example, a track oval is 400m per loop while the UP Diliman academic oval is 2.2K. Based on your time and total distance covered, you can compute for your speed/pace. For other irregular routes, I used to make rough estimates based on Google Maps using the scales on the lower left-hand corner. Kanya-kanyang diskarte, I guess.
    
    scout said on Nov 15 11 at 9:11 AM
im so jealous lol will attend the succeeding meetings and trainings starting on Wednesday

ydaletihw said on Nov 14 11 at 10:13 AM Reply
- I was set to join this bull session but I woke up at 6am. damn. I miss this very important session. I just ran within our village to compensate.
  
  i miss a lot of things especially Sir Lit’s advices.
  
  Hi Ms. Jaymie, I have a question, do we have an email group where we can collaborate with each other? Or a facebook group?
  
  Renz said on Nov 14 11 at 5:41 PM Reply
  - Hi Renz! Join the batch on Facebook!
    
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/TBR-Dream-Marathoner-Batch-2012/293849387308328
    
    scout said on Nov 15 11 at 8:59 AM
Hi Ms Jaymie! When I ran for 55 mins at the bull session, something struck me in the Don’ts: dont run the day before or the day after LSD. But the thing is some of us (including me) are participants for Run United 3 a day after the Bull Session. Result: I have a fever now. Hehe. Same thing happened last bull session, it eas sched a day before KOTR. So we have no choice but to violate that particular DONT rule. Hoping for good schedules of Bull sessions next year

Mars said on Nov 14 11 at 10:59 AM Reply
- I couldn’t agree more! I ran in RU3 also after the bull session. I think I should reach a certain fitness level first before running consecutive LSDs, haha! I have colds and a sore throat at the moment. I hope it won’t get worse! Get well soon, batchmate!
  
  Bianx said on Nov 14 11 at 10:27 PM Reply
  - Thanks Bianx! I was absent 2 days straight from work but I feel much better now. Yup Ive certainly hit the wall and Im trying to recover =) I hope you did well @ RU3 =D
    
    Mars said on Nov 16 11 at 12:53 PM
  - I got colds and sore throat too and has been suffering for more than a week now. But i still run. I always feel better after the run.
    
    Renz said on Nov 16 11 at 1:20 PM
sayang talaga…chanced upon TBR too late..missing on the invaluable knowledge and actual trainings

vicoy said on Dec 14 11 at 5:34 PM Reply