It's not about fitness. The main benefits of back-to-back longs are a) time on feet and b) learning to run when you feel like dirt. Herron is an experienced ultrarunner, so she has nothing to learn from back to back longs.
Ultrarunner Camille Herron: Long runs are over rated.
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Marathons
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Hsjuycj
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Agree for road/flat ultras. For the mountains it is different and maybe that is why Camille has not been good there.
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So sick of pro runners giving advice to hobby joggers.We all know they are on a boatload of "supplements" making there training programs totally irrelevant to the average runner .Two totally different worlds with no overlap .
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Adoi wrote:
ultratrailbro wrote:
This is always the response.
Ultra runners love their long runs and back to backs. I honestly think some of them would still do them even if they found out they could actually hurt rather than help.
Personally, I agree with her. Even for me the average ultra runner only doing 50-60 average mpw I dont do over 20 miles and never do back to backs anymore and I am more fit, faster and dont end up at the starting line feeling drained.
Most people take up Ultra Running/MUT because they enjoy long adventure runs.
The sport seemingly gives them license to go and spend 4 hours+ running/hiking around trails, and to have it count toward something.
I don't think these people are totally driven by performance, and so, doing speedwork, intervals and tempo runs - though it may be more effective training - can be tedious for someone whose more into the adventure side of the sport.
Ultimately, people are going to do the things in training that they find most enjoyable.
This is a good point and that is one of the things that attracted me to the sport as well.
It also makes more sense to me that people are drawn to this type of training from a motivation perspective of what they enjoy or gives them 'bragging rights' and things like that than for pure performance or other things like 'time on feet' or 'learning to run on tired legs'. Anyone who has done ultras for a few years has learned to run on tired legs. And time on feet is going to be the same whether you do 10 hours of running split up across the week or do most of in 1 or 2 days.
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Blunt1 wrote:
So sick of pro runners giving advice to hobby joggers.We all know they are on a boatload of "supplements" making there training programs totally irrelevant to the average runner .Two totally different worlds with no overlap .
She's just describing what she does. She isn't telling you to do it too. Relax.
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The secret is quite simple: dimishing returns
After 2-2.5h of running you damage your body more than it is a training.
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Blunt1 wrote:
So sick of pro runners giving advice to hobby joggers.We all know they are on a boatload of "supplements" making there training programs totally irrelevant to the average runner .Two totally different worlds with no overlap .
Bitter because you suck at running?
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Tom Higgenson of the Plain White T\'s wrote:
Camille Herron is overrated.
Only on Let's Run would some idiot claim Camille Herron is overrated, just to stir up some sh:t. Multiple times over many years she has run 100 miles under 13 hours. Sub 8 minute miles x 100. Oh, you got a response, well done. Never mind.
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Camille Herron's training is focused on long runs, so the whole premise of this thread is a bit twisted. Ultra long training runs, that is anything over 2 hours probably aren't a good idea for most people, but that seems like common sense. Outside article below talks about how Camillr has been averaging 98 miles a week since 2007. Insane mileage.
Yiannis Kouros, in comparison, rarely went over 80 miles per week.Camille is outstanding at 24 hours and really long distances, but objectively her best result was her victory at the Comrades Marathon in 2017. That year there were 2,704 female finishers and she placed first. I'd guess that far fewer than 2,000 women have ever tried to seriously compete at the 24-hour distance.
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Interesting thread. I think it all comes down to what you can recover from. If you can't recover from a workout, then there is no point in doing it. If you get stronger from back to back 5-6 hour runs, then that is effective. But if you just end up having to chill for 1 + weeks after because you are too sore to do anything else, then you miss out other workouts.
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