Managing back-to-back long runs

Eat, sleep, and repeat

Every marathoner knows the importance of the 20-mile long run in their training plan. In addition to being a great challenge, the 20-miler is also a valuable teaching tool. It can build confidence in yourself and your strategy, as well as alert you to details you need to tighten up before race day. 

With ultras, things get a little more complicated because it’s practically difficult to cover 75 percent of your race distance in one training session. Yet, one could run those miles over two days with back-to-back long runs of, say, 26 miles on a Friday and 18 more on a Saturday. 

In theory, stacking long runs on consecutive days teaches your body how to run on tired legs. They also provide an opportunity to nail down multiple facets of race day strategy from pacing to fueling, to what you’re going to wear for 12+ hours. As an added benefit, running long on consecutive days will test your mental toughness in a way no single training run can do on its own.  

In practice, however, back-to-back long runs can destroy your body because they introduce a tremendous amount of physical and emotional stress. They’re also time consuming (duh), which places an even larger burden on the runner’s family who is starting to get a little tired of all this running. 

Choosing to include back-to-back long runs in your training is a question of risk/reward wrapped around your ability to run, recover, and repeat without breaking your body or losing your mind. Here’s how I did it.