Going out and running the same route and the same slow pace every week for your long run can become boring. Trail running is too great an activity to allow boredom to steal your motivation. Luckily there are ways to be able to add some variety to long runs out on the trails.
The way to add variety to long trail runs is to pick routes that combine different terrains like hills or different surfaces. If you don’t have hills or varied surfaces, you can do parts of your long trail run at different paces to tax your body in new ways.
Let’s take a closer look at what you can do during your next long run to prevent any boredom.
How To Add More Variety To A Long Trail Run
If you have ever looked at a training program for trail runners, or for that matter a training program for half marathon/marathon runners you will likely have seen that each weekend the running coach prescribes going out and doing a long run.
However, if you head out and do the same long run every weekend, doing long slow distances there’s a chance that your long runs can start becoming boring. This is especially true when you are running at a really slow pace on your own for two, three, or more hours at a time.
One way to be able to keep the interest level and excitement of heading out and doing a long run is by adding some degree of variety into all of these runs. What we going to take a look at here are ways that you can keep your long run interesting. Keeping your long runs interesting makes it more compelling for you to head out each week and do your long run.
Most Trail Runners Struggle With Endurance
I struggle with endurance as do the majority of tail runners struggle with endurance. This is especially true for those of us who have come to the activity of running relatively later in life. Not all of us were able to start at the age of 12 or 13 with distance running and progress through to longer distances on the track as well as running cross-country during each winter.
When it comes to getting better at trail running it’s building our endurance that will make us into faster runners way quicker than anything else. Just about all of us can run at a relatively quick pace for about 10 seconds or maybe even 30 seconds. But it is a lack of endurance that prevents us from keeping that relatively quick pace going for 30 minutes, an hour, or even longer.
What Is A Long Run For A New Trail Runner
I often hear the question asked about what a long run actually is and whether a long run needs to be double-digit distances. Does a long run need to be 15 miles or 20 miles minimum to even be considered a long run?
The answer quite simply is none of these are true. Whatever your current level of fitness, a long run will be the longest run that you do each week. Therefore, as your fitness begins to improve the distances of your long run will begin to extend.
At the same time, if you’re brand new to running your long run could be 30 or 45 minutes in length. That is completely OK because, at your level of fitness and strength, it will be a long run for you. If your long run is a relatively short distance at the moment, stick with it and keep running. The distance of your long run will progress as you become a more proficient and fit runner.
Why Is A Weekly Long Run So Important
The reason why it’s so important to do a weekly long run is in order for endurance to build, a runner needs to build upon what they’ve done before. For that to happen we need to have a degree of consistency within our training so that our endurance is able to improve.
If you only do a long run very sporadically there will be no fitness transfer to your endurance levels, or for that matter, your overall fitness.
It is by being consistent and doing a long run every week, if at all possible, that we are able to make the biggest improvements in our overall fitness and endurance as trail runners.
Must A Long Run Be On The Weekend
I always used to think that a long run had to be over a weekend and this was my personal downfall when I was training for the Xterra Triathlon National Championship a decade ago.
My coach told me that the reason why it was so important to do a long run over the weekend was that my race day would be on a weekend. Therefore having my long run on the same day of the week as the race would help to condition my body to be facing an endurance test on that specific day.
However, what I learned the hard way was that it was more important to complete a long run each week than what day of the week that long run was. In my case, a Wednesday or a Thursday would have been a far more beneficial day to do my long run.
At the time I was self-employed with a home office and had about 4 hours between sunrise and when I started work. Therefore I would have been able to set aside sufficient time to get my long run done on a weekday rather than keep my entire midweek training to short runs and leave the long run to a weekend that was filled with family commitments.
So, if you are like I was back then and have family commitments demanding your time over the weekend, choose any day during the week as the day to do your long run. The most important factor here is that you get a long run done each week.
Variations Of The Long Run
As we become more proficient in our running we will want to start adding some variety to our weekly long run. At the same time, just getting out on the trails for an hour or two hours at a nice slow comfortable pace will be beneficial to our endurance fitness. So, if you are still new to trail running, don’t worry too much about mixing things up until you are fit enough to be able to cope with the extra exertion.
The Roller Coaster Hilly Long Run
The first variation for a long run that I’ll talk about is the one that I do the most often. My reason just happens to be because I live in a small village high in the mountains. This type of long run is called the roller coaster hilly long run.
What this means is that you pick a route for your long run that incorporates much hilly terrain as possible. The bigger the variety between short/long/gentle/steep hills the better. Basically, the idea is that if at all possible, your entire long run will involve going either uphill or downhill.
As I mentioned earlier, I live in a small mountain village and every single trail around our village is either uphill or downhill. It is just about impossible to find more than a couple of hundred yards of flat trail within a 10-mile radius of here.
The Fartlek Long Run
If you live on slightly flatter terrain than I do, then you can do a fartlek long run. This is different from the fartlek speed session.
During the last 4 or 5 miles of your long run, you do a couple of pickups where you increase your pace for approximately 30 seconds. I’m not talking about sprinting, just saying increase your pace to half-marathon or 10k speed and then hold that pace for approximately 30 seconds before slowing all the way back down to your gentle running pace.
What this does is teaches you what it feels like to hold those different paces when your legs are already tired. I find it a very useful exercise to really dial in the types of paces that I run for these different events.
The Progression Long Run
Another very reaction of the long run is the progression long run. This is where you split your long run into quarters and pick a designated pace that you want to run each of those quarters where each quarter of your long run is marginally faster than the preceding quarter.
At no time do you ramp up your speed to be running really fast – not even for the fourth quarter of your long run. Keep the pace relatively easy all the way, just make each quarter slightly faster so that you can develop a feel for running at these different paces.
The Later Progression Long Run
In order to do a later progression long run you will need smooth trails for the second half of your run. Don’t do this on technical rocky trails. I did that and tripped over rocks every time.
For this variation, do the whole first half of your trail run at your slow relaxed pace. Then, from the halfway point, increase your pace by 5 seconds each mile until the end.
By way of example, if you’re running at a 10 minutes mile per pace as your slow, relaxed pace when you get to the second half of your long run you’ll do one mile at a 9-minute 55-second pace. Then continue the progression with a mile at 9 minutes 50 seconds followed by another at 9 minutes 45 seconds, and so on for the remainder of your long run.