HOW DOES STOPPING ON LONG RUNS AFFECT YOUR TRAINING?🤔

Podcast Episode #169 🎙

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PHYSIOLOGICALLY👇

➡️ The benefits are not as great if your heart rate drops too low on several stops throughout your run. Benefits for building running endurance occur when your heart rate is elevated and muscles are working for extended periods of time. If you are stopping for 10+ minutes on a two hour long run, you likely won’t reap as much benefit

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REASONS FOR STOPPING👇

✅ Feeling fatigued: If you're constantly stopping to take a breather on long runs, you're probably going too fast overall. You should be running your easy pace for the majority of your long runs!

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✅ Group runs: Know the structure of group runs before going! If your group is known to stop for long periods of time during runs, then pick a couple times a month to run with them instead of every single long run

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✅ Stoplights/traffic: Find a new route if you constantly need to stop on your runs due to stoplights/traffic (especially important for long runs)

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✅ Restroom: If you gotta go, you gotta go! This is a perfectly legitimate reason to stop

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✅ Practicing waterstops: Many runners will stop and/or walk at waterstops during races. You should practice this so you don’t get flustered bobbing and weaving while trying to continue running! You can still be very efficient by walking for 10-20 seconds through a waterstop

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OTHER HELPFUL FAQS👇

➡️ Designate one or two long runs a month where you treat it more like a race (at easy pace) and really work to decrease the stoppage time

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➡️ Don’t worry as much about your easy, shorter runs during the week. Having a few minutes of stoppage time during these runs is totally fine. Getting too strict with it could cause unnecessary anxiety!

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We hope this helps! 👍