Slow is Fast in Long Distance Running

Natural Lives

By Paul Pajo

LSD.

Long. Slow. Distance. Run.

You think you’re too slow to run? You think the distances in the races are too far? Then start joining us for our Loooong Slooow Distance Runs! We try to do it every Saturday and it’s usually more than two hours but less than three hours. It’s usually more than 15 kilometers but less than 32 kilometers. I could probably skip the weekday runs of 6 to 10 kilometers but I’d feel very bad if I missed on the long runs that the Pace Partners and the Running Freaks put on every Saturday morning starting from 5am. Once in a while Jay Em, who usually does the hydration and water station for major and big races here in Metro Manila, would do a crazy Saturday morning run from Taguig all the way to Taytay, Rizal. One time, we tried out his 4 hills, 10 mile (16 kilometer) hill run just at the back of where he lives in Serenity Gardens.

What’s so great about the LSD?

A lot of people are intimidated when they hear long distances like 20 kilometers from runners. What they don’t realize is that a lot of these runs are done at about 8-9.5 minutes/kilometer. You could actually walk these distances but for the sake of building endurance and also mentally preparing for the prospect of running for 3, 4, 5 or more hours (like you need to when you’re preparing for a half or a full marathon) then running very slowly for longer hours is a must.

It helps that some of the people I run with are ultramarathoners. One of them, Joshua Suarez, who ran the 102 kilometer Bataan Death March run this year insists that running at that pace – 8 minutes per kilometer – is essential to finishing distances more than the full marathon (42.195 kilometers). He explained that if your body isn’t used to running at the pace at that distance that you won’t be able find that “gear” on race time. I remember that he ran the Condura Full Marathon at that exact pace and finished just a few minutes shy of the 6 hour cut-off time. How did I learn this? Chatting up with him during our LSD runs. Normally, you won’t be able to chat up with people during race days or when they are doing fast training runs but when it’s an LSD, there’s a lot of time to talk as you put on more and more running mileage.

The funny thing was, as I was enjoying these LSD runs, I chanced upon an article by Phil Maffetone that Ironman Mark Allen uses to win his IronMan races. Very simply, Maffetone and Allen insists that training at a low heart rate continuously week after week using LSD actually makes you faster. You can actually check your improvements by measuring every three-four weeks to see if your pace is improving. How do I actually check my improvement? I don’t own a heart rate monitor at the moment so what I do is join races so I can check over official distances what my time is. My last race, Smiles for Miles, I ran a 1:46:23 for 16K at about less than 6.5 minutes/km – that’s the first time that I ever did a sub 6.5 pace in a race and I did it with a lot of water breaks, walks and runs at 8 min/km! Hey, this Maffetone method works!

The extra/bonus you get from an LSD aside from the fact that you get a chance to share and listen to stories during the run while getting your cardiovascular and aerobic workout is that you’re burning a lot of fat away. I read somewhere that anything beyond 30 minutes of exercise gets you into fat burning zone. There’s nothing like a good 16-18K run on a Saturday morning to get you on a feel-good buzz during the day. Want to try out an LSD? Just buzz me at twitter.com/pageman – see you at the next long, slow, distance run!