Longest distance

[JuanJoFitbit]

Hi guys! I know that we have great athletes and Fitbiters in the Fitbit Community.

What's the longest distance you have achieved during a running activity? I'm not a professional runner but my longest distance was 15k 2 years ago. Do you guys have any tips to share in order to achieve a longer distance?

See you around! 😀

[shipo]

If you're looking to extend your ability to run distance, research Long Slow Distance (aka. LSD), it works wonders and has been proven effective since its inception in the 1920s (yes, nearly 100 years ago).  Here's a good starting point:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_slow_distance

Using some of my history as an example, back in 2013, after 10 years of limited running (due to a leg which was so badly broken the surgeon who screwed me back together told me I'd never run again), I found myself in my mid-50s, 80 pounds overweight, and in such poor condition it took me over 45 minutes to walk a 5K event my company was participating in that year.  I started running again, bit by tiny little bit, with a quarter of a mile distance as my first few runs, I began to feel comfortable and then started extending things.  Within two months I was typically running three to four miles at a stretch, and two months after that I was running on average 40+ miles per week.  My first real clue things were changing was when I attended a get-together of coworkers from the company I'd left early that year, four of them walked right past me and didn't recognize me.

A month after I'd had dinner with my former coworkers, I got a cryptically worded E-Mail from one of my new coworkers stating he was looking for someone to join his son's 6-person relay team, and given the stated distance was 36-miles I said, "Hey, I can run six miles!", and I signed up.  When the team van picked me up two mornings later I got the real story, it wasn't a 36-mile relay, it was a 205-mile relay where each person runs "about" 36-miles within a 24-hour period.  Then I looked around, I was 56 years old at the time and the next oldest person on my team was 31, yikes!  They took pity on me and gave me one of the shortest leg sets of "only" 33-miles, however, it did feature over 2,000' of climbing.  The good news was I wasn't the slowest on the team.  🙂

After that event I started dialing up my mileage, just for kicks and grins; here are a few high points of the next 4 years (prior to my third, and most recent broken leg, more on that later):

• The summer when I was 57 I logged 105 miles in one week, in spite of the fact the day-time temperatures were between 97° and 101° on four of those days.
• The fall when I was 57 I ran my first ever half marathon on a day up in the low 80° range; final time was 1:42.
• The spring when I turned 58 featured a number of 18-mile runs and a 22-miler, just for kicks and giggles.
• Late summer when I was 59 I logged a 1:36 half marathon on a beautifully cool fall-like day up in the mountains of northern New Hampshire.
• That same fall my boss roped me into a fitness challenge and I logged 350-miles in October and then followed that up with 325-miles in November.

The year I turned 60 I was looking forward to racing in a new age group, however, the bottom fell out of my running; as I've chronicled elsewhere here, I had to work my way through pneumonia, then a badly fractured big toe, then a torn tendon on one foot, then my aforementioned broken leg, and finally COVID (and associated systemic swelling of my joints) last year.  I'm now 64 and am practicing LSD for the umpteenth time in my life starting back this last December, once again at a quarter of a mile and worked up from there.  I haven't decided whether I'm going to run today, but I've already managed just over 100 miles for the month, so I might take a day off.  As for distance, I'm typically running three or four times per week these days, and whenever I feel frisky, I force myself to slow down and go for longer distance, I've managed 10.2-miles twice in the last two weeks.  I might shoot for 12 or more next weekend.  🙂

[t.parker]

@shipo this is incredibly impressive! 😲 Lots of things to be proud of! I have been running since 2017 so not that long. Before, I couldn't even run 100m without needing to reach for my asthma inhaler. I was about to train for my first marathon distance but then my right knee got injured and had to stop running for about a year. Back then my best running distance was about 16km (which also shows how stupid I was thinking I could run a marathon without building a solid base). The break I took from running was very refreshing. I took a step back and re-learned how to run. My physio was a great help, as it's not only that he helped to fix my knee but gave me plenty of hints about running. I started to rebuild my distance from 3km (3km was when my knee started to give up) and going up but with better form, cadence, conservation of energy, etc. Over a year of proper training, I learned to control my bad knee and I got my marathon distance done. Still, injury prevention comes always first and I'd make my run shorter rather than final 😉 I'm happy for now with doing half-marathons and I'm hoping to improve further (distance, pace). I'm 40 and I know that I'm not gonna get any younger so I'm happy with my current achievements.

[shipo]

Thanks @t.parker, here's the thing about LSD which escapes lots of folks, including many running coaches; while muscles, lungs, and circulatory systems develop relatively quickly, one's bones, joints, and connective tissue develops much more slowly, or as my Indian friends would say, "...slowly, and slowly, and slowly...".  By concentrating on LSD you don't overly stress the systems which develop at a slower rate while at the same time giving them they stimulus and stress they need to trigger development.  Many folks focus on running a 5K as fast as they can, so they never run any other distances once they hit the 5K threshold, and as their pace picks up, they get injured, with the knees being most common.  However, if that same person had continued extending their distance to say, 6, 8, 10, 15, and ultimately 20+ kilometers, they would have avoided (or lessened) the injuries which are associated with getting back into shape.

So where does the speed come in?  That is kind of my on personal spin on the LSD thing, and when I was coaching I used it to great effect; I call my training model, "Modified LSD".  Basically one adheres to the strictures of LSD until they are comfortable running long and slow for at least twice the miles of their target race.  Using someone targeting a 5K race for a best time run, until they are able to comfortably run 10 kilometers at a slow and easy pace at least 4 times per week, just keep things slow and easy.  Once the 4x per week thing has been achieved, start dialing up the speed for the final half kilometer of the 10K run.  Then start dialing it up for the last kilometer, then the last 2 kilometers; you get the idea.

What Modified LSD does is allow you to safely train and build speed at the same time.  In most cases, for both myself and those I've coached, the concept of "Negative Splitting" becomes a reality; prior to using this training model, many of those I've coached simply expected to go to a race and have their first split as their fastest split (regardless of whether the "split" was a kilometer, mile, 5k, whatever...).  What I've noticed almost universally, is folks who train with Modified LSD get faster as the race goes along, this in turn means each split is faster than the previous one.  Using one individual as an example, he'd been running 5K races for three years before I joined the company; at that point his personal best was right about 33:00 with his first kilometer being by far the fastest and his last kilometer being by far his slowest.  True to form, for our first several training runs as a group, he'd be waaaaay out in front after only a kilometer, but by the 3K mark, we'd not only reeled him in, but left him in our wake.  Once he finally decided to try starting slow, he got with the program and his first race, only a month after I started coaching him, he improved his best time to just over 30:00 (he was disappointed because he wanted to break the half-hour barrier).  Two weeks later he ran a 5K in just under the half hour mark, and by the end of the season he had clocked several races in the 27-minute range; knocking roughly 6 minutes off his time.

[geobeck]

(Jaw drops)

That's an inspiring story, and a great distance/speed building technique. I'm in my early 50's, and a little worried about my heart, so it's great to hear from someone who has overcome considerable adversity to achieve some amazing goals. 

I think I'll try adapting the LSD technique to my cycling. I'm about to move from a flat city (Edmonton) to a hilly city (Vancouver), and plan to continue my cycle commute, and LSD seems like a technique that would help keep my energy up by the end of my route, even if I'm not pushing for speed as much as I would in a race.

[shipo]

@geobeck, thanks!  Honestly, I'd never considered LSD for cycling, but just as honestly, I don't see why such a training technique wouldn't be as effective as it is with running.  If you wouldn't mind, I'd love it if you were to drop in here from time to time and give us an update on your progress. 

[Heybales]

I'd throw the Maffetone method into that approach too.

Really need those base miles to be calm. And indeed works on bike. Though personally I have too much fun on bike and could never slow down enough to make it happen, any hills makes auto-intervals that are hard to avoid.

My longest distance has been the 4 marathons, last 2 were after 70.3 triathlons in Sep, so training was really for half-marathon, and only 2 months to increase the mileage until Nov races, with a 1 month event in Oct to increase the bike up to a century first, so basically 1 month after the bike focus to get the miles up.

I became the master of endurance with minimal training and to avoid injury. Boy was the fall busy.

I believe the bike helped immensely in that respect to help the cardio system, but save the joints. And base miles.

Outside that I followed the advice of no more than 10% increase to weekly mileage, which was always the long run. 14 miles was maintained after the 70.3 until the century so as not to lose that. So then 16.4, 18, and 19.8 for the last 3 weeks. 

And the advice you don't really need more than 3.25 hrs or 18-20 miles for longest run.

In that time and distance you can figure out any refeeding plans needed, how well clothes works for the distance, ect. Figure that out correctly and you'll continue on through the last 6-8 miles.

Unless it's a freakish 10 F, volunteers didn't show up for water stations, which were mainly frozen so minimal water, your gels eaten required more water than you got and blood flow to stomach not happening....

[geobeck]

I know all about exercising in low temperatures. I've been biking to work year-round in Edmonton, Alberta for the last eight years. I don't even carry my bike bottle in winter. Not that it would freeze that quickly, but it would be unpleasantly cold. I just make sure I'm hydrated before and after, and don't ride too far. I can't say I keep my effort low, because after a snowfall it's tough going, often the equivalent of riding up a steep slope for the whole distance.

[shipo]

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@geobeck wrote:

I can't say I keep my effort low, because after a snowfall it's tough going, often the equivalent of riding up a steep slope for the whole distance.

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Like the old saying goes, "Up hill and against the wind in both directions."  😛

[brooklyngirl718]

Hiya. How do I find my longest walk in my Fitbit history?

[LZeeW]

@brooklyngirl718   I'm sorry, but there's no way to filter exercise logs to find that information.  You might be able to find it with some detective work. Look at your Badge collection and find your top Daily Steps badge.  If you're lucky, that might be the day of your longest walk.  But only if you logged it.