This is one thing that perplexes me about ultra training, how long should your long run be? There seems to be many different theories out there. I read in an interview with Matt Carpenter that he did not run over three hours while preparing for the Leadville 100 mile ultra because it would take him to long to recover for his other more intense workouts, he managed to win Leadville with his three hour long runs. Some others believe you should run up to 80% of the distance in training which may work for a 50 mile race but not a 100 miler. What I am wondering, is there any actual science out there saying what is right? From my experience in the past I had the best results not going over four hours in a training run, when I bumped the weekly long runs up to the 5-6 hour range I became injured.
Are there any pros out there who could share their long run training schedules/tactics?
