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** There may be some injury risk to longer long runs, but it seems more likely that the injury risk comes from ramping up the length of the long run too quickly.
* Caveats:
** Many factors impact the difficulty of a Long Run beyond the overall distance, including pace, the amount of [[Downhill Running| downhill]] running, [[Nutrient Timing| post run nutrition]], [[Massage| massage]] and [[Training Monotony| training monotony{{TrainingMonotony}}]].
** Following a fixed plan may be inappropriate, as individual responses vary.
** The details of the longest Long Run depend on the target time, as noted in other guidelines.
* Caveats:
** Running the Long Run while pre-fatigued may reduce the needed length. This pre-fatigue can be achieved by using two shorter runs with insufficient time to recover between them, either two on the same day, or on consecutive days. This pre-fatigue could also be achieved through higher overall mileage but this should be carefully structured to minimize [[Training Monotony]] {{TrainingMonotony}} and the risk of [[Overtraining]].
** Unless the length of the Long Run is increased gradually, running longer can produce excessive muscle damage and be counterproductive. (See muscle soreness recommendation above.)
** Focusing on the single longest run is probably inappropriate, and the average of the 3-5 longest runs would be a more useful metric, but one that is rarely used.
** Hilly Long Runs will produce more training stress than the same distance on the flat.
** The need for longer Long Runs might be dramatically reduced if the training runs are continuous running and the race uses a walk/run pattern.
** Any training stress requires adequate recovery time to enable [[Supercompensation]]. Therefore training must be structured to minimize [[Training Monotony]] (the mathematical metric, not boredom){{TrainingMonotony}}.
** Individuality and prior experience may influence the optimal Long Run distance. I know of runners who believe that Long Runs over 26 miles has benefited their marathon performance and runners who believe that reducing their longest Long Run has been beneficial.
* Rationale:
** Some coaches limit some or all of the Long Runs to a percentage of weekly mileage, often 25-50%. However, there does not appear to be any obvious rationale or support for this limit.
** Sometime there is a concern that exceeding a given percentage of the weekly mileage is more likely to result in overtraining or injury, but I've found no supporting evidence or possible mechanism. On the contrary, there is evidence that more evenly distributed mileage is more likely to result in [[Overtraining]], injury and reduce the benefit of training. This is because the more even the spread of training, the higher the [[Training Monotony]] {{TrainingMonotony}} (average weekly training stress divided by standard deviation).
** Plans such as [[FIRST]] only have 3 runs per week, so the long run is a large portion of the weekly mileage.
* Caveats: Too little training between Long Runs can result in detraining.