Splitting up a scheduled long run?

So I posed this question on ST and nearly got banned , but the funny thing is the one person that said it was totally fine is an IM pro, so go figure (had a couple of others agree as well).

Anyway, does anyone train like this from time to time?  I'd love to hear from coaches and from IM athletes that may have used this method at some point or another. 

I never plan to bow out of a scheduled long run, but I've decided this training cycle that I'm going for quality over quantity mileage and see what happens.  So as in the case of last weekend, I had a scheduled 14 miler.  I got in about 10 quality miles when the wheels fell off and I started to gallo walk more or less.  Form got bad, everything got bad.  Primarily due to the extreme heat and humidity we have here (even starting at 5:30am doesn't help).  So later on that afternoon I jumped out and got the remaining 4 miles in (with good pace/form etc etc).

Many will argue to do the mileage to get it in your head that you can do it, push your body like it will be pushed in a race etc etc.  Others argue that the doing the entire block of miles at one point is more or less for you to KNOW that you can do that many miles and breaking it up does ALMOST just as good as doing the entire thing at once.  Having done 7 full marathons and 1 IM, I KNOW I can do the mileage and finish the race, so does it benefit me more to break it up and get a big chunk of good miles in the morning run/workout and then another smaller chunk in later that afternoon?  Or just slosh along with bad form, walking etc etc for the remaining 4-6 miles?

Thoughts?


Edited by Lance 140.6 2009-07-25 12:34 PM