LSR Evening versus Morning

Morning,

 I'm a regular runner, that has done a few marathons and halfs in my time, currently training for a half. Been running for about 8 years and i have always done my LSR (Long slow run) on either a sunday or saturday morning. Today things are all about to change...

 As of this evening, i'm planning to do my LSR by running home from work. I'm quite excited about the change (i don't get out much). But it got me thinking, do you all stick to the same time of day for your LSRs, or is variety how you operate? And if you do change, do you find things change when you move it about? Do you fuel up differently? Feel different when you run?

Other than being a bit more attentive about my hydration today and i have a banana to hand to munch on before i head out the door, i've done nothing different. (Shouls i???)  I'll let you know how i get on, but your experiences would be appreciated.

Rats

My LSRs start in the morning and finish in the evening....

Did the evening run, fuelled up on a yoghurt & banana about an hour before, felt fine. If anything i struggled to keep my pace slow at first (don't normally have this problem). Think it's because i usually do tempo runs on school nights.

So it worked ok and not too worn out today (which was my other concern). Hopefully it will continue to work as the miles increase.

Previously I did my LSR in the middle of the day. I worked a split shift so had that time free with not much to do - so it seemed the best use of the time.

I have done LSR on Sunday morning, I'm usually too tired, it's ok in the summer but I like the day to have warmed up a bit more than that in the winter.

I have never had a problem with being tired in the evening. I still swim x2 evenings a week and should be running x2 evenings a week though it doesn't always work out like that due to work. I like running late.

I prefer weekend evenings for my LSRs. Partly because the mornings are occasionally occupied by hangovers...

Apparently about 2pm is the ideal time to run... body nicely warmed up, not too tired after a full day, time to have fueled up nicely.

As long as you haven't had too hectic a day, an evening SLR shouldn't feel any harder - had an easy day and it even be easier.

But if the point of them is to build up endurance for a race which is likely to be in the morning - you need to get your body used to doing long runs at the same time of day as the race as well.

Thanks for your comments, good point on the race time. It's other commitments that are driving the change of time for run, i usually race & run at the same time (which is more luck than judgement).

Got another long run tonight, i'll see how it goes, last week went well. I really enjoyed it, something quite satisfying about the commute home being a run!

I run depending on what my week/weekend shcedule looks like with other things. Usually I try to run Sunday mornings but I'm often suffering from lack of sleep so it's been more like sleeping in, then do bits and pieces and finally get out late afternoon.

Sometimes I have to swap it to Saturday afternoons. Occasionally have run early hours Saturday morning. 

In the next couple of weeks I'm going to have to swap it to Friday evenings after work because I've got some shorter races on a Sunday. 

I dont really notice much difference in performance, more on my mental focus. I prefer to run early morning so that I have the rest of the day to worry about other things.

I do mid week mid long run on Wednesdays after work and find it enjoyable. I hope it will be the same with LSR.

A few weeks into doing my LSRs in the evening in the week, top 3 tips i would give anyone thinking of shuffling their time of day...

1. Hydration - i have to focus on drinking more through the day, (work in an air conditioned office - and easy to forget to drink).
2. Beware different traffic - usually run weekends and the traffic is very different week night in rush hour! I stupidly ran down an A road that i forgot had no path for about a mile (country A road) and had a scary near miss when i lost my footing - made me run fast though!
3. Recovery - kind of obvious but i've learnt recovery is in hours not overnight. I was running weekend mornings and by the next day i'd feel fine and happily do an evening work out. Same is not true running in the evening - i definately still feel it the next morning - but then i realised, sometimes the next morning would be less than 12 hours since my work out and with the miles building up, for me another session the evening after is too soon - but we're all different.

All these years of running and i'm still learning!