Mid-Summer Check-In: What Your Long Runs Should Look Like Right Now for Indianapolis Monumental Marathon Training
If you're planning to run the CNO Financial Indianapolis Monumental Marathon on November 7, you're roughly 20 weeks out… which means mid-June is exactly when your base-building phase should be in full swing, whether you've started a structured plan yet or not.
This isn't the flashy part of marathon training. There's no taper, no goal-pace workouts, no race-week excitement. But how you handle these next few weeks, especially your long runs, which sets up everything that comes later. Here's what I want to see from my athletes right now.
Where You Should Be: Building the Aerobic Engine, Not Chasing Pace
Mid-June through July is base-building season. The goal is simple: build your aerobic engine and get your body comfortable carrying volume, without digging a hole you'll spend August and September climbing out of.
If you're just getting started, your long run should be wherever your current comfortable distance tops out, even if that's only 8 or 10 miles. The mistake I see most often is runners trying to "catch up" by jumping their long run from 10 to 16 miles in a couple of weeks because they feel behind. That's how you end up injured in July instead of fit in November.
A reasonable target for mid-June: your long run should be building toward 12–14 miles by early July, increasing by no more than 1–2 miles every one to two weeks.
The Indiana Summer Long Run: Heat Is the Real Opponent Right Now
Here's the part most generic training plans skip: in central Indiana, your June and July long runs are happening in 80–90°F heat and humidity that can make an "easy" pace feel like a tempo effort. That's not a fitness problem, it's a heat problem, and it matters how you handle it.
A few things I tell every athlete this time of year:
Start early. A 6 AM long run start in Indianapolis can be 15–20 degrees cooler than a 9 AM start in late June and July.
Throw out your pace expectations. Your easy pace in 85°F heat might be 45–60 seconds per mile slower than the same effort in October race-day conditions. That's normal and running by effort, not pace, protects you from overtraining during base-building. Athletes I work with know specific heart rate zones based on heat and humidity indexes.
Practice your fueling now. If you're training for a marathon, your long runs should already include the same gels, chews, or drink mix you plan to use on race day. Mid-summer is when you figure out what your stomach can handle, not race week.
Hydrate before, not just during. In the heat, the long run starts with what you drink the night before and the morning of, not just what's in your handheld.
The Most Common Mid-Summer Mistake
The biggest issue I see with adult marathoners this time of year isn't lack of effort, it's inconsistency. Life gets busy in the summer: vacations, kids out of school, weddings, travel. Runners either skip long runs entirely when their schedule gets disrupted, or they try to cram a missed long run plus the next one into the same week.
Neither is the right answer. If you miss a long run, the best move is almost always to just continue the progression the following week rather than trying to make it up, one missed long run won't derail a 20-week build, but two back-to-back hard efforts to "catch up" very well might.
What This Means for Your Training the Next 4 Weeks
Weeks of June 15–21 and June 22–28: Long run in the 10–12 mile range, easy effort, early start times.
Weeks of June 29–July 5 and July 6–12: Long run building to 13–14 miles, with one of these runs including a short fueling/hydration practice segment.
Throughout: Keep your easy days truly easy. If base-building is going well, your easy runs should feel almost boring. That's the point and you're banking aerobic fitness for the workouts that come in August and September.
Coach's Note
I've worked with 65 runners who've qualified for Boston, and almost without exception, the ones who got there built their fitness in the unglamorous months through June, July, and early August, not in the final six weeks before the race. If your mid-summer long runs are consistent, heat-smart, and built around effort rather than pace, you're already doing the most important part of marathon training right.
If you're training for the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon (or any fall marathon) and want a personalized plan that accounts for your schedule, your current fitness, and Indiana summer heat and humidity then reach out for a free 15-minute consultation. I'd love to help you build toward your best race yet.
— Coach Justin Roeder
