How long should your longest run be for a half marathon?

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Nelly Aug 2016 9:33am, 7 Aug 2016 3,438 posts	0 Nelly I must admit to being intrigued by why you're asking Ninky Nonk, as with a 72min half marathon I'd assume you have as good an idea how to train for a HM as anyone. FWIW, I'd say you probably wouldn't need to go longer than 16/17miles, and that would be for about 150% of target race duration (i.e. almost exactly your run yesterday).
Huntsman Aug 2016 9:51am, 7 Aug 2016 4,046 posts	0 Huntsman Good question NN. The Pfizinger and Latter Faster Road Running book has the longest run at 19 miles. This run is three weeks out from the race and it's part of the 81 to 100 mile 12 week schedule. So I'm saying 19 miles.
lammo Aug 2016 10:22am, 7 Aug 2016 6,756 posts	0 lammo I would have said 15/16
Huntsman Aug 2016 10:25am, 7 Aug 2016 4,048 posts	0 Huntsman I'll be doing 16 miles three weeks out as my longest run.
SM6 Aug 2016 11:09am, 7 Aug 2016 619 posts	0 SM6 I'd roughly agree with Nelly, personally I'd shoot for 15-16 miles/120-125 minutes (Aiming for 81-83 minutes)
jdarun Aug 2016 11:34am, 7 Aug 2016 1,036 posts	0 jdarun For "getting round" purposes, 10-11 miles should be ok. I didn't go over distance before my first HM, tied up a little in the last couple of miles but still managed my sub-90 target with a little to spare. My wife has done a few HMs with similar preparation. For having a proper go at your best performance, I think full or over-distance runs are definitely worthwhile. In the last few years most of mine have been done in marathon training which probably isn't really the way to target them.
Ninky Nonk Aug 2016 12:22pm, 7 Aug 2016 2,367 posts	0 Ninky Nonk There seems to a load of 10k plans and marathon plans. 20 miles is always considered a marathon long run milestone as are runs equal in duration to race time. Specific half plans seem to be less common. I tend to do 2 hour long runs. I wondered if there was any value in upping to 2.5 or even 3hrs in training for a half. Or stick to 2 hours and add in some mp or hmp sections.
Dvorak Aug 2016 12:40pm, 7 Aug 2016 12,014 posts	0 Dvorak Usually I'd look at a profile before chipping in but I didn't this time. So my general suggestion is pretty unapt. Whilst a lot of people get really good HM and 10K results off marathon training, in your case I doubt that 2.5-3 hours, which no doubt you could knock out as a pleasant days running, would do much as targeted training. I reckon you would get a lot more out of several 12-14 miles at nearer race pace than most people would do in training and the odd run a bit longer.
Huntsman Aug 2016 1:28pm, 7 Aug 2016 4,049 posts	0 Huntsman Ninky Nonk I would recommend having a look at the book I mentioned. The standard you're at I think the high mileage schedules would give you some decent suggestions for training.
J2R Aug 2016 9:36am, 8 Aug 2016 326 posts	0 J2R Like Nelly, I'm intrigued as to why Ninky Nonk, with his performance record, is asking the question. It requires a very different answer from the same question asked by a newbie. So I think the distance by itself wouldn't be a sufficient answer, as we'd need to know pace as well. I doubt whether, say, 16 miles easy is going to bring much performance benefit to NN, but maybe running that distance slowly accelerating to 10K pace for the last couple of miles might?