is it allowed to take a break in a run? personally i have a hard time finding time to do a full any% run because i rarely have more then like 3 hours where i won't be interrupted
The way most speedruns operate these days are by the 'Real-Time Attack' (RTA) system. Pausing the timer would make the run 'Time Attack' only and therefore not eligible for the leaderboards. So for submitting to the leaderboards, taking breaks by pausing the timer is not allowed. However, you can leave the timer running while taking a break, or plan quick breaks (toilet breaks, fetching a quick meal etc.) in cutscenes, since Sly 2 (and 3) have several, lengthy, unskippable cutscenes.
When I started out I did some more casual, non-recorded speedruns offline where I paused the timer whenever I had to eat dinner, wanted a break or had an errand to run. I could not submit to the leaderboards, but I didn't really have a desire to anyway, given how bad and poorly optimized my runs were back then. Once I closed in on the record I started going RTA and livestreamed them.
I know this makes running lengthy games a bit of a hassle, and that's one of the reasons why doing Individual Episode runs are quite popular for the Sly Cooper games. Simply running one episode at a time and improving that way, sort of like segment practice. I can tell by experience that speedrunning Sly 2 or 3 is more of a relaxing experience given all the cutscenes and short breaks they provide, so I wouldn't worry in terms of getting tired. The problem really is finding a 6h+ open time slot, which is the main reason why I don't run as often as I want to myself.
