Do any masters here run doubles?

I'd like to know if any masters found that doubling actually hinders recovery and leads to slower race times.

Running (or any exercise) increases your human growth hormone, so that may be one of the reasons people say that doubling helps you recover faster. I do believe that you recover faster when you double. I started doubling when I was in my early 30s and continue now in my late 30s.

And for those that bring up the "extra" showering? Come on. It takes me less than 5 minutes to shower and I use a different cleanser for each body part. I also scrub the bathtub while I am in there. So, it could take only 90 seconds if you aren't as particular as I am.

The showering thing is a overblown. I ran doubles for years and showered once a day ( in the morning ). After my noontime or evening run I just wet toweled down put on clean dry clothes and got on with it.

Many of the places I worked for in the 70's didn't even have showers. That came later. The key for the second run was to get to it without all the "Jeez, I can't run because there's no shower."

The runners who thought that way were people I generally beat in races because they couldn't run the mileage I did because there was no shower available.

I have a 45 y/o friend I run with regularly. He doesn't purposely plan doubles, but he's a very social runner and can handle meeting several groups of people per day for a run. This means that during the week he rarely doubles, but most weekends he'll run two or three times per day. He seems to enjoy it.

Dave Dunham is a masters runner - not sure of his age - and he has done a ton of TRIPLES this year. Check out his training at his blog here:

http://ddmountainrunr.blogspot.com/

Dave has done doubles for years and is quite fast - not for his age, but quite fast period.

8 months of doubles five days/week, averaging 75mpw. A.M. grass, P.M. soft trails. Speed, when done, 800-1200s a.m., 1K-2K p.m. Result: 4:45 mile, 16:36 5K. Age 52.

Nice job Fogrunner. What is your Hgt/Wt? Are you married? How many kids? Are you retired or working still? Do you cross train? Sorry for all the questions but I want to know if your training can work for me.

FogRunner wrote:

8 months of doubles five days/week, averaging 75mpw. A.M. grass, P.M. soft trails. Speed, when done, 800-1200s a.m., 1K-2K p.m. Result: 4:45 mile, 16:36 5K. Age 52.

Where did you find his training? I can't.

For those that do doubles and keep their weekly mileage in the 70s or below range, do you do doubles because you find it easier to recover by splitting some runs up rather than doing say a really easy 8-10 mile run?

The only times I've done doubles is to get my mileage up to the 85-100mpw range.

I use doubles to run more quality pace mileage without overtaxing my system on easy days. is long as you are only doing 2-3 hard sessions a week, i dont see how two a days can hurt you (if they are done with recovery/steady pace in mind)

So what were your mile/5k times (and weekly mileage) before the "8 months of doubles five days/week, averaging 75mpw"?

FogRunner wrote:

8 months of doubles five days/week, averaging 75mpw. A.M. grass, P.M. soft trails. Speed, when done, 800-1200s a.m., 1K-2K p.m. Result: 4:45 mile, 16:36 5K. Age 52.

What was your mpw and what were your race times before you started with doubles?

another old geezer wrote:

I sure hope so, otherwise I'm going to have to cut out half my sessions next spring.

The secret is to arrange your life to run to work and back. This may take ten years or more of careful scheming, career moves, house moves disguised as getting into the right school catchment area etc, but it's worth it. My shortest route (3m) is actually quicker than either waiting for the bus, or battling through the traffic. My favourite one is 6m (soft surfaces, hurts less) and nobody really notices the extra 20min.

If I had to wake up at 5am to get in the second run, I wouldn't bother.

This is the answer for me. 90% of my schedule revolves around getting to and from work. If I couldn't do this I wouldn't be running at all (or not seriously anyway). Family comes first.

Kicker wrote:

... The key for the second run was to get to it without all the "Jeez, I can't run because there's no shower."

The runners who thought that way were people I generally beat in races because they couldn't run the mileage I did because there was no shower available.

Kicker -- I see you are not a fan of lame excuses ;-)

So here's my doubles experience. I am 51 & female. A couple of years ago my husband thought I should try doubles in my marathon training, and run ~70 mpw. So I basically tried to run 5 miles every 12 hours. For some reason 70 mpw wears me out WAY more than 60. Every now and then I'd skip a run and then do a longer one on the weekend, or do a 4 & 6 instead of 5/5. Well, I was tired all the time, and felt like I never quite recovered from the previous run and #$%@! it'd be time to run again. I didn't have the energy for much speed work, and only did 2 long runs which were kind of disastrous. So I went to this marathon all crabby and thought I didn't do enough speed work, I didn't do the necessary long runs, and I was going to prove to my husband that his recommended training methods would not work for me. I'd run about 40 marathons before, but I PR'd in this one by 7 minutes, at the ripe old age of 49, and beat my Boston qualifying time by 47 minutes.

Soooo, as much as I dislike them, and like many others who responded here, doubles worked for me, increasing mileage without getting injured.

With regards to family, my husband likes to run doubles, and our kids are old enough to not care if we're gone for an afternoon/evening run. I do lots of my p.m. runs from the house, or (gag) on the TM, to minimize the time away (when kids think I should be doing stuff like making dinner!) The hard part for me, aside from being kinda tired all the time, was that as soon as you finish one run, you're immediately planning the next one. Also the afternoon/evening run could potentially interfere with your social life, if you have non-running friends ...

Great job Steamboat!

I am trying to get used to weekend doubles. When I finish a hot, sweaty hard long run, I love the feeling that I am finished for the day. But when you run again you still have to run again. I definitely think that it helps with recovery so I am going to stick to them. Or maybe just 5 times a week. Anyway also a fan of doubles.

I'm 54, male, with 1 kid (10 yo) and a a full-time job. I'm running 75-90 mpw (training for Berlin Marathon now). I double on weekdays, do light speed on Saturday and a long run on Sunday. The doubles are generally: (M-W-F) 6-8M easy-to-moderate in the morning and 4-5 of the same thing in the evening, (Tue) a 5-7M tempo run in the morning and a 3-mile cruise in the evening, and (Thurs) 5M easy in the morning and intervals in the evening. No cross-training except weights 3x week and calisthenics/core exercises 5x week. I do all the doubles to get to work and back, and I run 90% on dirt, grass, and tracks. I think this schedule lets me do probably 10-15M more per week than I could consistently do in singles, and I don't think I could run as fast on my speed days if I was always doing ~10M in one session. I've done this for ~15 years and raced well of it (medaled at USA and World Masters). I think there's definite value in doubling, maybe especially for masters; I've doubled since high school, but it seems more necessary now to maintain decent volume and quality.

it's also been debated 3 and 7 or 4 and 6 or 5 and 5 is takes less out of your legs than straight 10s every day.

Keep scrolling through his "Older Posts" and you'll find plenty of his training logs. He's amazing ... he does about 20 miles a day 5 DAYS A WEEK and he's not a marathon guy. Runs mostly mountain races and road stuff - most of it shorter stuff.

glycerinrunner wrote:

it's also been debated 3 and 7 or 4 and 6 or 5 and 5 takes less out of your legs than straight 10s every day.

Agreed. I don't think there's any way I could have done 10 mile runs every day to get my 70 mpw. Yikes. 5+5, 4+6, or 7+3 seems "easier", but had good effects.

Also, make sure you get enough sleep. Growth hormones don't work well if you don't sleep enough. (This is an area where I fail miserably, so do what I say, not what I do!)

socal cush wrote:

i don't know what science there is to support what the length of the morning run HAS to be, other than jack daniels pointing out that a run of 30 minutes provides optimal benefit.

The interview I heard with Daniels referencing "30 minutes", he stipulated that anything shorter than that might not be worth it since you'd spend more time dressing/undressing & showering than running... or something to that effect. It sounded to me more like a fitting-it-practically-into-your-life comment as opposed to a this-is-what-the-science-says comment.

As another reference, Lydiard wrote "even as short as 15 minutes is beneficial". I would guess his comment was more experience-based than science-based.