How much if any, will doubles help?

Doing doubles allows a runner to recover, get nourishment, and still be able to reach a goal mileage for each week.

Many of us that have jobs, run shorter in the morining before work, and a little longer and/or workouts after work.

Kids, family, pressure and commitments from work play into all of this.

Some have these, some don't.

I think doubles are almost always valuable, but don't think that 70mpw on doubles is the same as 70mpw on singles.

I look at them as being especially good for building up over the longer term rather than being good for the curretn season, let alone the current month.

Great post. I currently run on a similar schedule and have thought about moving to one like you propose.

Pantman wrote:

I think doubles are almost always valuable, but don't think that 70mpw on doubles is the same as 70mpw on singles.

I don't either. In general, 70 on doubles in better.

Malmo encourages those on 40mpw to start doubling

Very interesting. I'm starting to think doubles are the way to go, especially for masters.

He does? In his opinion then, would it be better for training for an 80 mile per weeker to split the runs into twice a day?

I had always assumed singles were the best but this is an interesting possibility.

search for malmo on doubles, good stuff

I am going to disagree with many of the posters on this subject. I don't think you are running enough miles in your single daily runs for doubles to make a difference. You should try to gradually go up to 75-80 miles a week on single runs. If you want to do a " double " for recovery, crosstrain with swimming cycling, walking or ellitical trainer. The longer single runs will be more beneficial. Your traing philosophy of long runs, high end aerobic runs, and a little speed is right on target. You can put a little speed in to all of your runs by picking up the pace at the end or doing a few sprints to end the workout. I would only start running doubles when you are comfortable at about 75-80 miles a week but eveyone is different. Listen to your body and judge your results by the times you run.

Pfitzinger writes to minimize doubles until you are running ~75 MPW - if you training for the marathon. He also writes 5k specialist can start doubling at lower mileages (I believe around 50). This is b/c the intensity of 5k training is higher.

I agree with this idea:

sub3over40 wrote:

I am going to disagree with many of the posters on this subject. I don't think you are running enough miles in your single daily runs for doubles to make a difference. You should try to gradually go up to 75-80 miles a week on single runs. If you want to do a " double " for recovery, crosstrain with swimming cycling, walking or ellitical trainer. The longer single runs will be more beneficial. Your traing philosophy of long runs, high end aerobic runs, and a little speed is right on target. You can put a little speed in to all of your runs by picking up the pace at the end or doing a few sprints to end the workout. I would only start running doubles when you are comfortable at about 75-80 miles a week but eveyone is different. Listen to your body and judge your results by the times you run.

HOWEVER, I think the concept of doubles and singles varies for every individual. I think there are a few important rules just about every runner should follow in their training:

1. KISS (keep it sweet & simple)

2. Quality vs Quantity

The first rule is obvious; I think you are getting far more benefit out of 75 QUALITY minutes of running vs a double of 30 mins in th am and 60 mins in the pm of tired aerobic running. The 90 minutes might be 15 extra on your feet, but if you are not fully recovering (maybe due to job/family/kids/stress/etc), then those 15 minutes are doing more harm than good.

You can ruin anything by overcomplicating it. I think the more simple and to the point your training is, the better. What EXACTLY would be the purpose of your extra shake out run? Recovery? Mileage? I personally like doubles. I like waking up and doing a 30-40 minute run. It makes me enjoy the rest of my day and feel awake. But I know I benefit the most from 2-3 of these a week, MAX. I try not to overcomplicate it. I want my running to feel "sweet" and not exhausted or forced or like an obligation. KISS is an idea you can apply to almost anything and you will have a good outcome. This isn't to say it's not good to increase mileage or do some more challenging workouts, but clear and concise and planned training is best. Just know the purpose of each day and how it fits into your long-term goal.

marathondude wrote:

Pfitzinger writes to minimize doubles until you are running ~75 MPW - if you training for the marathon. He also writes 5k specialist can start doubling at lower mileages (I believe around 50). This is b/c the intensity of 5k training is higher.

Agreed.

For me personally doubles have never worked as well as singles. I've read numerous reports where two short runs are the equivalent to one even longer run. I tried this for my first marathon and I was beat by mile 20. For my second I put in the time on singles and coasted to a finish over 10 min faster. Some of that could be the progression between my 1st & 2nd marathon, but I don't think all of it was. I had an injury that cost me 3 months of running in between marathons, so it felt like I was starting over from scratch. I think the longer singles made the difference.

I've had the same experience. Shorter doubles ( 2x 40-45 min per day) definitely didn't work for me in marathon training. I felt like I was in great shape but fell apart early in the second half of the race.

I did better on single daily runs of 60-75 minutes, with a weekly long run and a weekly interval or tempo workout.

All of the answers on both sides of the issue are much appreciated.

I think I'm leaning toward shortening my present Friday morning run from 120 minutes to 95 minutes at a quicker pace and adding a 45 minute easy run in the evening.

The two hour run on Friday limited my Saturday run to 40 minutes of recovery. Splitting the Friday sessions will allow me, I hope, to up the Saturday run to an hour.

That small change will add an hour or so of running per week, while retaining two medium long runs, three recovery sessions and a hard/long workout on Sundays.

My general idea of doubles is that it adds miles to your training to increase fitness. So, say your goal mileage in singles for marathon training is 75 miles per week. Based on what I think, you would maintain that mileage in singles plus add even more mileage through doubles. So, you would hit something like 100-110. I think that the doubles will really help you run much faster, but may or may not be worth it depending on your life situations and goals, etc.

One way training works is that by fatiguing your primary movers, your nervous system is forced to 'recruit' secondary muscle fibers to perform the task previously covered by your primaries. You gain more from the last 4 miles of a run than you do from the first 4, and you remove the benefits of the initial fatigue if you allow yourself all day to recover before completing your workout.

Basically, you need to do a lot more total mileage (with all the risks) in 2 a days to reap the same benefits as one a days, up to the point where your 1 a day mileage is approaching 20 miles, when you should be so close to your race date that the extra mileage from adding 2 a days is more likely to hurt than help.

This doesn't mean that 2 a days are useless. If your schedule prevents you from doing 16 miles one day, but somehow you can find the time to lace up and do a 4 and a 12 separately, then of course you'll benefit more than if you just run the 12. Just remember that when it comes to training, 4+12 does not equal 16.

One last thing, the above principles assume that your body can handle the increases in mileage. As always, be attentive to your body and increase stress gradually

I'm surprised by the answers in this thread. I always thought doubles were a key to the pro's way of running.

Wouldn't doubles allow better workouts while keeping the mileage up?

So there is such a thing as "junk" mileage. Wejo, Hadd and JK seem to disagree?