Questions for Masters Runners Re: Doubles

Doubles at every opportunity. Recovery is not a problem for me at 47.

When I was a younger master (50s) i doubled both ways. If I had a particularly hard evening session and I was tired I would sleep in. Now as a 60s master I train hard in the morning and double in the afternoon on hard days.

Igy

Mid 50's here and a sub 20 5k'er but improving- so maybe you should listen to the faster guys- but what's working for me is to double all the time no matter what (except on one day per week of long run). If you have to do workouts in p.m., just run easy in the a.m. Mileage for me is only mid 60's which is not a lot for doubling but my old body really likes having the stress spilt up into smaller segments.

As you noted, we're all different. I double on non-workout days; after workouts, I prefer to give myself a bit extra time to recover. Recovery is a real obstacle for me because not just because I'm over 40, but also because I have asthma and autoimmune issues.

It's worth noting that I almost always do my hard workouts in the morning. If I did them in the evening, I would double in the morning and take the morning after the workout off.

I also do my second "run" of the day as a pool-run, rather than on land, to further maximize my recovery. I only run on land 5 times a week; I do an additional 7 "runs" in the pool. This means that there are days where I pool-run twice a day - it sucks. But it works.

I double every day but, if I were only doubling occasionally, personally I'd do it on the hard days. (When did "workout" come to mean "hard"?...in the 80s, an easy run was also that day's "workout". Seriously, the lingo has changed!).

I'm a believer in making your hard days hard and your easy days easy, and recovery is definitely critical, so I'd rather put in more mileage on the hard days. And if it slightly (not massively) tires you out for a harder workout later that day, so what? Nothing like training your body to run hard on tired legs.

With all of that said, if you have to sacrifice sleep to get the 2nd run in, then in my book you shouldn't be doing that run at all. Recovery is paramount, as we have all agreed. Get your sleep, and do your 1st run at lunch or just skip it, or maybe do a long warm-up or warm-down in the evening if you don't already (4 miles or more).

For what it's worth, age 49, high 16s and high 34s for 5km/10km road races, run 60-80 miles per week depending on the time of year, motivation level, what I'm training for and demands at work.

I have only doubled half a dozen times or less in my life, so I am probably not the best source here, but figured I would chime in any way. I have done all of my doubles on easy days. I will say that I felt great on the back end of each double with only one exception, so I did kind of wonder what it would be like to run a workout as the back end of a double, but since my doubles came during marathon training, and since I only have 2 "quality days" with one of them usually being either a long run or, more often, a combined long run/tempo effort, I had plenty of days to utilize for those quality days and for doubling without having to worry too much about recovery.

I know Malmo is huge on doubling, but I just never really got the point of it. Maybe its because I usually stay at 60 mpw or below if I am marathon training (giving me little opportunity to double), and when running higher mileage for marathon training, I have a strong preference for lots of runs of 70 minutes or more, so I can get to 80 or even as much as 90 miles without having to double because of the length of my long run and the length of my mid-week cruise interval workouts.

As I start to edge closer to 50 than 40, it may be time for me to reconsider this I guess.

Some of the older cats in their late 50s/60s that I know of from the gym where they cross train at tell me they use TRT. They say their recovery is phenomenal for doubles compared to pre-therapy. One cat even gave me a referral to the low-T center he's using (maybe he gets a discount for the number of new customers he refers to the clinic 😉).

In a few years, you may find that running hard on tired legs gets you hurt.

try and do an easy hour walk bike ect before evening IMO it helps clean out / drain my lymph system anyhow I always sleep better and wakeup feeling good if I am able to get out the door twice a day

well, that's why I said "slightly (not massively) tires...". For me, it's also why I do a lot of short doubles, which I think is easier on my body but everyone is different. Masters running does seem to be an exercise in trying to run a lot while staying healthy -- true at all levels, I guess, but really, really true for us older guys.