Which...hi mileage w/singles or higher w/doubles?

First, the 4 miles are not garbage, as they burn calories, warm you up, and offer a minimal aerobic benefit.

If your normal runs are 30-45 minutes (twice per day), it could be beneficial to change one or two of those to a single run of 60-90 minutes. With no scientific explanation, I think there is a sweet spot around 60 min (+or- 5-10 min) that gives the most bang for the buck.

I have always followed the rule of thumb that one should maximize their mileage in singles before jumping to two a days. 70 miles a week is the number that is usually thrown out there as a dividing line. However, I know that Joe Rubio is strong proponent of doubles, particularly on your \"hard\" days.

According to Mr. Rubio\'s Middle Distance Guide:

The second and more important reason we have 1500 runners do AM runs particularly before any harder afternoon workouts such as track work or tempo runs is because of an interesting study conducted in Italy a number of years back. It showed that the human body produces elevated levels of human growth hormone (HG) in the bloodstream during the 4-6 hours following a run of 30-40 minutes. It is theorized that an AM or lunch runs doesn’t necessarily loosen you up for the afternoon run as much inject the body with naturally occurring hormones that allow the afternoon workout to be performed with less effort. This is the reason that most top 1500 runners will run an easy 20-40 minutes without fail a few hours before a big meet. They know this easy run will make them feel better for a hard effort performed a few hours later.

Running that two-a-day may in fact make you more capable of hitting the quality sessions hard. However, it must be also noted that Joe says,

A recovery run is typically defined as 20-45 minutes of slow and easy jogging. The idea is to move the crap out of your legs, not to get in an extra 4 mile tempo run. The pace should be no faster than 65% of your 5k pace at any point in this run (usually in the low to mid 60% range is what we want). If you allow 6+ hours between sessions, doing one of these easy recovery runs in the AM and another in the PM is fine and within the definition of a recovery day if you’d like to maintain double days within the schedule.

Eventhough I am currently at 60 miles a week, I may try to incorporate 2 morning 30 minute shake out runs to see how my body responds.

huh? wrote:

Derderian wrote:

If this clown stopper showed up at a GBTC practice and told me what he put in the original message I'd have to ask about 22 years ago.

I have asked the following question to people who show up at GBTC practice: What do you want to do?

What training have you done for the past 6 months.

What is the best athletic thing you have ever done?

The third question produces usually a laugh and the answer, nothing, but I have had masters runners who had run excellent times in the past and even Olympians in other sports.

So answer me the third question.

Tom

Am I the only one not understanding what was just said?

Yes, You are. Tom may have a different plan if clownboy played in the band and was in the senior musical(not that there is anything wrong with that). What he found out was that he was a very good high school runner who has already been able to accomplish something athletically giving him a better chance of doing it again.

dk46, 80 a week on singles will never let you reach your potential.

I definately feel doubles are more beneficial than singles. Some people have a bad opinion on doubles, but I doubt they've ever ran doubles. Just think, if you added a 2 mile morning jog Morning-Friday to your current 100mpw, you'd already be at 110mpw, with what seems like almost no more effort at all. I like to use morning runs just as shake out runs, and I think this helps a lot. For those people who say they "teach" your body to recover faster, I think that is slightly incorrect. An easy jog loosens up the muscles, increases blood flow, and elevates the motabilism. Not only that, but they can be an easy way to take an easy day without lowering mileage. Say you normally do 4 in the morning and 12 in the evening, well if you need a rest, you could do 8 and 8, or 7 and 9, etc.

One bit of advice though, if you do decide to start running doubles, don't just suddenly add a 3 mile morning jog each day. Increase your mileage grudually.

Here's what I came up with:

S- 18-21 single

M- 12-15 double

T- 10-12 single

W- 18 double

T- 12-15 single

F- 18 double

S- 10-12 single

repeat

Totals: 98-111 miles or about 2 hours a day.

Not quite there yet for daily avg's

(but I am at 100 for a week)

I've opted for the higher mileage slower speed vs 80 mpw faster approach. Time will tell if it was a good call.

But "clownboy" already told us what the most athletic thing was - it was his string of PRs this past year. I don't see how what was done 22 years ago has any impact on how many doubles he incorporates into his training regimen as a 42-year-old.

What I'm curious about is that my hard/long sessions are typically in the a.m. Is this less productive than others who are running an easy 5-6 in the morning and then doing their faster/longer session in the afternoon/evening? I've been getting in 10-13 miles at 7:00-8:30 a.m., and if there's a 2nd run that day, it's the easier and shorter of the two, and typically occurring some time after 5:00 p.m. I think this puts me in the minority, b/c no one ever mentions adding a 2nd run at night; it's always, "the extra morning run benefits you because...".

I just find it interesting that adding a 2nd run for the day in the evening doesn't seem to be the norm and I wonder if it's less productive than the alternative.

i don't agree with waiting to start doubles until you're at a particular mileage. if you add doubles, you can get to 70 without really trying and get used to the routine of running in the am and pm every day. your body adjusts and you can increase your mileage at a much greater rate. since your aerobic ability has the most potential for growth, this is where the potential for those great workouts and races begins. i believe your body does start recovering faster when doing doubles. at first, you might feel the effect of the first run of the day, but later you might forget that you ran at all that morning even after a moderate effort. for the average joe with average talent, running doubles and lots of mileage is pretty much the only way to go if you want to see significant improvement. you need the intensity of course, but you won't get as much out of it without the mileage base.

ok but where do you draw the line? should i do 5 3 milers a day to get in 15miles a day? i ran singles all through high school... got to michigan and ran doubles. doubles didn't work for me. it worked for a lot of other guys. singles at 70 is usually the breaking point, but i was able to push it to between 80 and 84 miles a week on singles. i found that to be the best fit for me because i need faster more quality type runs.

to each his own.

I don't think it's less productive in fact I think it would be more productive since the faster and longer session is completed in the am and then an evening run could be added or adjusted. Plus mentally the day is much easier without stressing over the planned workout for the evening.

I think the reason most people do their fast/long runs at night is that many people find it difficult to warm up and get going in the am. I know I have that problem plus I always need to eat something before a morning run. Though, I have read that more injuries tend to occur from morning training sessions as a result of not be adequately being warmed up. I'm not sure how accurate that is but seems to make some sense.

Though, I typically do my harder runs in the evening, I occasionally do the opposite and run faster in the morning and do an easy run at run. Most likely that would be on a day of a race or the day of morning long run followed by an easy run at night.

Sounds like the training is going well Greg, hope to see you at the Christmas Eve run.

Barbara

I like the schedule. It seems to be a good mixture of singles and doubles. I recently tried to follow a schedule that was doubles 6 to 7 days a week and doing all those doubles grew old pretty quickly. I've sinced ditched that plan and now it's on to something new.

Both.

First hit 100 in doubles. Then do it in singles. Compare the two. If you're going for strict aerobic improvement I'd say singles. Lydiard and Wetmore know what they're talking about. If you can put in 100 in singles for 10 weeks you'll be able to handle any further training you can think of. Also, once you do 100 in singles for a long time doing 100 in doubles will feel fairly easy. Also, running 100 in singles will prepare your body for further increases in mileage...120-140 miles a week is nothing if you do 100 of that in singles.

Alan

Runningart2004 wrote:

Both.

First hit 100 in doubles. Then do it in singles. Compare the two. If you're going for strict aerobic improvement I'd say singles. Lydiard and Wetmore know what they're talking about.

Alan

Alan Wetmore has said he'd rather have his athletes do doubles. He said that they do singles because of something about working around the college schedule. I'm not sure when the day was shortened from 24 hours?

Sounds almost like my schedule. I work from 8am to 5pm Monday through Friday. At about 5:45 every morning I head out for a 9-10 miler, usually concluding around 7:00 am.

My evening run I do directly from work and it usually is around 5 miles.

Here is my twist, In the mornings I try to do a few progression / tempo runs, nothing terribly formal.

A couple times a week for my evening session I will do fartlek style runs that only include maybe 15 - 20 minutes of hard effort.

Most of this is by feel, I'm trying to do it Malmo-style, sort of. :)

My weekend runs are singles, with my long run around 15 miles.

This schedule has been getting me around 90 -95 miles per week. I'm slowly trying to wake up earlier and lengthen that morning run.

Can't wait till spring though, I'm feeling fit.

Well if each run consists of clothing changes and showers then obviously doubles consumes more time.

Like BEM said, it's tough to get going on the morning runs, for me anyway. I'm just happy to get away with 7.5 miles in the a.m. but admittedly 2.5 of that is ~8:00 pace with my 1 year old dog. (I then swap her for the 3 year old dog and finish the last 5 at ~7:30 pace)

Anyway, I tend to wait till the p.m. for the longer (and slightly faster) run as my body is awake but more importantly, I feel I get a better workout at this point even tho it's all still pretty slow. For me, the doubles are a combo of logistical/practical. I can go longer each day plus I don't feel completely drained after any one given run. (Save that for the weekend) Maybe I'm just not used to the miles yet, maybe I'm just old and slow, maybe both...

Good discussion, all about running. Who'd have thought ...

The original question suggests that you can fit the higher mileage with doubles into your non-running life ... So, if you want to do well at running do the higher mileage with doubles. Pretty straightforward. I tend to do doubles on easy days (5/5 easier than one 10) and on days when I've done a workout in the morning. Joe Rubio's advice on making your hard days harder, and your easy days easier is worth taking if you can schedule it. Some weeks I will try to hit 100 by getting in a 22 mile single on Sunday, 15/5 or similar doubles on Tuesday and Thursday, and easy hour long runs to make up 38 miles the other days. That second 5 miler is good for practicing running glycogen depleted from the morning 15 miler, but without doing all of the damage of an actual 20 mile run.

I'm interested also in distance guy's question about the morning being his main workout and the afternoon/evening being secondary. This is what I do, it works well in terms of other things in my life because I've got the main mileage for the day done first. I also don't have to get to work too early, so I can run between 7:30 and 9:00 and be at work at 10:00 with no problems. Not everyone has this luxury.

Nevertheless I think there are other advantages to doing workouts in the morning, the main one being that most non-collegiate races are held before 10am in the morning. If you're used to running hard at 6pm in the evening that's a problem that might be worth a bit of time.

Happy Christmas all!

I don't think 7:30 pace is slow for an easy run in the morning with your current PR's...

clown,

you seem to have the time to do doubles.

at your age, you are far, far more likely to get injured doing singles.

staying healthy is enormously important as a master; you are running out of 'next seasons' while you still have some spring in your legs.

I'm not real sure of Wetmore's logic. Working a full-time job is far more demanding than taking classes. More often than not you'll have an hour or so free in the middle of the day that's usually set aside for lunch, 30 minute run, 30 minute lunch. I can remember taking classes in the morning, running, then taking classes in the afternoon, then running again. Of course you may only have 4 or 5 hours between your doubles but that's not a big problem.Alan

malmo wrote:

Runningart2004 wrote:

Both.

First hit 100 in doubles. Then do it in singles. Compare the two. If you're going for strict aerobic improvement I'd say singles. Lydiard and Wetmore know what they're talking about.

Alan

Alan Wetmore has said he'd rather have his athletes do doubles. He said that they do singles because of something about working around the college schedule. I'm not sure when the day was shortened from 24 hours?