I find that if you take the hard/easy principle to the extreme (no running at all on easy days) it works great. I manage to stay pretty competitive in my age group doing this:
Tuesday 1 hour hard (4 x 4ish minutes at threshold)
Thursday 1 hour hard (4 x 4ish minutes at threshold)
Sunday 1.5 - 2 hours
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It depends on how busy your life is. When I was establishing my career, newly married and with young kids, I was happy to get in a 30 min run, 3-4 times per week.
Now that my career is on cruise control and my kids are older, an hour and a half per day is more manageable than 30 min every other day, used to be.
Make a list of what is most important to you and assign time starting at the top down.
If you have a goal of running after age 55......
Family and job responsibilities come first, but to have a reasonable chance at running after your child raising days are over, you need to carve out time for exercise even during that stage of life when time is at a premium - even if its 10 miles per week.
How many runners give it up completely during their young adult years then go back to running 20 or 30 years later ? My guess is there are not many of those people.
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You have to be a huge loser to accuse someone on here of being a "hobby jogger". Are you a professional? If so, you'll be a hobby jogger one day too. If you're not professional, then you're delusional. Either way, loser.
Just do an easy 10-12 km every morning when you wake up.So easy to set aside 40 to 50 minutes every day for your health .
Jesus, you guys are beasts on this site.
I think im being healthy but running 5k each morning but you say 10-10km would be better. ahh well. Im trying to do repeats as well and but I literally don't understand the rest "jogging" like should i be tippie toe bouncing or what?
Obviously opinions on this are going to vary, but I thought I'd open this up to discussion here. Say I'm a lifelong runner in my late 30s who wants to stay fit and healthy but who no longer trains to be competitive or anything. What is the optimal number of mpw? Say I lift one or two days per week and occasionally do yoga or something. How many miles should I be running most days on the days I do run? Any older guys here with advice?
"Stay fit and healthy" is a great goal, but in my opinion, you need to be more specific if your long term goal is to reach, say 80, as fit, healthy, and youthful as possible.
That said, your balance of activities seems to be wrong. First, you aren't doing enough lifting. You should be doing weight lifting 3-5x/week. A couple of those days should be at the gym, but the other days can be simple body weight exercises, dumbbells, or resistance bands at home. It doesn't take long to do 3 sets of pushups, air squats, curls, etc. Figure out how to motivate yourself to do this. It will pay great lifetime dividends.
Now, about running.
Running should be for fun. That way, you can keep doing it into your 70s, like me. You need at least three days per week or else it becomes too easy to skip a day and then a week, a month, etc. Runs should be about 45 minutes, give or take a bit. You don't need to run longer than a hour, but if you have a fun trail nearby that takes longer, by all means do it occasionally.
How much do you need to run? You need to run enough to keep yourself sane and to keep from gaining weight. I'm not joking about the sanity part. You might find your life a little "flat" without the endorphins from running. I did when I was forced to stop for long periods.
Runners are obsessed with mileage. Dr Ken Cooper found that 12-30mpw was the "healthy" range for avoiding illness, but he also found that less than 12mpw was a LOT worse than greater than 30mpw. Don't worry about mileage, just run every other day. If you're bored and don't want to go to the gym on your off day, go for an easy run in the park.
This is the best advice I have read here in some time.
5-7 miles in the morning. 1 workout, 1 tempo run and 1 long run on Saturday. Nearly all runs completed before kids are up. Rest Sunday = about 40mpw. It's enough to still have some fun with some occasional shorter races. Nothing fancy or super long. Running low 15 min 5k and @ 4:20 mile at in mid 40's.
absolute chad.
I do this during the week but not fast at all lol only 25:30 avg 5k.by sat im so dead that I don't get up and run
you should lift twice a week. once a week is too little since you'll only gain strength at a slightly faster pace than you losing strength. as for running, 5k a day is fine with a 10k on saturday and with sunday being your off day. this alone probably makes you fitter than most gym people who only care about the appearance of their muscles rather than being efficient or having cardio.
To be just in shape I've heard the number 26 mpw and that seems about right to me.
It's not that simple because as you get older, diet has more impact. So if you don't have some conscientiousness around diet, you can still gain weight and be in less than optimal.
If you want to be a good runner 1 hour per day 6 days a week will guarantee you a ribbon in most 5k/10k runs. Obviously, the variation with maybe a long run day in there and maybe a shorter recovery day. That would put you in the 42-50 mpw range.
Obviously opinions on this are going to vary, but I thought I'd open this up to discussion here. Say I'm a lifelong runner in my late 30s who wants to stay fit and healthy but who no longer trains to be competitive or anything. What is the optimal number of mpw? Say I lift one or two days per week and occasionally do yoga or something. How many miles should I be running most days on the days I do run? Any older guys here with advice?
I try to do an average of an hour a day of something. These days that's split between something like 3 runs and 2-3 bike rides.
Cycling is easy - you can ignore it for weeks and it can still be fun to do, you just go a bit slower or ride on the flat.
Running is more difficult - in my experience its a case of use it or lose it. You have to keep on top of it to a certain degree or you lose the "muscle fitness" (I like to call it) and it becomes thoroughly unenjoyable. If you don't enjoy it you wont do it.
So I'd say you need to run at 3 times a week and somewhere in the 30-45 min range will be fine if you aren't aiming to compete. (This should also keep you close enough to fitness that you can get back into competing at a later stage if you want to!).
Supplement this with either more running or some other exercise as you say you're already doing - whatever makes you feel good! I hate weights / conditioning work so will always look to do something like bike turbo (I use zwift a lot) or outside (cycling, hiking etc.) if I can.
Just do an easy 10-12 km every morning when you wake up.So easy to set aside 40 to 50 minutes every day for your health .
Jesus, you guys are beasts on this site.
I think im being healthy but running 5k each morning but you say 10-10km would be better. ahh well. Im trying to do repeats as well and but I literally don't understand the rest "jogging" like should i be tippie toe bouncing or what?
Just running 5k every morning is hardly worth spending the time lacing up your shoes. 5 mile minimum.
I think im being healthy but running 5k each morning but you say 10-10km would be better. ahh well. Im trying to do repeats as well and but I literally don't understand the rest "jogging" like should i be tippie toe bouncing or what?
Just running 5k every morning is hardly worth spending the time lacing up your shoes. 5 mile minimum.
forreal? damn. why 5 minimum though? I am asking in earnest.
There is research correlating V02 max with life expectancy up to very high levels. Not totally clear there is a causal link, imo, but there seem to be health benefits to serious training. There are obviously health benefits to lifting as well, and there seem to be benefits to mobility and balance also. The net of all of which is that it seems unlikely that health benefits to exercise taper off below 2hrs a day, split roughly 50/50 between V02 max training and strength/mobility/balance. With that said, my hunch is that 1hr per day probably gets you 80% of the way there. So it’s maybe not what we want to hear, but essentially do as much as you can, and hopefully at least 1hr per day?