Sub-3 marathon and running doubles vs. singles in training

Running doubles at a volume that low would be highly counterproductive for marathon training IMO. I also disagree that most plans have doubles at 55 miles a week. Even if you are doing a Daniels 2Q plan where the long runs are relatively shorter than other plans that is still 30ish mile of work in 2 days and 25-30 in the remaining 5. 5-6 miles a day doesn’t seem worth it to split for both logistical and general aerobic reasons. Even with a day off every few weeks.

I got there by upping my mileage from where you are to 80 mpw. I did one or two doubles a week. I don't think it is even advisable until you get to at least 70 and even then it's not really necessary.

Over approximately how much time did you ramp up from 45-50 mpw up to 80mpw? Was it within one "season" or was it a multi-year process?

I would love to run that much (I have the time, as long as it's in the AM), but I fear overuse injury. FWIW, I was an avid Ironman triathlete for 10 years, but got sick of biking and swimming so decided to focus on only running. So I have the aerobic base to handle a lot more mileage than I do currently, but what I can handle orthopedically is a different story.

I'm 37 and broke sub 3 in Jan. 2020. Late to life runner, hoping to break 2:50 in June. Anyway, I averaged about 55-60 most weeks. Because of scheduling limitations, I did do some doubles and felt they made me stronger, although I kinda agree that you might get more bang for your buck by running longer singles at that mileage. Still there is something to be said about doubles and their supposed ability to help recovery. Again, I think it worked for me but who's to say. They weren't a staple--I just did them some weeks when necessary.

I was able to get to 3:08 off about 45-50. I think bumping mileage to 60 for a few weeks was helpful to get sub 3. Of course, lots of other variables could've been at play--e.g., having more of a baseline fitness, workout structure, etc.

If you are concerned about injury, I'd recommend trying to do some trail work most weeks. I think one of the things that helped me were trails 2-3x per week and doing a number of long runs on a rail to trail system. In other words, get your legs away from constant pounding on the 'crete every so often. I also did almost 0 V02 max workouts. I always came away with injury from them (probably because I don't do them enough--what a paradox!) I stuck to Marathon Pace on saturdays and threshold work on Weds. Hills too. Everything else easy.

highhoppingworm wrote:

Running doubles at a volume that low would be highly counterproductive for marathon training IMO. I also disagree that most plans have doubles at 55 miles a week. Even if you are doing a Daniels 2Q plan where the long runs are relatively shorter than other plans that is still 30ish mile of work in 2 days and 25-30 in the remaining 5. 5-6 miles a day doesn’t seem worth it to split for both logistical and general aerobic reasons. Even with a day off every few weeks.

Replacing a couple of hour runs easy runs with 2 45 min runs gives you more volume and less stress. Take the OP example of doing 1 90 min run versus a 60 and 30. Few people (and yes I am aware that some people have no problems doing it) can do 90 min singles every day. Lots ca do 30/60. Granted 90 mins of running should be more like 80mpw than 55-60.

60 in singles is pretty doable. You have a 90-120 min run on the weekend (call it 15) and a 90 min run during the week(call it 11) and 34 miles over the remaing 5 days or about an hour/day. For a person who has been running 45mpw that is a substantial boost in volume which should lead to good results. If possible I would try to do a couple 30/30 splits just to make it easier but it definitely isn't needed.

You have to play volume increases by feel and backing off every couple weeks when feeling good is a solid practice. It is real easy when things are going well to just keep pushing.

Thanks everyone - very helpful. The two plans I like the best so far are the Pfitz 55-70 (tried it in the past but injured myself by pushing long runs too hard) and the Full Potential (the Garmin one) advanced plan which goes off of time but would have me running in the 55-60 range. Both of those plans have a 1-2 doubles a week - usually an easy 30' run plus a ~1 hour tempo or hill workout. For me it would probably make sense to just do the 30' run as my warmup to the 1-hour workout.

Since we're on the subject of pushing too hard, I found last year when I was trying the Pfitz 55-70 mpw I was doing GREAT for about 10 weeks, then POP, got a nasty shin splint that knocked me out of serious running for almost 8 weeks. Fortunately my scheduled marathon got cancelled so I didn't have to embarrass myself :)

When I got injured, I found I was feeling extremely fit running 55-70 mpw and it got to the point where running low-7:00/mile felt pretty easy. So of course I started pushing that pace a lot more than I should have (instead of running an easy 7:45-8:00 like I had been) on my long runs and of course got injured. That will happen when you turn your long runs into slow tempo runs.

So that brings me to an actual question - how do you guys feel about training off of mainly HR as opposed to pace?

I find with training off of pace I always end up finding a way to rationalize pushing harder than I should. With HR, I sort of have more of a leash, at least on the longer runs where I need it.

Another benefit of HR that I see is that it accounts for temperature, which is a big issue where I live (Virginia). When training for a fall marathon, which will probably be on a 60-degree day, I'll be doing almost all of my running over the summer in 80-degree plus heat with high humidity. So trying to push the same "marathon pace" in training can really fry you. Using HR seems like a good, if not perfect, reference point for knowing just how much to back off. To this point I have always trained off of pace, with mixed results (the result being injuring myself after a few weeks of being overly ambitious on long runs).

For avoiding injury, HR is just one more data source. It won't save you from doing stupid things. You can definitely factor heat, humidity, hills and other things into your summer training, but for structural injuries, you have to monitor the structure. Check how your feet/ankles/shins/knees/etc. feel during and at the end of a run.

I'm in favor of old man doubles: run for a while, stop for some water and a bathroom break, walk around for a few minutes, then run some more. It barely takes any more time than running singles, keeps up your volume and gives you a chance to rest the muscles that keep your running form from falling apart.

Check out the Hansons Plan. It peaks at 60mpw. I plan on trying their full plan this fall, my goal is also to break 3:00. I finished a marathon years ago in 4:00, but I wouldn't count that effort as truly running the marathon. This fall will be my first real marathon.

I was able to run my PR of 1:25 off of a peak of 35mpw, Hansons style plan. Although I heavily modified it and ran way less mileage than the real plan called for.

https://hansons-running.com/pages/training-plans#

I think you only need doubles once you're over 70 miles/week. Sub-3 should be doable at 50-60/week. Think I was more like 70-80 but ended up in the low-2:50s the first time I broke it. I didn't come from a running background. Didn't really run 5k's. Just started with the longer stuff.

There is only a need of 4-6 sessions per week to break 3 hours marathon. I`m sure!

I used some doubles in training to 2:55 a few years back, and I think it can be very helpful. That said, I think you have answered your own question.

If it is much easier to spend the time running all at once, then do that. Just know that most likely the higher mileage you run, the faster your marathon can be.

For me, I'd been at 50-60 for about a year and as I tried to build up to 70 it was easiest to add a few 3-5 milers. But for me, simply moving to a little longer long run + a mid week 12 miler was enough to bump above 60. I was never to the point where I could run 10 and call it a truly easy run. However 7 +3 was doable, and as the mileage went up, I think I even did 7 + 7 a couple times without even trying (running enough I just zoned out...).

Bottom line: more longer runs, more overall miles is good. Do it how you can. Don't think that there is only 1 way to do it.

And as for your question about HR vs pace. I'd ignore the watch completely for all non-workouts and use effort. As the miles go up, the pace may slow down. That's fine. Workouts you can use HR to supplement pace, but even then it may be better to use effort in the heat (HR goes crazy high for me when its hot).

I started training seriously about 18 months ago (before that I was running 20-30 miles per week although I have run more in past) and roughly followed Pfitz's 55 mile per week plan except instead of resting, I would just jog slowly (like over 10 minute miles). Doing this I got up to 65 miles per week or so, most of it really slow (average pace according to strava in 8:45-9:00 range) and ran a bit under 3:10.

Over the last year I focused on increasing the mileage and got up to a consistent 70-75 miles per week in singles (with an occasional double on the weekend when I had more time) and ran a virtual marathon in around 2:50. I do one or two workouts a week (usually tempo type stuff), but my long runs were frequently in the 8:30 a mile range and many of my runs in the 9:30 to 10:00 a mile range.

In my race, my endurance felt great and I was even able to kick, but I still slowed down a bit in second half of race and my time was a bit slow compared to my half (under 1:20). For my next cycle, now that I'm comfortable running higher mileage, I'm going to focus on running more of my miles at a faster pace (in in the marathon pace to marathon plus 20% range) and see if that helps (I'm thinking of trying some of the Hadd base training

https://www.angio.net/personal/run/hadd.pdf

).

So if you have a few years to improve, I recommend considering trying running really slow until you build the mileage up because it worked really well for me. By all means, if you can increase the mileage and still run fast all of the time do it (and maybe it would have worked for me), but I was worried about getting injured and/or feeling tired all of the time.

Go with singles but increase time on your feet slowly. It can be done but not if you rush it and not if you are concerned with the pace (or HR). Just run by feel (Easy) and increase the duration of your AM run by just a few minutes every other week. Take 2 days off when you are starting to feel run down or getting the niggles.

try running slow? wrote:

Doing this I got up to 65 miles per week or so, most of it really slow (average pace according to strava in 8:45-9:00 range) and ran a bit under 3:10.

That pace is actually what you're easy pase should be, so no need to call it really slow. It ain't. Easy runs should be easy. Really slow for a 3:10 marathoner is like 10:15 per mile.

Sorry, didn't read the full post. I will read the research you points to.

Ran 2:48 on singles 50mpw at 26 yo. Upped to 70mpw with occasional doubles lets see how this year goes

Run6556 wrote:

try running slow? wrote:

Doing this I got up to 65 miles per week or so, most of it really slow (average pace according to strava in 8:45-9:00 range) and ran a bit under 3:10.

That pace is actually what you're easy pase should be, so no need to call it really slow. It ain't. Easy runs should be easy. Really slow for a 3:10 marathoner is like 10:15 per mile.

I agree, but I don't know many people who actually run that slow (relative to their race pace) and OP is talking about dialing back his easy runs to 7:45-8:00 per mile, which is maybe fine for his long runs/harder days, but way too fast for true recovery days.

The Wizard JS wrote:

There is only a need of 4-6 sessions per week to break 3 hours marathon. I`m sure!

For whom?

For a 75 years old who has never run?

For Kipchoge?

How about at least pretending you know how to coach?

try running slow? wrote:

Run6556 wrote:

That pace is actually what you're easy pase should be, so no need to call it really slow. It ain't. Easy runs should be easy. Really slow for a 3:10 marathoner is like 10:15 per mile.

I agree, but I don't know many people who actually run that slow (relative to their race pace) and OP is talking about dialing back his easy runs to 7:45-8:00 per mile, which is maybe fine for his long runs/harder days, but way too fast for true recovery days.

I agree that not many run that slow. That is because this is a skill which must be practiced and one must lay away the ego at home. Sadly, as we see most runners are most likely all to keen to show off their fitness rather than actually running what is objectively easy. I have friends claiming to run easy, doing the same easy pace as me but are noway near my fitness. That is an-injury-waiting-to-happen procedure. Actually, for some it has already happened but they don't aknowledge why that is happening, i.e. to much junk miles or even harder for easy days. There are genetic freaks that can (for longer than others) run way to hard all the time but they are outliers. Running easy for real must be practiced since if all you know is either hard or really hard, then you might think easy is what is objectively moderate and so on.