Doubles or singles- Which is better

No one denies Manzano or other world class runners have good genes. No one denies that the genes of even a high school nose tackle are not the genes of a distance runner. However, if your genes are good enough to let you qualify for your state meet in high school, no one should deny that you have a reasonable chance to qualify for US nationals once in the race of your life.

fan of US distance running wrote:

HonestThief wrote:

correct. most elites have at least two or three non doubles days

Wrong

You already said this and you still are incorrect. The fact is that most elites don't double every day. Here are some examples from a quick google search with "(insert name) typical training week". Obviously no Salazar people are on there since they share almost nothing about their training plan, but I assume they do a lot of doubles

Nick Willis: no doubles

Kim Conley: "11 sessions in 6 days, one of those is 'body work' such as massage or ART" That means that if she never lifts, still she has 3 days a week where she is not doubling (one of those being an off day).

Leo Manzano: 3-4 doubles a week (so 3-4 non double days)

David Torrence: up to (but not necessarily) 3 doubles per week (so 4+ non doubles a week)

Molly Huddle: says she usually doubles on recovery days, which is about 4 days a week of doubles (she does a 12 day training cycle so it changes week to week)

Of course some elites do double almost every day, but I do not think "most" double every single day. And back to the point of the OP's question, a high school kid doubling every single day with 5+5 makes no sense because:

1) Most elites can't even handle doubling every day

2) It doesn't make sense to make your doubles 5 and 5

No, actually. I am correct.

Most is not half a dozen that you cherry pick.

Most is not half a dozen that you cherry pick.

Wrong

Like most serious college and professional runners, correct.

Most is not half a dozen that you cherry pick.

Correct

Correct

Most run once on long run days

load of bullsh!t incoming

christ

this begs the question, which is to say that it assumes the very thing you are trying to prove

you can't seriously believe this dude. only a world class moron would type the sentence I just quoted

what the EFF are you talking about

It´s somehow natural that many runners imitate the training schedules, doubles inclusive, of world elites in the hope of being great once in the future. That´s nonsense.

It makes more sense to have a closer look at those guys who are better than we are without running themselves into the ground. Singles offer a good chance to get more recovery time between your runs. There are so many successful sub-elites (for example 10k/sub 30mins) just by running pretty hard singles and a decent mileage. I don´t believe in the automatism "doubles > bombproof success".