90+ Miles a Week

the clearest benefit of doubles is that you aren't choosing between 15 or 10 + 5, but rather 15 or >15 in doubles. You'll run more mileage if you double.

Furthermore, longer is not always better. If it were then we'd all be running three 30 mile runs per week, or one 100 mile run each week, etc. etc. Along the same lines, more runs are not always better, otherwise we could just do 100 one mile runs each week. There's a balance in there somewhere and it's not 7 runs per week.

The physical benefits of a 60 minute run vs a 80 minute + run just feel different. They at least feel different to me. Once I hit like 70 minutes of running I start to feel slower, like I'm working my slow twitch muscles or something.

Doing 45 + 45 in a day makes me feel much sharper than one single 90+ run. The 45s are usually faster as well. AND i can do it day in and day out.

There's also supposedly benefits to your metabolism from doubling. Your metabolism spikes after running, so if you run twice a day you are getting two spikes.

Finally, who wouldn't want to run twice a day? Once I start doing doubles, running starts to be all I can think about. I'm probably getting two kicks of endorphins and the runs are just that much more enjoyable because I'm not slogging out 15 miles at 7 minute pace.

And like everyone else said, you'll be less injury prone. Now go do some strides. And don't forget hill strides too!

+1 good post. OP listen to this if nothing else

I am former D3 runner who wasn't anything too special (27:12 on a quick XC course). However, after graduating and getting a full time job (PA and HS coach) I focused back on training. I started to add in more mileage at a rate I knew I could handle (which I didn't do in college...rushed into mileage). I am now down to 25:57 and looking to improve more. The way you're setting up your mileage is very good, and I would have to agree with the other posters in that you should try to do just one longer run each week of about 20% of your total weekly mileage. Here are some other suggestions that I noticed have helped me and my HS athletes:

1. Make sure your non-workout runs are relaxed...that may mean 6:10 pace one day and 7:30 another...it's important to practice running relaxed.

2. Singles are a good way to become stronger, but doubles help increase the rate at which your body can recover and may make the mileage less monotonous.

3. To help prevent from peaking early, I'd suggest holding off on structured workouts until the season starts. Do fartleks of varying on/off durations, one set of normal strides a week and to do short hill sprints (with complete rest) after your long runs. All of these will build strength, increase turnover and keep you fairly sharp without going into the well.

4. Try to run on softer surfaces. It will decrease the load that you place on your body. However, after trail runs try to stretch or foam roll because the trails can make your tendons/ligaments/stabilizing muscles work harder than they may be used to.

5. Most importantly, have fun it's Summer! Relax with family and friends when you can. Go on runs with some girls/or a girlfriend (if you have one and if she runs). This is the most important because you don't want to go into the season brain dead and kind of hating running when you have another 3 months ahead of you.

Hope all this helped, and as the Great Tom Deride rain once said, "there's no secret to improving other than consistent uninterrupted training."

Good luck this season.

I chose division two wrote:

What school did you go to? Was your teammates training similar?

Edinboro

Teammates trained pretty similar. Small variances on average pace and number of miles. I would say everyone on the team (not some of the freshmen) ran at least 1 week at 90 in the summer and this would be a typically daily breakdown of the mileage, pace to be determined by the individual. While some people peaked at that for the summer I would continue on and get up to 105ish per week and hold it there.

chasing big dreams wrote:

could someone please explain to me why doubles are better than a single run (other than helping prevent injuries).

Please do not discount the effect of remaining healthy on your overall fitness. Other posters have mentioned this. On Monday, a double is a very effective way to keep up the mileage while letting the muscles recover from the Sunday long run. Don't forget that they are recovery days. It sounds like you are simply trying to lay down a huge base for XC season. I would think the point is to get in as many miles as possible while staying healthy and getting strong. Doubles are your friend. They are effective.

Yes, "double pounder" gives a good post. I would like to share something, though, in regard to the long run. For me, the long run is my "medicine." I do not know how to explain this completely, but the word "medicine" seems to be apt. My experience in, say, a 15-miler is pretty much the opposite of "double pounder." When I go over an hour or so, I tend to start feeling better, not worse. In fact, when I am healthy and doing normal training, I almost always feel better in the second half of a longer run. In general, I do not feel good in a run until the seventh or eighth mile or so. I feel something "kick in" and enjoy the second half much more. Perhaps this is why I am not as good in the 5k or 10k as I am in a 10-miler or half.

great thread, thanks to everyone. a lot of good advice.

you dont want to peak too early, but a little bit more of aerobic high end running (tempos or progression runs) and strides wouldnt be dangerous right now. get in some hills, increase your long run on sunday, make the following day really easy, decrease the wednesday run. listen to your body (pace), keep up the effort.

usually i would support the idea of doubles; there are countless success stories. but - strange enough - in my case doubles were the reason for a tenacious injury and somehow unhealthy fixation on running. i know comparable stories.

what i would like to say: consistence is king, and if you are a good responder to singles, stick to it.

You're not training poorly in relation to your goals, but I think there's def. a few things that you could improve upon:

1. Others have said it, and I'll add to the chorus: Double.

It's summer and it's hot out (well, unless your in the PNW or far up north). We trained in a hot climate back in college, and always factored in the extra wear and tear because of it when looking at our mileage totals AND structure. Going out and ripping all longer single runs is very likely going to beat the hell out of you. Throw in some doubles and you'll get the same benefit, recover better (so you can absorb the work and get faster more easily), and run less of a risk of digging your body into a hole.

2. Someone else said this, and I'd like to emphasize it: It's a LONG season. Regardless of what division your in, you're going to be competing until mid-late November. We wouldn't even consider "training" until the 1st of July (those of us that were older and more secure in our travel slots for the real meets). Everything before that is just making sure you're fit enough to start running with a purpose and recovered after a long year of hard work. You've got goals to meet and want to see large improvements, so obviously you're looking to do something extra to take you to a far greater level than if you'd just progressed normally - and that's fine. Just think about maybe hanging out in the 70 mpw range until the 2nd week of July and getting used to fitting in some strides/efficiency work and 1 progression/light tempo (as in 5-8 miles of work in the marathon pace +/- 10 seconds down to just touching date 10k pace) per week. After than ramp up and do 3 weeks building, 1 week "recovery" (so for you 70-80-90-75-90-95-100, etc. until you find a rhythm you like).

3. I touched on it above, but MAKE SURE YOU'RE NOT JUST JOGGING. Do strides after runs. Don't like it? Hammer between lightposts for the last mile of some runs. Throw in some as-you-feel progressions and work into planned ones as you progress through the summer. These will help you immensely when you get back to school.

4. Do NOT worry about pace. That goes for both easy and progression-type runs. As an example: I'd jog around between 7 and 8 minute pace most of the summer. Sometimes finishing a bit faster, but usually no better than 6:30 or so the last mile or two - that actually goes for once I got back to school, too, but we're not discussing that now. Progression runs? Yeah, I'd be stoked if I was getting my last couple miles under 5:20 when our coach was asking for them to be ending in the 5:00-10 range. DON'T WORRY. Have confidence that when you get back to school and are in a big group rolling along that the pace needed (which you may not have run all summer) will come easily and at the same RPE and HR that you were doing by yourself (or at least that's what my teammates and I found).

5. Once you get back to school, try to not care about too many races. I know that sounds weird, but just...get used to racing and don't sacrifice your training for pointless early season meets. Sure, my team would travel a full squad to 8-9 meets per year (that's including conference, regionals, and nationals). However, those of us secure in our slots and not racing to make the top 7-10 would be under orders to do nothing more than run the first 3-4 miles at LT pace and then pop down the last bit to 8k pace OR see how fast we could finish/race. In reality, we raced hard at 3-4 races all year (including conference and NCAA's (we had a weak region and could all but call it in)). My point, having dragged down memory lane a bit, is that you need to focus on keeping your training cycle rolling and not interrupting it just so you can sling a big dick against some randoms at a meet nobody will care about in 2 weeks. Keep it in your shorts until the big at large points gathering meets and the championship season.

Ah....I think that's it? Sorry that got a bit long, but I wanted to lay out what I've seen be the most successful for the largest amount of people (so not JUST myself). Feel free to ask questions.

Source: 16:10, 9:48 HS athlete who improved enough doing that to have NCAA XC and T&F trophies.

Excellent input, mr. sj. I wanted to offer some cautionary words in regard to doubles, but I did not feel I have had enough experience with them in order provide truly accurate analysis/advice. I can see how doubles could perhaps bring about a negative effect, either physically or psychologically, but I realize that many runners have benefitted by running doubles. I could not agree more about conscience being king.

mr sj: What type of injury did you sustain while running doubles?

I used to do 90s in singles. ...but that was also on top of another 10-30 in doubles.

Doubles allow you to increase mileage without overdoing it. 90-120 min singles everyday will eventually tire you out. There's no reason for a non-marathoner to do two 120min runs in a week.

Do this:

18

10

13

10/5

10

10/5

13

Your body will thank you for those little 10 milers later.

Build up to that mileage level with two days of non-jogging semi faster stuff but not killing it lIke pole sprInts or block sprInts or longer pIckups. The other days just run as you feel. .some days may accidently become tempos at the end

If you get to that mileage level pretty easily then add a mile here and there and go for 100-120

Alan

Great thread with some great advice

Well, I'm surprised no ones got into it yet...but my knowledge of doubles vs. singles, with regard to exercise physiology, is with singles you'll get a greater aerobic stimulus. Of course, that's not a term that the scientific community would really use..the general idea is that you'd produce more mitochondria, increase running economy, increase capillarization (spelling wrong...), and some number of other nice benefits...

On the downside, you increase stress not only on your muscles but on your bones, heart, lungs, immune system (probably?), and my favorite: footstrike hemolysis. Probably not a huge issue if you're running on trails, soft trails, but the breakdown in RBC in your feet might offset the increased production of RBC.

I used to think singles were always better than doubles, but two things changed my mind:

1) I thought Colorado did singles cause of some physiological things, with the altitude and all, and also as a element of attrition. In the book, or somewhere, Wetmore says they do singles for convenience. Makes sense, if you can only run once a day for 2 hours you can get a decent amount of mileage done.

2) Applies more during the season, but it's nice to throw in shake out runs (3 to 5 miles AM) before workouts and to do a nice long (4 to 6 mile) cool down after harder efforts. In both cases, doubling can help to increase mileage.

Personally, I think doubles keep you honest and train your body to recover faster (in-between runs) but another example was I knew I DIII runner (sub 25 8k/14:30 5kPR) who missed a day of running during his summer base phase. He was hitting 100 mile weeks and to stay on target he went out for a 20 miler. Granted he was traveling, but you can see how doing a single wasn't a great way to come back with the mileage.

Just to toss another rock on the pile...

You're terribly wrong about doubles.

Only thing new to add:

Run on grass, run more hills.

justsomeoldcoach wrote:

You shouldn't be doing 15 to start with.

Say you do 15 today. That does some damage. Next day you do only 8 for a total of 23.

Now say you do 5+8. That's lower than your initial 15. But you can do 5+8 the very next day. The total is now 26. Not only the total is higher, it is more balanced. Less chance of burning out or injury.

Hope this helps. The numbers don't matter, the concept does.

I would add the doubles allow you to run for speed, not just piling on the hours.

chasing big dreams wrote:

justsomeoldcoach wrote:

You are wrong about doubles. Terribly wrong.

What I meant was that I don't feel that doubles are as beneficial as a single run. For example if I were going to do a 15 miler, it's better for me to do that 15 instead of a 10 then a 5. If I am wrong about this, could someone please explain to me why doubles are better than a single run (other than helping prevent injuries).

Here are some good threads about why you should be doing doubles.

100mpw in singles or doubles

What is the science behind doing doubles over singles

Runs of

Oh okay! I went to Ferris St. Graduated around the same time as you. Our training was a lot less volume, just curious. Edinborough is a good program.

ifyouthinkso wrote:

I chose division two wrote:

What school did you go to? Was your teammates training similar?

Edinboro

Teammates trained pretty similar. Small variances on average pace and number of miles. I would say everyone on the team (not some of the freshmen) ran at least 1 week at 90 in the summer and this would be a typically daily breakdown of the mileage, pace to be determined by the individual. While some people peaked at that for the summer I would continue on and get up to 105ish per week and hold it there.

You are running your easy runs too easy. If you are running 90 miles/week and are a 27:00 guy your easy pace is something should be in the 7:00 to 7:30 pace.

You also made no mention of strides or speedwork. You have to spend a little bit of time working other energy systems. If I were your coach I would rather you cut out 10 miles per week and do strides 3-4 times a week.

There is no need to kill yourself in intervals. Just do them fast without straining. Straining is what kills you.

I would also add a day dedicated to tempo running. The focus of your week should be around having a good tempo run and good strides with mileage coming naturally.

oops. Your easy runs are too hard!!

also: You don't need to do every week at 90 miles/week. Drop every 4th week down to 50-60 miles and cut your tempo days in half.

This will allow your body to recover. Everyother sport in the world uses the concepts of periodization except runners it seems...