12 miles weekday doubles 8-4 or 6-6 ?

8-4

I did 8-4's the summer before cross country. I would do the 8 miler at a steady pace, then run the 4 miler as a tempo run. It will get results fast, but be careful to build rest into it. I ran too many of the 4 milers hard and would slump in mid-season. In fact, I probably should've only done those doubles 2-3 times a week, not 5 like I was doing.

4-8, do the 4 in the morning as a shakeout

Ben Gozzi wrote:

I did 8-4's the summer before cross country. I would do the 8 miler at a steady pace, then run the 4 miler as a tempo run. It will get results fast, but be careful to build rest into it. I ran too many of the 4 milers hard and would slump in mid-season. In fact, I probably should've only done those doubles 2-3 times a week, not 5 like I was doing.

I run by feel the morning 8 miler is just a steady pace based on feel.. The 4 miler is the same I sometimes work a fartlek or run to the barn in if I feel fresh. Also 1-2x week I run the 8miler on a hilly course.

the weekend is usually a 10 miler on saturday and two 10 milers on sunday, one early morning and one after lunch

so basically similar plan to the OP

Agree with this. I am not a big fan of doubling because I think there are benefits to getting your mileage in via decent chunks of 10 miles or more if you are marathon training and if I am training for something shorter, I rarely get up to high enough mileage to warrant doubling. But when I do, I tend to find that the afternoon run feels better than the morning run, so I would make the afternoon run the longer one.

GulanRapp wrote:

4-8, do the 4 in the morning as a shakeout

I always feel better in the morning, also I just enjoy it more. Sometimes I go lunch and afternoon. I try to double 4 days a week or so. I am almost to my goal of a couple of 100 mile weeks in 2016 (new years resolution) coming off zero running for 10 years.

Are you training for something specific?

Running a Half Marathon in April .. some upcoming local 5ks one on Thanksgiving and one ten days later. about it.. Just at the moment trying to build a big base for that half next year and roll that into spring and summer racing.

Most of my miles has been 7:45-8 min miles .. easy runs on hills a couple times a week, one tempoish run and one fartlek or run to the barn type run.

Just running by feel I never wear a watch

Got it. Good luck.

While unsolicited, I figured I would share my perspective on doubling.

We draw glycogen from three sources in our body: the blood stream, our liver, the muscles engaged in activity (in that order, I believe). I don't have a study that I can point to, but it is my understanding that you deplete your glycogen stores from the first source (your blood stream, I believe) in about an hour of running.

When racing longer distances (half and up, maybe 15k and up for some), you end up undergoing that transition during the race. As a result, come race day, I want my body to be fully adapted to making that transition; so I try to get in as many runs as possible which result in the transition occurring. That is to say that I try to run for at least 70 minutes (about 10 miles for me) as often as possible, without exceeding my mileage goals for the week.

So if I were going to run 20 miles over a three day period, rather than go 8-4 one day and 8 another, I would go 10 one day and 10 another with the result being that I made the transition between energy sources on both runs and ultimately spent 20 minutes over those two runs drawing on my secondary source of energy rather than no transition at all in the doubling scenario.

Admittedly, this is much more important when you are running the marathon where you have to be as efficient with your use of calories as possible and so you want that transition to be smooth and you want your body to be accustomed to and efficient at drawing on the secondary source of glycogen.

I'm not sure I have the science exactly right, and I know that there are other reasons to double, but I figured I would just give folks who might be reading this string some food for thought.

I just go by what feels good to me and keeps me healthy. I am trying to do the best of both worlds by doubling some and singling some

this week is like

Sun 12

Mon 5.5 hard hills at lunch (out of time that morn from tavel) and 4 that eve

Tues 8am 4 pm

Wed 11.5 am

Thu 8-4

Fri 8-4

Sat 10am

Either the Friday am run or the Saturday run will have some tempo pace thrown in based on feel

4 in morning as a shakeout

It will get you nice a primed for your 8 in the evening, allowing a more comfortable quicker pace.

4 AM + 8-10 PM was a good base to get me under 15 minutes.

runrincerepeat wrote:

I always feel better in the morning, also I just enjoy it more. Sometimes I go lunch and afternoon. I try to double 4 days a week or so. I am almost to my goal of a couple of 100 mile weeks in 2016 (new years resolution) coming off zero running for 10 years.

It is hard for me to relate to this. I feel like crap in the morning and simply can't run fast. I'm just not a morning person. When doubling, my morning runs would be a whole minute + slower than my afternoon run. I realize a lot of it is mental as I can run morning road races fine but just not training runs.

Everyone is different so do what works for you. As to the original question, I like the 4 - 8 split. But for me, that is because the 4 would be slow and easy and the 8 would be my workout.

Some days I feel like crap for the first 2 miles or so but then get it going.. Basically I am just trying a lot more volume eventually it will be 10-4 5 days a week and some longer runs on the weekend.

Sunday before last I did 12 at 7am and then 10 at 1pm

Why commit to one or the other? Some days do 8-6, other days 4-4, other days, 6-4. You get the picture. Listen to your body and work around your life schedule. Those factors are way more important to your training than abstract physiology.

What all these posts tell me is there is a willingness to sacrifice greater aerobic/strength development via a legitimate long run for consistent doubles (i.e. two ten mile runs does not equate to the same developmental benefit as does one 20 miler). If you have time to do two 10 milers on the same day during the weekend then you have time to do one legitimate long run. I understand being more pressed for time on work days, in which case an 8-4 or 4-8 approach is better than 6-6, but on weekends there should be a day with one run equal to roughly 20% of weekly volume.

For me two ten milers with a little break and recovery lessens my chance to get injured.

Also I feel like I can run slightly faster w splitting the long run and also stressing the body twice in one day. malmo believes in doubles and the old school guys ran a lot of fast races doing high mileage and a lot of doubles. So I started doing it and I feel good, so gonna keep to it. When I run a few races we will see what happens!

I think your strategy is fine. Unless you are training for a marathon or ultra, long singles aren't really necessary - you are getting the same aerobic stimulus either way. For the same energy expenditure you can train more efficiently and effectively with doubles than singles. Just make sure to ease into it and don't think that 5-6 days of doubling is automatically better than 3-4 days of doubling.

The only reason to run long singles is to get used to being on your feet that long and, to some degree, to work on fuel utilization. Otherwise, the benefits of split mileage outweigh longer single runs of equivalent volume. I'd agree with many here: 4-8 (am-pm) split is the way to go. Nice and easy in the AM and then get any workouts or another easy run in the late morning or afternoon. The AM run has a nice "priming" effect for the afternoon session and you'll start to feel more in sync with how your body feels by running twice per day.

Thoughts on a

3-7/6 for weekdays for 3200 guy in winter base training, who's never done for than 55 (no doubles)?