46 year old no-talent male who's focused on the 5K, and is pretty slow (21:xx). Slowly building up mileage, mostly easy pace stuff at 10:00/mile or slower. When should I start running doubles, vs making the single daily run longer?
Tentative plan for this week:
Mon 6
Tue 10
Wed 7
Thu 12
Fri 5
Sat 6 (including 5K race)
Sun 8
Total: 54
Most people start doubling once or twice a week somewhere around 60-65 miles. For some, it's more beneficial to start doubling at a little more mileage than that.
If you are fairly new to running, I'd hold off on doubling for a little longer. Try adding a modest (at first) speedwork day to your week and you might find your current mileage to be adequate for a little longer.
double boiler wrote:
46 year old no-talent male who's focused on the 5K, and is pretty slow (21:xx). Slowly building up mileage, mostly easy pace stuff at 10:00/mile or slower. When should I start running doubles, vs making the single daily run longer?
Tentative plan for this week:
Mon 6
Tue 10
Wed 7
Thu 12
Fri 5
Sat 6 (including 5K race)
Sun 8
Total: 54
If you have the time, I think doubles can be beneficial even at very low mileage.
Actually, I think there's reasons that low mileage runners with the time and motivation could especially benefit from 1 or 2 weekly doubles.
I also think that as little as 5 minutes of running is a useful double, especially for slower or lower mileage people.
10 minutes very easy in the morning before an afternoon workout can be an incredible addition to a training plan. Just try it, 10 minutes easy, and see how you feel in the afternoon - I suspect you will feel much faster than usual.
disgraceful_admin wrote:
double boiler wrote:46 year old no-talent male who's focused on the 5K, and is pretty slow (21:xx). Slowly building up mileage, mostly easy pace stuff at 10:00/mile or slower. When should I start running doubles, vs making the single daily run longer?
Tentative plan for this week:
Mon 6
Tue 10
Wed 7
Thu 12
Fri 5
Sat 6 (including 5K race)
Sun 8
Total: 54
If you have the time, I think doubles can be beneficial even at very low mileage.
Actually, I think there's reasons that low mileage runners with the time and motivation could especially benefit from 1 or 2 weekly doubles.
I also think that as little as 5 minutes of running is a useful double, especially for slower or lower mileage people.
10 minutes very easy in the morning before an afternoon workout can be an incredible addition to a training plan. Just try it, 10 minutes easy, and see how you feel in the afternoon - I suspect you will feel much faster than usual.
+1
I'm not a new runner, just slow. Been running for 15 years, but thanks to injuries and low motivation it's been over 10 years since I last ran 50+ mpw. Most of the past decade has been 0 to 25 mpw. Now I'm healthy and have lots of time and motivation, and want to do everything I can to improve.
For the past couple of months, my "speedwork" has been a 5K race every 1-2 weeks, while I gradually build up mileage. I also do hill repeats 1x per week, strides 2-3x per week, and simple bodyweight strength exercises 3x per week. So far I haven't seen very much improvement in my race times, which is a little discouraging, but I'll keep at it. Once I reach about 60 mpw, I plan to hold the mileage there, and begin introducing tempo runs and more speedwork.
I started at 30 mph.
Added an extra 3 miles in the AM a few times a week.
I'm close to your age, and I've used doubles before when recovering from injury to keep up mileage if I couldn't manage longer than a few miles at a time. I agree that any extra running you do will be beneficial.
But I don't think upping your mileage is the most likely way to help your 5K time right now. You've got lots of aerobic base in your easy mileage, long run, and regular 5K races. Your regular work on base speed looks good, too. If there's one hole in your game, it might be intervals at your goal pace/faster than current 5K pace. You could work on going from just strides to some 200s, or adding some 400/800/1200 intervals to your routine.
If you're just getting back to running and building up distance again, then maybe now isn't the time, but you might want to think about giving yourself a stimulus on the faster side of your 5K pace instead of running more miles.
I started at about 50 miles a week. Did 3 days a week of 20 minutes in the morning for my doubles. Made a huge difference. I wasn't a big mileage guy so for me I started doubles at a lower weekly number than most but It really helped me out. Built it up over a two year period where I did 6 days at doubles with only my long run day a single.
ThatAverageRunner wrote:
disgraceful_admin wrote:If you have the time, I think doubles can be beneficial even at very low mileage.
Actually, I think there's reasons that low mileage runners with the time and motivation could especially benefit from 1 or 2 weekly doubles.
I also think that as little as 5 minutes of running is a useful double, especially for slower or lower mileage people.
10 minutes very easy in the morning before an afternoon workout can be an incredible addition to a training plan. Just try it, 10 minutes easy, and see how you feel in the afternoon - I suspect you will feel much faster than usual.
+1
+1
I'm running doubles at 45 miles a week. Many benefits.
critiquer of training plans wrote:
If there's one hole in your game, it might be intervals at your goal pace/faster than current 5K pace. You could work on going from just strides to some 200s, or adding some 400/800/1200 intervals to your routine.
Good feedback, thanks! That's essentially what I'd planned to start doing once I'd built up to around 60 mpw. There's no specific reason for 60, vs 50 or 70, but it has some psychological importance.
I guess you could say I want to add intervals AND more miles. So which is smarter to add first? My reasoning was that miles first, intervals second would be less likely to result in injury than the reverse, even if it takes me an extra month or two. Am I being too conservative?
double dip wrote:
I started at 30 mph.
Added an extra 3 miles in the AM a few times a week.
30 miles per hour is a pretty good clip. What's your mile PR?
double boiler wrote:
46 year old no-talent male who's focused on the 5K, and is pretty slow (21:xx). Slowly building up mileage, mostly easy pace stuff at 10:00/mile or slower. When should I start running doubles, vs making the single daily run longer?
Tentative plan for this week:
Mon 6
Tue 10
Wed 7
Thu 12
Fri 5
Sat 6 (including 5K race)
Sun 8
Total: 54
21 minute 5K? You need speedwork much more than doubles.
If you are trying to get faster. Run faster training miles 10min is not helping you.
double boiler wrote:
46 year old no-talent male who's focused on the 5K, and is pretty slow (21:xx). Slowly building up mileage, mostly easy pace stuff at 10:00/mile or slower. When should I start running doubles, vs making the single daily run longer?
Tentative plan for this week:
Mon 6
Tue 10
Wed 7
Thu 12
Fri 5
Sat 6 (including 5K race)
Sun 8
Total: 54
There is no fixed rule. Even two 20-minute runs can be valuable. The advantage of doubling is that you can run at a higher intensity.
It can be helpful to do a short run(~10min) in the morning before a workout, though that would be better thought of as a shakeout.
If you are going to double for aerobic benefit, the double should be at least 30min (approximate rule of thumb). Any shorter and your body is just starting to rev up when you stop the run. Additionally, this double should only come on a day where the main run is either a workout or over 60min. If you cut the main run to say 45min in order to fit in a 30min double, you are unnecessarily cutting the aerobic benefits from the main run. In that case, just run 75min.
If I were to hazard a guess, I would say you probably need more intense workouts first. I would also expect the easy run pace to be closer to 9min/mile for a 21-22min 5k runner, though as has been pointed out by many on these boards, the first thing to do on an easy day is recover for the next hard session.
double boiler wrote:
critiquer of training plans wrote:If there's one hole in your game, it might be intervals at your goal pace/faster than current 5K pace. You could work on going from just strides to some 200s, or adding some 400/800/1200 intervals to your routine.
Good feedback, thanks! That's essentially what I'd planned to start doing once I'd built up to around 60 mpw. There's no specific reason for 60, vs 50 or 70, but it has some psychological importance.
I guess you could say I want to add intervals AND more miles. So which is smarter to add first? My reasoning was that miles first, intervals second would be less likely to result in injury than the reverse, even if it takes me an extra month or two. Am I being too conservative?
You are right to add intervals after miles. Base before specific work. Building and staying at 60 seems reasonable. It is hard for anyone here to know what is ideal, but if you run more than 60, my guess is you will be too run down to workout hard.
And for the people saying add a couple short doubles a week, yes it may be better than not, but it isn't the best use of your time. Why spend 45min for just for a separate 20min run with minimal benefit?
7 miles per week.
1/2 mile morning, 1/2 mile evening, each day.
sixty 9
I don't think there is a magical number. There are benefits to both singles and double regardless of mileage. Doubling at lower mileage can be a building block towards longer singles in the future. For example if 7 mile per day is too much now running 5 and 2 or 4 and 3 could be the doorway into eventually being able to 7 a day. From a recovery standpoint having a short shakeout in the morning can improve the quality of your pm run by helping get rid of lactic acid and tightness. Lydiard was a strong advocate of doubling and believed there was benefit in even very slow mileage.