Your heart must get pretty bored just pounding around at 131 or less, effortlessly spitting out 6-something minute miles. You should take a good book with you next time.
It appears that the majority of your milage is accumulated via once a day runs. What has been your past experience and your philosophy with two a day runs?
I'm halfway through 'War and Peace' since the marathon...haha. Most days, 130s don't feel that easy. There's a bit of fatigue in every range.
Good question, Joe. I've been wanting to do doubles over the past several years, but it's just not going to happen. I get up before 5am to get my run in to minimize the impact on the family, and to do a second workout would take away from the (very) few hours we have as a family when everyone is awake.
I've considered insane scheduling, such as sleeping six hours (8p-2a), run for 45 minutes, then try to sleep/rest for two hours and run the main workout. That's too crazy, though. Running after the kids go to bed makes it too hard to sleep (and it gets too late), so I've ruled that out.
I don't know. Any good strategies from the world of triathlon?
Thanks for the reply. The reason I ask is due to the fact that I'm thinking about focusing only on running for the next 1-2 yrs. You've inspired me to try to establish PBs from the 5K - Marathon. I feel that a break from triathlons for a few years would be a good thing based on the fact that: 1) I hate swimming with a passion 2) I'm starting to develop boils on my crotch from cycling. If I decided to focus on running, I would try to implement two a day runs based on the fact that it is very easy for me to run during my lunch hour from 3-7 miles (showers at work, and eat at my desk) and try to sneak in a 2nd run after the children go down around 8PM. My only concern is that some experienced runners believe that the quality of your running volume is significantly lessened when done with two a day runs as opposed to singles. Have you heard this before?
Eric - I wish I had a solution for your doubles dilemma. When it comes to running or family, there is only one solution.
Now that our boys are older, I have the opportunity to run doubles now and again during soccer and baseball seasons - I practice while they practice, and I sit in the sun and enjoy the games.
Ya'll're certainly as well versed in training principles as I am but here's what my edumacation teached me: every run/workout should have a purpose so you shouldn't split one of those into two separate workouts if you can avoid it nor should you double for the sole sake of adding mileage. The way I've always handled doubles is that I always want to get a recovery or easy run in between quality runs so with one long run plus 2-3 quality runs per week (back to back days every other week) that gives me 1-3 easy second runs per week... Now I just need to work on getting myself a couple of kids to eliminate such pontification.
Joe, I would agree with what Sky said, which has been said by Lydiard and others a long time ago, that the second run is beneficial to the extent that it doesn't take away from your core running--that 9-10 hours per week of a variety of distances and paces that is 'training'. For example, a single 2 hour midweek run is always a better aerobic stimulus than two one hour runs, or one 40 min and another 80 minute run, etc. Whether the athlete can recover from that two hour run is another question, but...I think you get the point.
The second run, to my understanding, is a recovery enhancer, or a low level aerobic supplement. Lydiard's athletes, as far as I know, didn't even count the 40+ additional miles per week they ran in supplemental runs toward their weekly mileage.
I would completely agree that the aerobic stimulus would be compromised by consistently breaking single runs into two runs. You would be sacrificing a lot of the efficiency gains that come with running those longer distances regularly.
7 comments:
Your heart must get pretty bored just pounding around at 131 or less, effortlessly spitting out 6-something minute miles. You should take a good book with you next time.
Sundog,
It appears that the majority of your milage is accumulated via once a day runs. What has been your past experience and your philosophy with two a day runs?
Joe Fogarty
I'm halfway through 'War and Peace' since the marathon...haha. Most days, 130s don't feel that easy. There's a bit of fatigue in every range.
Good question, Joe. I've been wanting to do doubles over the past several years, but it's just not going to happen. I get up before 5am to get my run in to minimize the impact on the family, and to do a second workout would take away from the (very) few hours we have as a family when everyone is awake.
I've considered insane scheduling, such as sleeping six hours (8p-2a), run for 45 minutes, then try to sleep/rest for two hours and run the main workout. That's too crazy, though. Running after the kids go to bed makes it too hard to sleep (and it gets too late), so I've ruled that out.
I don't know. Any good strategies from the world of triathlon?
Sundog,
Thanks for the reply. The reason I ask is due to the fact that I'm thinking about focusing only on running for the next 1-2 yrs. You've inspired me to try to establish PBs from the 5K - Marathon. I feel that a break from triathlons for a few years would be a good thing based on the fact that:
1) I hate swimming with a passion
2) I'm starting to develop boils on my crotch from cycling.
If I decided to focus on running,
I would try to implement two a day runs based on the fact that it is very easy for me to run during my lunch hour from 3-7 miles (showers at work, and eat at my desk) and try to sneak in a 2nd run after the children go down around 8PM. My only concern is that some experienced runners believe that the quality of your running volume is significantly lessened when done with two a day runs as opposed to singles. Have you heard this before?
Joe F.
Eric - I wish I had a solution for your doubles dilemma. When it comes to running or family, there is only one solution.
Now that our boys are older, I have the opportunity to run doubles now and again during soccer and baseball seasons - I practice while they practice, and I sit in the sun and enjoy the games.
Your time will come.
Ya'll're certainly as well versed in training principles as I am but here's what my edumacation teached me: every run/workout should have a purpose so you shouldn't split one of those into two separate workouts if you can avoid it nor should you double for the sole sake of adding mileage. The way I've always handled doubles is that I always want to get a recovery or easy run in between quality runs so with one long run plus 2-3 quality runs per week (back to back days every other week) that gives me 1-3 easy second runs per week... Now I just need to work on getting myself a couple of kids to eliminate such pontification.
Joe, I would agree with what Sky said, which has been said by Lydiard and others a long time ago, that the second run is beneficial to the extent that it doesn't take away from your core running--that 9-10 hours per week of a variety of distances and paces that is 'training'. For example, a single 2 hour midweek run is always a better aerobic stimulus than two one hour runs, or one 40 min and another 80 minute run, etc. Whether the athlete can recover from that two hour run is another question, but...I think you get the point.
The second run, to my understanding, is a recovery enhancer, or a low level aerobic supplement. Lydiard's athletes, as far as I know, didn't even count the 40+ additional miles per week they ran in supplemental runs toward their weekly mileage.
I would completely agree that the aerobic stimulus would be compromised by consistently breaking single runs into two runs. You would be sacrificing a lot of the efficiency gains that come with running those longer distances regularly.
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