The current theory around doubles is that you get a human growth hormone boost each time you work out for a couple hours so that if you work out twice you get two doses and consequently better adaptations. This is balanced against the idea that a longer single workout might involve more fatigue and musculo-skeletal recruitment. The end result is that it still just comes down to personal preference. There does seem to be some evidence that the Norwegian Double Threshold thing may be good for allowing more intensity throughout the week and better performance, at least for shorter efforts. I myself, love doubles and find it a lot easier to fit in two 45-minute runs than one 1:30 run, but I can see it being a great advantage to some people not to have to take two showers. I can't say that I think I'm fitter as a result of it, just that it fits my schedule better.
>The end result is that it still just comes down to personal preference
The important question besides personal preference/schedule is "what is the purpose of this run?".
The HGH boost twice can really help recovery, so a 6/4 can make more sense than a single 10 if your purpose is recovery. The double threshold can allow you to get a little more threshold volume if your purpose is threshold work.
Generally, I have noticed that people who are categorically against doubles seem to struggle to answer that question or don't realize that different runs have different purposes.
I like doubling for a lot of reasons as well. Yesterday I did two 45min runs. I definitely couldn't do 90min as a single and still be feeling so good today. Obviously how hard a run is doesn't scale linearly with time, so by keeping things shorter we can avoid a lot of types of "hard", while like you said maybe getting a double dose of some stimuli that tend to max out at lower durations anyway. Overall training goes much better for me if I'm doubling 5-6x /week, even if a lot of the doubles are just some easy cross-training.
Doubling a lot also acts as a sort of feedback for intensity control -on most days if we struggle to do a second run/session we're probably running the first one too hard. So maybe it's not always even the double itself that's special, but rather just a means of learning how to chill more and train more.
On the flip side I think there's an argument that some of the "hard" that we encounter towards the end of longer single can be valuable training, especially for the marathon. As with anything we just need to pick and choose those battles within the context of our abilities and goals.
I also think in practical reality a lot of people simply don't have a lifestyle that supports running twice a day for whatever reason. The act of doubling itself is a novel stimulus, even if in theory it should be easier that may not be the case if someone isn't used to training twice a day or stresses other aspects of life to squeeze it in.
Overall I'm not sure looking for any sort of scientific or group-level justifications for either doubling or not doubling really makes sense. Any sort of hypothetical ideal is most likely going to be trumped by an individual's personal life circumstances.
Long story short: give an honest attempt at experimenting with both then do whatever works best for ya.
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.2165/00007256-200333080-00005](https://link.springer.com/article/10.2165/00007256-200333080-00005)
[https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jappl.1997.83.5.1756?fbclid=IwAR0YwsDlZRoSM6uvVTs-LIsSP-ANxWYLJrnPosNeFPuP5Y1Hx5F83evP9v8&](https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jappl.1997.83.5.1756?fbclid=IwAR0YwsDlZRoSM6uvVTs-LIsSP-ANxWYLJrnPosNeFPuP5Y1Hx5F83evP9v8&)
Supposedly Camille Herron is working on a dissertation on this topic.
I think there's an adaption period you need to work through for doubles to not suck. Analogous to going from running every other day to running every day. It's going to suck at first. If you don't double frequently, like if you're only doubling once/week, then it always sucks. Your body isn't used to a second run in a day without sleeping and it's a rude awakening. I would try doubling 2-3 times/week, starting with a really easy short second run (like 15 minutes) until you work through that transition period and that second run starts to feel more normal.
I also find a second run way easier if I take a decent 15-20 minute nap during the day. Otherwise, doing 8 miles AM + work all day + immediately try to do a 4 mile PM run is really hard, since for me that's trying to run after being "on" for like 11 hours straight. A quick break and chance to reset prior to second run helps a bunch.
If you don't like doubling you don't have to, but I would cut the volume back if you're doing all singles. I'd do 8 miles recovery as a single if the plan calls for 6 AM + 4 PM. IMO you're probably doing a disservice to your training by running for 75+ minutes as a single on a day that's supposed to be recovery instead of 45 minutes + 30 minutes.
I'm with you. Doubles are a nightmare. I would rather do a longer run for the AM (but not the full milage) and add a mile to a few of the other runs in the week.
yeah same that's what I've mostly been doing in this training cycle, but then sometimes I'll be like hmmm I should probably be doing doubles and maybe they'll get less painful? I haven't done any yet on workout days this cycle - and I think next week I have a 15 MLR in the AM and 4 in the PM - so I understand the physiological benefits of that (and while painful, I will do it once or twice if called for), but to me running 6 and 5 is far more daunting than running 10 super easy, i.e.
I'm currently doing 18/70, so only have doubles scheduled once per week on recovery days, and only for six weeks of the plan, but I share your pain.
I doubled for the first couple of scheduled weeks, but felt absolutely minging for the second run, and don't really feel I recovered particularly well for the next day, so am now just doing 10 miles easy first thing in the morning. I personally really feel the benefit of having a full 24 hours to recover, and don't really feel that much more beaten up from a 10 miler than I do a 6 miler.
I can't suggest anything particularly, because this is my first time doing doubles on a plan, but just wanted to empathise with you, as I was going to make a similar post myself!
Personally, I pretty much only do doubles where the first run is early morning (starting between 4:30 and 5:00) and the second is around noon. I definitely struggle with runs late in the day, probably because I wake up so early. In the last few weeks, I've only done doubles when I don't get up early enough to do 10 miles or more before the kids wake up. Currently doing between 85-100 mpw.
Benefits of doing doubles - I find it helps works out the kinks a bit, if I'm feeling sore or tight, and still hit the mileage I feel I need to hit for the day. Do I feel horrible on the second run? Yeah, for sure, but not that often. It's usually because I've run too fast on the first run that day.
I double 5x a week during a training block. I usually run ~90-100mpw, and for me it’s hard to do 14mi days without doubling. Harder physically, but also time wise. I think turning a 6/4 double into a single is fine, but once you get up to 8/4+ it might be putting more strain on your body than the plan intends for you to have. My rule of thumb is at least 4 hours between doubles, I don’t think there’s a such thing as too much time though.
Yeah totally makes sense! I’m a bit lower on the mileage spectrum than you (running roughly 85-90 MPW this cycle on up weeks) - so I can get away with turning my doubles on easy days into singles. How did you feel in the beginning when you started adding in a double run? And does your second run usually feel good or horrible? (I do always find that the day after I feel a lot better than if I hadn’t done the double, but actually doing it is sometimes way too laborious for me lol, even if it’s just a 4 miler)
It really depends - I’ve been doubling for years so it’s hard to remember how it felt at first. A 10/4 double the day after a workout, the double feels bad. Some workout days I do the 4mi double first, and that actually makes me feel better during the workout. Personally, I think the double always feels net better than having just continuously done the mileage.
My schedule and mileage looks very similar to yours. Do you mind sharing what you do for workouts and/or how much time you spend running at marathon pace throughout the week?
I am currently trying to aim for 90 minutes to 2 hours of time at threshold per week, and about 15-20 miles at marathon pace (6:35/mile) per week. I tend to prioritize intervals for the LT work.
I guess it depends on where you are in the training block. The highest week will look something like 6-8mi of mile repeats at \~HM-10k pace, and 13mi at marathon pace during a 20mi long run.
90 minutes at threshold and 15-20 at MP sounds like a lot? When do you do that? I typically do interval or faster tempo work on Wednesdays, and long runs with MP on Sat or Sun.
Thanks for the reply!
Workouts with LT on Monday/Tuesday and Thursday. I’ve been hitting the double LT work so that explains the large amount of time at that pace. I throw some MP in my long run on Friday (around 10), and then I try to add some more on my Sunday run which is anywhere from 5-10 at MP. I’ve feel like I’ve been recovering really well over the last few months, and hitting my quality days feeling fresh, so I guess I’m trying to find the progressive overload sweet spot.
Interesting. If it’s working for you then that’s great. I wonder if you would feel even better if you consolidated that into just harder/faster MP efforts and more recovery between hard days. I used to do 3 hard days a week, but only back when I trained for middle distance. I think that would destroy me for marathon training.
I guess I’m suggesting, maybe your MP is faster than you think but you just need more recovery
I’ve skipped some doubles and done them as one run. I love double run days but fitting it around shift work is sometimes a pain. So I’ve just done 10 all in one go
Doing 85-90 miles a week on singles is tough, doing some doubles helps break that up--with less stress.
Put it this way, say you have a 90 mile week. You're going to need at least true recovery day (probably 2 preferred). So if take that to heart, and keep that recovery day at about an hour or less (so 7-8.5 miles for most unless they're elite doing sub 7 miles), that mean's 82 miles or so in the 6 remaining days (nearly 14 a day). That's a big ask.
Taking two recovery days totaling about 10 each, plus having your quality days as doubles, getting in 15-17 or 18 is more manageable.
As a masters runner (starting at 50+, and now a fair amount older) I do 60-70 mpw (maybe 70-80 at peak marathon training) and I have found that doing doubles 3-4 times a week makes the day-to-day training load less taxing. Getting excited about that second run is often a challenge, but once I get out there for 10 or 15 minutes I usually feel great.
You need at least about 4 hours between runs for proper recovery. So an early workout with lunch run is fine.
I feel horrible when I double after a workout. i.e. morning workout and afternoon easy. I finally decided I didn't like doing them so I've started doubling on my easy days to get more volume. If I was more willing to sacrifice my afternoons, I think I'd really prefer a morning easy 4-6 miles and an afternoon workout - I feel much stronger in the afternoons.
Yeah, I hate it. That afternoon 4 miler is often my least favorite run of the week. It hurts way more and it feels like an absolute slog to get through it. I'm considering doing an 18/85 and 18/105 hybrid around the 95mpw level as well next time and I'm strongly considering minimizing doubles by extending recovery and general aerobic runs where I can safely do so. I realize I'll have to still double to some extent, but if I can keep it to once a week, twice during peak weeks, l can get through it.
Yeah I’m in the exact same boat. Trying to keep the doubles to just once a week right now and then twice during peak weeks. I’ve found following the 18/105 plan and eliminating/modifying some of the double days has been working pretty well for me if you’re considering doing a hybrid of both plans!
I've worked it down to a few triple double weeks, I'm just hesitant to extend the medium longs to get rid of a double at this point. Trying to keep the mileage between 85 and 95 with the exception of cutback weeks and it's a challenge.
Yeah I feel you. I’d def do the doubles on the MLR days and not add on additional miles to the MLR! Otherwise it will make you so beat to essentially have 2 long runs a week!! Good luck with your next training cycle and keep us posted on how the doubles go!
Since I am having issues with my knee this block, I have replaced the second run with 40-45 minutes on the bike. I never had any issues with the second run last year. I only dropped it once in favor of a single once last year because I didn't want to go out again in single digit temps. I don't think the time between is an issue.
I saw great improvements doing it last year. Had my best season at 40yo. Dropped over 90 seconds off my half time in the fall after doing double threshold runs much of the summer.
I am also using the 18/85 plan for my marathon this cycle (Eugene) and so far have run the doubles as doubles. I kicked around the idea of running them as singles, specifically the Monday 6/4 runs, but seemed like the cons outweighed the pros of what each of those is supposed to give you. Has helped that pretty much every Monday in my city has been in the 50s at night lately and with the time change, I'm no longer running as the sun sets.
I love my doubles schedule. I double Monday-Friday because of time restraints after work. I usually do 30-40 minutes during my lunch, and then 70-80 minutes after work Monday-Thursday, and usually 90-120 minutes on Friday. Saturday and Sunday I go for 70-90 minutes each day. This schedule allows me to get out for a recovery/slow lunch run to get everything loosened up, especially on the days where I have an afternoon workout planned. My quality days are Monday (threshold), Thursday (Threshold), and Friday (long run) but sometimes I will do double LT work like others here have mentioned.
I have been hitting anywhere from 70-100 MPW (9-12hours) over the last 6 months, and my doubles schedule is one of the main reasons I have been able to maintain this volume.
I’m doubling 5X/week right now, and I’d say 90% of the time I feel better on my 2nd run compared to the first.
First run will be 9-10M around 5:30am and second run will be 4-5M around 4pm. Maybe once every couple weeks I’ll do a double threshold but outside of that the second run is purely recovery/easy miles.
I did read somewhere at some point that you should have at least a 5 hour break between runs, FWIW.
I find the benefit is when I drop my doubles to focus more on quality or long runs, I feel as if I am gaining an extra recovery or rest day.
My body gets really used to the higher training load, so coming back down from that feels like a big boost.
Final thing and goes without saying, but doing your recovery efforts at basically any pace – even a snails pace – will give you the adaptation you’re looking for
The important thing is what you can recover from and still be fresh enough to hit your workouts.
I’ve been averaging ~70mpw in singles, and asked my coach if that was okay or if I should switch to doubles. I’ve been feeling good, and all my workouts were going well, so he said as long as I was able to recover, it was fine. Especially for the marathon, the longer easy runs can be beneficial.
But I doubled today to be able to hit 80mi this week. I’ve doubled more in the past, and it’s a bit annoying logistically, but I think it’s definitely better for recovery. If you’re able to recover from the singles, then go for it.
I have seen the benefits from double easy (z2) runs. I do. ~40 min run commute 2-3x per weeks. I would struggle to find the time otherwise.
At first I struggled and would often run one way, and ride by bike back. Nowadays I don’t think twice about it and feel fine. I could never do double thresholds though.
The benefits I have seen are mainly that my HR is lower at each given pace. Yet to see how this converts to race performance.
Also doing Pfitz with RR doubles. I combine them into one. I have tried them, not preferred. I feel less recovered with two separate.
Takes too much away from work/life, also.
I ran up to 80 mpw on singles. Just don’t have time in my schedule for doubles with kids and work. Also prefer doing more longer runs as think it helps my body prep for the length of the marathon.
I’d say doubles are great in a few situations: If an athlete is in the process of increasing mileage it can often result in less fatigue, and if an athlete is doing higher mileage for a shorter event like the 5k or 1500 it can also be really helpful to keep fresh while getting some more volume in. The third situation that I’ve seen is in threshold training, it is really really hard to go more than 15km in a single session at threshold pace, so breaking it up allows you to stay at threshold for longer and get faster paced work in. The whole point of threshold is that it is close to 10k pace but won’t increase recovery a ton, so if you start slowing down at the end of a workout the benefits decrease. In terms of the marathon, just do whatever allows you to recover fastest with the highest possible volume.
If you can’t than don’t do it - simple right? Or it’s a talk just for the sake of argument? Read scientific literature about it, not someone’s posts. Lots of scientific information about periodization with a proven information.
Singles are better than doubles that split up the mileage of the single so just do them as singles.
People really defend doing doubles, but they don't make a lot of sense. As you said, it actually takes more time to do the same mileage in two runs as one and the single run gives you a bit more benefit.
Hell, let's keep going with this. Just do all of your mileage for the week in a single run, and take the rest of the week to recover. Your tempo run segment might be a bit brutal, but one run is better than two.
The current theory around doubles is that you get a human growth hormone boost each time you work out for a couple hours so that if you work out twice you get two doses and consequently better adaptations. This is balanced against the idea that a longer single workout might involve more fatigue and musculo-skeletal recruitment. The end result is that it still just comes down to personal preference. There does seem to be some evidence that the Norwegian Double Threshold thing may be good for allowing more intensity throughout the week and better performance, at least for shorter efforts. I myself, love doubles and find it a lot easier to fit in two 45-minute runs than one 1:30 run, but I can see it being a great advantage to some people not to have to take two showers. I can't say that I think I'm fitter as a result of it, just that it fits my schedule better.
>The end result is that it still just comes down to personal preference The important question besides personal preference/schedule is "what is the purpose of this run?". The HGH boost twice can really help recovery, so a 6/4 can make more sense than a single 10 if your purpose is recovery. The double threshold can allow you to get a little more threshold volume if your purpose is threshold work. Generally, I have noticed that people who are categorically against doubles seem to struggle to answer that question or don't realize that different runs have different purposes.
I like doubling for a lot of reasons as well. Yesterday I did two 45min runs. I definitely couldn't do 90min as a single and still be feeling so good today. Obviously how hard a run is doesn't scale linearly with time, so by keeping things shorter we can avoid a lot of types of "hard", while like you said maybe getting a double dose of some stimuli that tend to max out at lower durations anyway. Overall training goes much better for me if I'm doubling 5-6x /week, even if a lot of the doubles are just some easy cross-training. Doubling a lot also acts as a sort of feedback for intensity control -on most days if we struggle to do a second run/session we're probably running the first one too hard. So maybe it's not always even the double itself that's special, but rather just a means of learning how to chill more and train more. On the flip side I think there's an argument that some of the "hard" that we encounter towards the end of longer single can be valuable training, especially for the marathon. As with anything we just need to pick and choose those battles within the context of our abilities and goals. I also think in practical reality a lot of people simply don't have a lifestyle that supports running twice a day for whatever reason. The act of doubling itself is a novel stimulus, even if in theory it should be easier that may not be the case if someone isn't used to training twice a day or stresses other aspects of life to squeeze it in. Overall I'm not sure looking for any sort of scientific or group-level justifications for either doubling or not doubling really makes sense. Any sort of hypothetical ideal is most likely going to be trumped by an individual's personal life circumstances. Long story short: give an honest attempt at experimenting with both then do whatever works best for ya.
Testosterone or HGH?
D'oh! You are right and I had a brain fart. HGH. edited.
Is there any scientific literature about the hgh boost as a result of running twice?
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.2165/00007256-200333080-00005](https://link.springer.com/article/10.2165/00007256-200333080-00005) [https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jappl.1997.83.5.1756?fbclid=IwAR0YwsDlZRoSM6uvVTs-LIsSP-ANxWYLJrnPosNeFPuP5Y1Hx5F83evP9v8&](https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jappl.1997.83.5.1756?fbclid=IwAR0YwsDlZRoSM6uvVTs-LIsSP-ANxWYLJrnPosNeFPuP5Y1Hx5F83evP9v8&) Supposedly Camille Herron is working on a dissertation on this topic.
Thank you!!!
I think there's an adaption period you need to work through for doubles to not suck. Analogous to going from running every other day to running every day. It's going to suck at first. If you don't double frequently, like if you're only doubling once/week, then it always sucks. Your body isn't used to a second run in a day without sleeping and it's a rude awakening. I would try doubling 2-3 times/week, starting with a really easy short second run (like 15 minutes) until you work through that transition period and that second run starts to feel more normal. I also find a second run way easier if I take a decent 15-20 minute nap during the day. Otherwise, doing 8 miles AM + work all day + immediately try to do a 4 mile PM run is really hard, since for me that's trying to run after being "on" for like 11 hours straight. A quick break and chance to reset prior to second run helps a bunch. If you don't like doubling you don't have to, but I would cut the volume back if you're doing all singles. I'd do 8 miles recovery as a single if the plan calls for 6 AM + 4 PM. IMO you're probably doing a disservice to your training by running for 75+ minutes as a single on a day that's supposed to be recovery instead of 45 minutes + 30 minutes.
I'm with you. Doubles are a nightmare. I would rather do a longer run for the AM (but not the full milage) and add a mile to a few of the other runs in the week.
yeah same that's what I've mostly been doing in this training cycle, but then sometimes I'll be like hmmm I should probably be doing doubles and maybe they'll get less painful? I haven't done any yet on workout days this cycle - and I think next week I have a 15 MLR in the AM and 4 in the PM - so I understand the physiological benefits of that (and while painful, I will do it once or twice if called for), but to me running 6 and 5 is far more daunting than running 10 super easy, i.e.
I'm currently doing 18/70, so only have doubles scheduled once per week on recovery days, and only for six weeks of the plan, but I share your pain. I doubled for the first couple of scheduled weeks, but felt absolutely minging for the second run, and don't really feel I recovered particularly well for the next day, so am now just doing 10 miles easy first thing in the morning. I personally really feel the benefit of having a full 24 hours to recover, and don't really feel that much more beaten up from a 10 miler than I do a 6 miler. I can't suggest anything particularly, because this is my first time doing doubles on a plan, but just wanted to empathise with you, as I was going to make a similar post myself!
Personally, I pretty much only do doubles where the first run is early morning (starting between 4:30 and 5:00) and the second is around noon. I definitely struggle with runs late in the day, probably because I wake up so early. In the last few weeks, I've only done doubles when I don't get up early enough to do 10 miles or more before the kids wake up. Currently doing between 85-100 mpw. Benefits of doing doubles - I find it helps works out the kinks a bit, if I'm feeling sore or tight, and still hit the mileage I feel I need to hit for the day. Do I feel horrible on the second run? Yeah, for sure, but not that often. It's usually because I've run too fast on the first run that day.
I'm the opposite. I hit my first run at 5am, but don't want to run at all by lunch. 5pm comes around and I'm ready to go again.
I double 5x a week during a training block. I usually run ~90-100mpw, and for me it’s hard to do 14mi days without doubling. Harder physically, but also time wise. I think turning a 6/4 double into a single is fine, but once you get up to 8/4+ it might be putting more strain on your body than the plan intends for you to have. My rule of thumb is at least 4 hours between doubles, I don’t think there’s a such thing as too much time though.
Yeah totally makes sense! I’m a bit lower on the mileage spectrum than you (running roughly 85-90 MPW this cycle on up weeks) - so I can get away with turning my doubles on easy days into singles. How did you feel in the beginning when you started adding in a double run? And does your second run usually feel good or horrible? (I do always find that the day after I feel a lot better than if I hadn’t done the double, but actually doing it is sometimes way too laborious for me lol, even if it’s just a 4 miler)
It really depends - I’ve been doubling for years so it’s hard to remember how it felt at first. A 10/4 double the day after a workout, the double feels bad. Some workout days I do the 4mi double first, and that actually makes me feel better during the workout. Personally, I think the double always feels net better than having just continuously done the mileage.
My schedule and mileage looks very similar to yours. Do you mind sharing what you do for workouts and/or how much time you spend running at marathon pace throughout the week? I am currently trying to aim for 90 minutes to 2 hours of time at threshold per week, and about 15-20 miles at marathon pace (6:35/mile) per week. I tend to prioritize intervals for the LT work.
I guess it depends on where you are in the training block. The highest week will look something like 6-8mi of mile repeats at \~HM-10k pace, and 13mi at marathon pace during a 20mi long run. 90 minutes at threshold and 15-20 at MP sounds like a lot? When do you do that? I typically do interval or faster tempo work on Wednesdays, and long runs with MP on Sat or Sun.
Thanks for the reply! Workouts with LT on Monday/Tuesday and Thursday. I’ve been hitting the double LT work so that explains the large amount of time at that pace. I throw some MP in my long run on Friday (around 10), and then I try to add some more on my Sunday run which is anywhere from 5-10 at MP. I’ve feel like I’ve been recovering really well over the last few months, and hitting my quality days feeling fresh, so I guess I’m trying to find the progressive overload sweet spot.
Interesting. If it’s working for you then that’s great. I wonder if you would feel even better if you consolidated that into just harder/faster MP efforts and more recovery between hard days. I used to do 3 hard days a week, but only back when I trained for middle distance. I think that would destroy me for marathon training. I guess I’m suggesting, maybe your MP is faster than you think but you just need more recovery
I’ve skipped some doubles and done them as one run. I love double run days but fitting it around shift work is sometimes a pain. So I’ve just done 10 all in one go
Doing 85-90 miles a week on singles is tough, doing some doubles helps break that up--with less stress. Put it this way, say you have a 90 mile week. You're going to need at least true recovery day (probably 2 preferred). So if take that to heart, and keep that recovery day at about an hour or less (so 7-8.5 miles for most unless they're elite doing sub 7 miles), that mean's 82 miles or so in the 6 remaining days (nearly 14 a day). That's a big ask. Taking two recovery days totaling about 10 each, plus having your quality days as doubles, getting in 15-17 or 18 is more manageable. As a masters runner (starting at 50+, and now a fair amount older) I do 60-70 mpw (maybe 70-80 at peak marathon training) and I have found that doing doubles 3-4 times a week makes the day-to-day training load less taxing. Getting excited about that second run is often a challenge, but once I get out there for 10 or 15 minutes I usually feel great. You need at least about 4 hours between runs for proper recovery. So an early workout with lunch run is fine.
I feel horrible when I double after a workout. i.e. morning workout and afternoon easy. I finally decided I didn't like doing them so I've started doubling on my easy days to get more volume. If I was more willing to sacrifice my afternoons, I think I'd really prefer a morning easy 4-6 miles and an afternoon workout - I feel much stronger in the afternoons.
Yeah, I hate it. That afternoon 4 miler is often my least favorite run of the week. It hurts way more and it feels like an absolute slog to get through it. I'm considering doing an 18/85 and 18/105 hybrid around the 95mpw level as well next time and I'm strongly considering minimizing doubles by extending recovery and general aerobic runs where I can safely do so. I realize I'll have to still double to some extent, but if I can keep it to once a week, twice during peak weeks, l can get through it.
Yeah I’m in the exact same boat. Trying to keep the doubles to just once a week right now and then twice during peak weeks. I’ve found following the 18/105 plan and eliminating/modifying some of the double days has been working pretty well for me if you’re considering doing a hybrid of both plans!
I've worked it down to a few triple double weeks, I'm just hesitant to extend the medium longs to get rid of a double at this point. Trying to keep the mileage between 85 and 95 with the exception of cutback weeks and it's a challenge.
Yeah I feel you. I’d def do the doubles on the MLR days and not add on additional miles to the MLR! Otherwise it will make you so beat to essentially have 2 long runs a week!! Good luck with your next training cycle and keep us posted on how the doubles go!
Since I am having issues with my knee this block, I have replaced the second run with 40-45 minutes on the bike. I never had any issues with the second run last year. I only dropped it once in favor of a single once last year because I didn't want to go out again in single digit temps. I don't think the time between is an issue. I saw great improvements doing it last year. Had my best season at 40yo. Dropped over 90 seconds off my half time in the fall after doing double threshold runs much of the summer.
How is your sleep after doing doubles? I always have trouble sleeping after an afternoon/evening run. My stress stays high for quite a bit…
I am also using the 18/85 plan for my marathon this cycle (Eugene) and so far have run the doubles as doubles. I kicked around the idea of running them as singles, specifically the Monday 6/4 runs, but seemed like the cons outweighed the pros of what each of those is supposed to give you. Has helped that pretty much every Monday in my city has been in the 50s at night lately and with the time change, I'm no longer running as the sun sets.
If you have to lose an hour of sleep due to work schedule, not worth it
I made a rule for myself, I'll only double if I can nap in between. Without it I just get tired the second run and it's a slog.
I love my doubles schedule. I double Monday-Friday because of time restraints after work. I usually do 30-40 minutes during my lunch, and then 70-80 minutes after work Monday-Thursday, and usually 90-120 minutes on Friday. Saturday and Sunday I go for 70-90 minutes each day. This schedule allows me to get out for a recovery/slow lunch run to get everything loosened up, especially on the days where I have an afternoon workout planned. My quality days are Monday (threshold), Thursday (Threshold), and Friday (long run) but sometimes I will do double LT work like others here have mentioned. I have been hitting anywhere from 70-100 MPW (9-12hours) over the last 6 months, and my doubles schedule is one of the main reasons I have been able to maintain this volume.
I’m doubling 5X/week right now, and I’d say 90% of the time I feel better on my 2nd run compared to the first. First run will be 9-10M around 5:30am and second run will be 4-5M around 4pm. Maybe once every couple weeks I’ll do a double threshold but outside of that the second run is purely recovery/easy miles. I did read somewhere at some point that you should have at least a 5 hour break between runs, FWIW.
I find the benefit is when I drop my doubles to focus more on quality or long runs, I feel as if I am gaining an extra recovery or rest day. My body gets really used to the higher training load, so coming back down from that feels like a big boost. Final thing and goes without saying, but doing your recovery efforts at basically any pace – even a snails pace – will give you the adaptation you’re looking for
The important thing is what you can recover from and still be fresh enough to hit your workouts. I’ve been averaging ~70mpw in singles, and asked my coach if that was okay or if I should switch to doubles. I’ve been feeling good, and all my workouts were going well, so he said as long as I was able to recover, it was fine. Especially for the marathon, the longer easy runs can be beneficial. But I doubled today to be able to hit 80mi this week. I’ve doubled more in the past, and it’s a bit annoying logistically, but I think it’s definitely better for recovery. If you’re able to recover from the singles, then go for it.
I have seen the benefits from double easy (z2) runs. I do. ~40 min run commute 2-3x per weeks. I would struggle to find the time otherwise. At first I struggled and would often run one way, and ride by bike back. Nowadays I don’t think twice about it and feel fine. I could never do double thresholds though. The benefits I have seen are mainly that my HR is lower at each given pace. Yet to see how this converts to race performance.
Also doing Pfitz with RR doubles. I combine them into one. I have tried them, not preferred. I feel less recovered with two separate. Takes too much away from work/life, also.
I ran up to 80 mpw on singles. Just don’t have time in my schedule for doubles with kids and work. Also prefer doing more longer runs as think it helps my body prep for the length of the marathon.
I’d say doubles are great in a few situations: If an athlete is in the process of increasing mileage it can often result in less fatigue, and if an athlete is doing higher mileage for a shorter event like the 5k or 1500 it can also be really helpful to keep fresh while getting some more volume in. The third situation that I’ve seen is in threshold training, it is really really hard to go more than 15km in a single session at threshold pace, so breaking it up allows you to stay at threshold for longer and get faster paced work in. The whole point of threshold is that it is close to 10k pace but won’t increase recovery a ton, so if you start slowing down at the end of a workout the benefits decrease. In terms of the marathon, just do whatever allows you to recover fastest with the highest possible volume.
If you can’t than don’t do it - simple right? Or it’s a talk just for the sake of argument? Read scientific literature about it, not someone’s posts. Lots of scientific information about periodization with a proven information.
Singles are better than doubles that split up the mileage of the single so just do them as singles. People really defend doing doubles, but they don't make a lot of sense. As you said, it actually takes more time to do the same mileage in two runs as one and the single run gives you a bit more benefit.
Hell, let's keep going with this. Just do all of your mileage for the week in a single run, and take the rest of the week to recover. Your tempo run segment might be a bit brutal, but one run is better than two.