I’ve written recently, and at other times before, about doing multiple runs in a day. This is common among people who want to log high miles and are serious about running. But I want to talk about it from a more working class perspective, as I believe these extra workouts have benefits to people who aren’t elite 130 mile a week runners.
In his book Run Faster (with Matt Fitzgerald), Brad Hudson once posited that the threshold for adding a 2nd run to any day should be when the runner is logging at least 70 miles per week. Hudson’s principle (which many share) is that you only add 2nd runs when your weekday runs have become so long that to extend them further would be impractical. And in a vacuum, that’s a fair rule.
However, Hudson and his trainees can dedicate their lives (or at least free time) predominately to running. Many others (elite or not) outside of Hudson’s scope can make all the time they need to train at a high volume. It makes no sense for those runners to break up normal training runs when they have the time and resources they need to do full workouts.
Meanwhile, as I pointed out previously, a working class individual may encounter times where they can’t feasibly execute a run workout of a given length. It may make sense at times to break an otherwise-doable distance run into two shorter workouts, even if you don’t run anywhere close to 70 miles per week.
In our case, we may do so for practical life-related reasons outside of running, rather than specifically because our workouts have reached practical limits.
For example (as I mentioned in the previous post linked at the start of this piece), I had a commitment after work that meant I could not do a full run after work until too late in the evening. Plus, doing the full run in the morning would have also been impractical due to various factors I didn’t get into. So then, I’d have good reason to split the workout into two brief runs, one done in the morning before work, and the other done after work before my appointment.
Of course, obvious caveats apply to splitting a workout into multiple runs (some of which I previously mentioned).
- You generally don’t want to compromise or break up key workouts like long runs and speedwork, especially for marathon training where your long workouts are long specifically because the goal race is long. You only break up easy distance runs, out of necessity. Whenever possible, you want to do the full scheduled workout at its full distance or duration.
- You don’t want to end up overtraining due to working your body out multiple times in a day and effectively cutting into your inter-workout recovery. So one or both runs must be adjusted to minimize the risk of overtraining.
- There are some specific aerobic benefits to the full run that are lost when you break one up into smaller easy runs. But you still get the neuromuscular benefit and physical practice of having covered the needed distance in that day. Doing two broken up runs is admittedly a compromise tactic.
Still, you want to be responsible when attempting multiple daily runs, whether you do so because because you’re downsizing full runs into multiple shorter runs, or adding extra runs to your schedule to get in needed mileage.
Below are 10 essential principles for anyone planning to do two workouts in a day.