Same situation, time pressed, 2 kids. I upped my volume from 50km - 70/80km a week with a few 100km/weeks without it having too much impact. Putting aside quality and relevance and talking solely volume, I increased 10km runs to 12km. Long run I would push out a few kms and a couple of double run days where I was just do an easy 5km in the evening. Doing 100km/week didn't feel like double the distance I used to do.

BarryP running plan. Search for it in the forums. Basically running six days a week with 3 short runs (2-3miles), 2 medium (4-6), 1 long (8+). I do all my short runs off the bike. It got me from 12-15 miles a week to 25+ pretty quickly.

These are your best options really. Get what you can in during the week. Shorter, or mid-distance, whatever. Get a longer one in on the weekend.

Do you ever run with your children? Or are they older?

I have a similar challenge (1yo & 4yo) but I have managed to maintain by running most of my runs with them in the stroller. My 1yo usually wakes at like 530a, so we knock out a morning run while the rest of the house sleeps. The 4yo is a bit of a challenge so I often have to bribe her to join by promising to run with them to a local park, or two...depending on how many miles i need to get in over the weekend.

Been in that situation when my girls were young. I solved the problem by doing early morning workouts. You have 7 mornings from 4AM til 7ish to train. That's approximately 21 hours of available training time when the wife and littles are still asleep for the most part.

Weekends are big bike days for me. It helps me get in bike volume. I take a rest day on Monday or an active recovery swim that day to loosen up. I do my long run the day after the rest day on Tuesday evening so I have plenty of recovery to go at a high effort in that run. The rest of the week can be shorter recovery or tempo runs (2-5mi).

Easiest, least time consuming, and least stressful way to manager you're running...or any training for that matter.


Hire a coach to devise a plan with, implement said training plan, monitor the results, and adjust going forward. (then the cycle repeats over, and over, again). Make sure you have regular phone calls/meetings with the coach. Ideally, this coach will update your training plan on a day by day basis.

Try the Furman Institute of running 3-day a week plan. Very hard workouts but makes the most of available time.

https://www.runnersworld.com/...k-marathon-schedule/

Agreed. The Furman program is also pretty solid if you cannot make it out daily. Track, tempo, and distance will certainly help you with solid miles and, theoretically, improved speed.

With a job and cub scouts, soccer games, school functions- yeah. It’s difficult.

I ran twice with the kids recently. I went 5 on Sunday and one of the kids rode his bike 2 miles, he ran with me on the trail which was a mile, then he rode home while I ran.

I have been running 5 miles through the park when the kids are at soccer practice. Weather is finally getting nice, so I will hopefully be able to fit more in. I’m not a morning person and don’t want to be. After work, if there are kid functions- day is shot. It makes it difficult.

From the comments, it sounds like 3-5 miles through the week is fine with a long one on the weekend. I think I will start stuffing in some 2-3 mile runs on mon, wed, fri with the 5 mile runs on tue, thurs. I’ll save the long run for the weekend. I will adjust distance when I feel better on the long run.

I have been running .9 and walking .1 of every mile to simulate Ironman water stops. It seems to be working well.

Never claimed to be a runner and this is keeping me out of injury. I have had problems with calf strains. I run with orthotics, but in the end it is my crazy hyper-mobile knees. Lol. My biomechanics is goofy.

Do the ST 100 runs in 100 days challenge. Just needs to average 30 min a day. You can start it when you want... See the sticky thread if you need ideas

I've been in your situation and also tried different schedules over the years (including the FIRST system that was mentioned). Different bodies respond differently, but what has worked for me: frequency. That is, if I break up mileage between (a) fewer but longer runs; and (b) shorter but more frequent runs - (b) works better in terms of fitness and injury prevention. Having said that, one longer run a week (or every other week) is also helpful.

In your case I would go with -

B) 3 short runs a week and one , longer run on the weekend

(and if you can add another short run during the week even better, say 20mins off the bike).