Basic question about running frequency

Triathlon Forum
1

I typically only run 3 to 4 times a week, due to a lot of reasons. One of which is I really don’t want to run more than that. I put as much as 40-50% on my weekly miles on my long run, which I know is not good(could cause injury) but again, 3 runs a week has worked pretty good so far.

That being said I keep hearing that running more often(even at the same MPW) would yield better results.

To me, MPW is MPW, but I’m still pretty new to running/tris, and would like to better understand how it all works.

Thanks,

2

The simple answer is that you run more often so you can run more, i.e. it’s much easier to add mileage on top of 5-6 runs per week vs 3 runs per week.

ETA: BarryP does a good job expanding on that here: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=1311512#1311512.

3

So hypothetically, if I were running 25 MPW consistently and injury free, and had no desire to increase mileage ATM, there’s no difference between running it across 3 runs or 6?

4

Not exactly, frequency is very important to running.

5

Report back when you try to up the intensity in your runs. If your legs hold up, you win. When I tried to up the intensity on running every other day, I ended up with a calf strain that sidelined me for a while.

6

When I was an XC runner back in yon day (about to betray myself as a young’un, here), my coaches always had us running 6x a week from July to December, pre-season to post. They encouraged an easy, casual run with friends on Sundays to work out the kinks from weekend races.

Now, I know part of the reason they did that was to give us structure and discipline, since we were a bunch of high school kids in a boring small town. They did give us some physiological reasoning, though, along the lines of “if you run more often, you’re always ready to run.” IIRC there were four major explanations.

  1. Low volume x high frequency = the same physiological benefits as high volume x low frequency when they’re equal. So, you’re not losing anything by running 25mpw on a six day schedule vs. a three-day. (see below)

  2. Low volume x high frequency = added benefits to economy. If you’re only running half an hour five days a week and then putting in a longer run on the weekend, you’re almost always running “fresh.” They argued that this reinforces good running form over the slop you see after 10 miles. My long runs are usually only about 30% of my weekly mileage – 40% at most.

  3. LV x HF = habit building, mentally and physically. You wake up at 6, go for a run, shower and eat – that’s a habit. The more often you do the habit consecutively, the easier it is to do it when you’re fatigued or have excuses because you fall back on wiring.

  4. LV x HF = eases progressive adaptation. As others have said above, it’s easier to add 10% over six runs than it is to add 10% over three – that’s just math. But it’s also easier to increase pace or do a hill workout or something similar if it’s spread out. Some of it is impact related (body has more time to adapt to smaller stresses), but it carries over for other workouts like indoor cycling. I follow the 5x/week tempo plan for my winters (1 hr 2x20 tempo, sweet spot if you’re feeling frisky) because my body adapts better to that training load than to 3 hrs with 2x90 tempo. It also allows me to do more SS training because I feel fresh with every session.

That’s what I remember from it. My coach was a science guy, so there were probably articles included, but they’re long lost by this point. Hope this helps.

7

As others have mentioned, increasing your RPW is a cheap and easy way to increase your MPW without increasing your risk of injury. The way I look at run programming is like carrying rocks. If I need to carry 100lbs of rocks, I can break it up into 5 trips of 20lbs, 3 trips of 33lbs, or one trip of 100lbs. It’s pretty hard to carry a 100lb rock very far without hurting yourself. What it sounds like you are doing is carrying one 50lb rock, and two 25lb rocks, or three 17lb rocks, which isn’t necessarily a great idea either, since the short runs (light rocks) aren’t doing as much for you as they could be, and the big rock (long run) is pretty dang heavy. 4 runs a week might not be so bad if you made them more even, instead of putting 40-50% of your miles into the long run, shift it down to 25-35%.

A few thoughts beyond that:

What are your goals? Are you just maintenance running, fitness running, etc? Or are you training for a certain race? If you’re fitness running, then there’s no benefit to having a long run, and you should more evenly meter your miles between the run sessions. If you’re maintenance running, what length of race are you maintaining for? If you’re training, what length?

Personally, I have used 6 day/wk programs in the past and found them to be mentally taxing, and not necessarily enough recovery time. The particular program I used for a half marathon last season was 6days a week, but the peak cycle was 22days straight running. Naturally it was physically exhausting, but it was mentally taxing as well. So any running program has to balance mental fatigue against physical fatigue, with the caveat that either extreme might be bad for both. For example: running 25MPW by just running a marathon every Saturday is a high risk for injury, but will also be mentally draining, or running EVERY DAY will be mentally exhausting, and won’t allow your body to recover, increasing risk of injury.

Very easy improvement that I would suggest: Add ONE day per week, and take some of the load off of your long run. A 3-4 RPW with a 40-50% long run is rough, especially if you’re serious about 25 MPW. Add ONE day, make it a 4-5 run per week, even if it’s more frequently a 4 run week than a 5, and shift your load to 25-35% on your long run.

If 3 days a week with 25 MPW with 50% long run, that’s 6, 6, and 13 long run. Say you want to bump up to 30 MPW: 7, 8, and 15mi long run is a pretty rough program! Move to a 4 day week with 35%, that’s 5, 5, 6, and 8. Better balance, easy recovery after the long run, and good frequency to help you improve. Move to 30MPW and it’s 7, 6, 6, and 10. If you want to add miles one week a month or so, add in that 5th day and pick up 5-7 extra miles no sweat.

8

I’ll make my observation simple. I’m less “beat up” running 6 days a week @ 45-50mpw than I was running 4 days at 25-35mpw. Guess what? my overall fitness has increased since my volume has increased. I’ve also dropped weight, further imrpoving my run pace. Higher pace = fewer steps at a given cadence and again, more durability, plus less time to complete a workout. It’s a domino effect. If your less fatigued going into a run, your techique is better for more of the run, which further reduces the risk of injury.

The goal during any training season is to reach your key races with ask much fitness as possible, as rested as possible. The best way to achieve that is to first avoid injury.

I’ll drop down to 5 days a week at some point as I focus more on cycling going into my build periods. But I
l never fall uner 5 days a week and probably not drop under 35 mpw even on recovery weeks.

9

As a former ‘runner only’ who used to run a min of 45 mpw and max of 70 mpw (yeah that’s not a ton), I will disagree a little here. If I were only running 24 mpw, IMO 3x8 miles is better than 6x4 miles because 2 of the first miles are just warming up so you would get 3x6 miles of quality vs 6x2 miles of quality. Also a lot of my running days were recovery days after a hard workout day so they were sometimes considered ‘junk’ miles. Since I started tri training almost 3 years ago, it seems I run just a good as I used to because I now bike or swim on what used to be my recovery days.

Here’s an example of high long run % where I ran 3 days/wk: Tues 8 miles, Thurs 8 miles, Sat or Sun 16 miles. All other days were either biking or swimming. This was very common the past 2 years and I have had no injuries at all. In fact, I feel much better than I ever had while just running. Those weekdays runs were very hard BTW. Something like a tempo run on Tuesday and 4x1 mile repeats on Thursday. The weekend run was just a little slower than what I could probably do a marathon. I did this kind of mileage and had no problem hammering the 13.1 miles at the end of a HIM. I also ‘just’ bumped the running mileage up to 35 mpw and finished my first IM back in September.

10

What are your goals? Are you just maintenance running, fitness running, etc? Or are you training for a certain race? If you’re fitness running, then there’s no benefit to having a long run, and you should more evenly meter your miles between the run sessions. If you’re maintenance running, what length of race are you maintaining for? If you’re training, what length?

Thanks a lot everyone for the responses. As I said, I’m new to all this, and it’s very nice to get some insight!

As far as goals, my 2014 season is basically a 13.1(C race) in late April, a 70.3(A race) in late September and a 26.2(B race) in late November. I’m currently running 3(sometimes 4) times a week, cycling 3 times a week(2 sufferfest vids and a long ride on the weekends) and 2 swims a week(working mostly on form at this point because my swim is very bad).

My overall goal for this season is to break 6 hours in the 70.3, and hopefully still have enough time left to prepare for the marathon, rough goal of 3:50. The early season 13.1 will be a good “see where I’m at” race before I start training for the 70.3. Basically my goals are 1: best possible 70.3 and 2: best possible 26.2.

11

Report back when you try to up the intensity in your runs. If your legs hold up, you win. When I tried to up the intensity on running every other day, I ended up with a calf strain that sidelined me for a while.

How long were you sidelined? I’m fighting a calf strain now.

12

Report back when you try to up the intensity in your runs. If your legs hold up, you win. When I tried to up the intensity on running every other day, I ended up with a calf strain that sidelined me for a while.

How long were you sidelined? I’m fighting a calf strain now.

First, a little background. I had been primarily a runner up until 1995 when I switched over to mostly golf and beer. After many years of mediocre golf and worse beer drinking, I decided to get back in shape in early 2009 (45 yo).

That year, I was running about 7 miles every other day. By September, I was down to a sub 20 5k. The day after that race I went our for one of my 7 mile runs and my right calf seized up. It was the first time I had ever been injured. I ended up taking 8 weeks off from running.

The only good news about the time off was that the injury got me back in the pool. From there, I bought an old road bike decided to train for triathlon.

The 8 weeks was probably more time off than I needed, but I wasn’t really training for anything at that time. So I just let it heal.

It was around September 2010 when I read the BarryP running plan. Since then I’ve been pretty consistent with my running and hitting times that I didn’t think I’d ever see again.

I’ll take frequency and consistency over all these “run less, run faster” pitches all day long.

13

My coach (Ken Mierke, Fitness Concepts - Author of Evolution Running) has me on a three day week most of the year and then four when I include a brick run. He continues to believe that you should focus on quality of quantity. Typical weeks would be run Tue/Thur with a weight vest and I have my long run scheduled for Friday. Bricks during race peak phase would be on Sunday. Total weekly hours of 5-6 so naturally mileage varies. I’ve only been training with Ken for just at one year now and have seen periods of changing the types of running I do - less weight vest adding Zone 4, etc. My aerobic pace has dropped nicely from almost 10 minute miles to averaging 8:20’s so his mix of training is working for me!

14

I liked it when Ken Mierke posted here. A good poster that we lost.

jaretj

15

I’m extremely biased when it comes to Ken, but can tell you the best money I have spent in this sport has been on him! His training plans are not very complicated yet they are very effective. I think the biggest thing I’ve learned from Ken is to constantly update your V02 tests to make sure you are training in the proper zones. My HR’s have changed drastically three times this last year in both the bike and the run based on my maximum fat burning / Z2 pace. I’m not sure how others train without that information! Of course, I could also say how he turned me from a pounding heal striker to a forefoot runner has been the best health change I learned from him…I recall seeing a lot of his posts from a few years back but not much at all lately. Could be the new wife and kid!!

16

I expect that we’d all agree, that it really depends on your goals and intensity.

I’d venture to say that running 7 days a week, 5 miles a day, is ‘easier’ on your body than running 4 days a week 4, 8, 15, 8.
Therefore, since 7 x 5 is easier and less stressful, you’ll not improve as quickly. although, your risk of injury would be less.

there’s something about a hard stress and recovery time that allows you to improve.

17

Report back when you try to up the intensity in your runs. If your legs hold up, you win. When I tried to up the intensity on running every other day, I ended up with a calf strain that sidelined me for a while.

How long were you sidelined? I’m fighting a calf strain now.

not to hijack the thread, but, do take care of (completely) that calf strain. I didn’t and rushed back to high intensity training (track intervals) too quickly and got a case of Achilles tendonitis that has lasted over a year I’m (slowly) getting better, but, if I’d have taken care of the strain properly in the first place…

cheers!
keith