For those who are training for marathons and are putting in two-a-day runs, what’s your pace and distance like on one run vs the other?
I’ve been doing this a little bit this year. At this point, I’m just doing 2 easy runs. I know others do 1 hard and 1 easy, but usually I’m just doing 2 easy. For me this has come out of just not quite having enough time on Tuesdays to get in 8 or so in the morning. I’ve been doing 4 in the morning then 4 in the evening, or like 6 and 3 something like that.
For whatever reason 4 and 4 seems to be a better workout for a day than just a straight 8. Seems like a good thing to occasionally do for marathon training.
It depends on your goals for the 2-a-day runs. If you’re planning them as part of your schedule, then run them according to your workouts on the adjacent days. I think that the only convention for 2-a-day runs is that they’re seldom both “hard” workouts. At least one of the runs is typically a recovery or easy run effort.
Now, if you’re splitting up the runs to make up for a missed workout, then the duration and/or intensity should overcompensate a bit. Splitting a 1-hour run at 7:30 pace into two 30-minute runs at 7:30 pace is really not going to buy you much progress. Given that you have some recovery time in between workouts, you should push a bit harder or longer during at least one of the workouts.
Right now I’m doing sub 7 for six miles in the morning. Looking to do 4-ish at 8-8:30 pace in the evening. Long runs are at 8-8:30 for 16-20. I also throw in a 10 mile at 8-8:30 in the middle of the week.
Hoping to go 3:20 at a marathon. I don’t follow any plans, just kind of making things up as I go. I have more fun that way 
Last fall I was around 90mpw set over 9 or 10 runs. 1st run could be anything other then a long run. 2nd run was always easy and between 3 and 5 miles.
We use to run 2x day, back in the day, that was trainning for 5/10K and cross country. Morning run was anywhere from 30-50min, run how you feel usually around 7min pace which was nice and easy. Later run was quality intervals or distance run 6-8 miles at 6-6:30 pace. This all added up to 90-100 miles per week. Long run was 10miles at 5:30 - 6 pace. I was in shape to run 31-32 min 10K back then.
I usually did them on easy days (day after long run) when I got up to around 80 mpw. Something like six miles in the morning at general aerobic pace (10-20% over race pace) and four miles in the evening at recovery pace (~20% over race pace.)
I’m running 45-60mpw for a fall marathon. I don’t have 2 a days scheduled but I will use it to make up for a missed run. When I do, I do the scheduled run as dictated but the second run is usually an easy run at the distance of the run I missed. I try to set it up so the combined mileage of both runs is nothing too crazy (usually not more than 12-14 miles)/
Splitting a 1-hour run at 7:30 pace into two 30-minute runs at 7:30 pace is really not going to buy you much progress. Given that you have some recovery time in between workouts, you should push a bit harder or longer during at least one of the workouts.
This. It all depends on your objective. If the point of the 2-a-days is to “shakeout” your legs after a hard workout or to put in extra mileage, then any pace as long as it’s comfortable is fine. I’m anywhere from 1:30 to 2 minutes per mile slower than my marathon pace on those runs. But if you breakup an 8, 10, 15 mile run in two, you will often lose the whole purpose of that workout.
If they are both just regular, easy runs, then the paces are usually similar although I generally find it easier to run on the second one so the pace will usually be faster for the same effort.
If I am doing a speed workout with one of them (I’m including hill workouts, track workouts, tempo runs, basically anything hard in the term “speed workout”) then the first one will be nice and easy and the second one will be the speed workout. Consequently the second one will be quite a bit faster, of course.
Pick up the book (download?) Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfitzinger.
He goes over the two a day workouts and reasoning behind them.
He also has some great high mileage training plans in the book.
Make sure you check your paces at www.mcmillanrunning.com and use his pace calculator. You shouldn’t be doing that much running at marathon pace. I wouldn’t be surprised if you are pushing too hard on your morning runs.
Rule of thumb, take all of your shorter runs on your double days and add them together. They shouldn’t equal more than 20% of your total milage. ie If you are running 70 miles/week and doing 5 doubles, the shorter runs shouldn’t be longer than 3 miles.
Make sure you check your paces at www.mcmillanrunning.com and use his pace calculator. You shouldn’t be doing that much running at marathon pace. I wouldn’t be surprised if you are pushing too hard on your morning runs.
Rule of thumb, take all of your shorter runs on your double days and add them together. They shouldn’t equal more than 20% of your total milage. ie If you are running 70 miles/week and doing 5 doubles, the shorter runs shouldn’t be longer than 3 miles.
Good observations I can do what I do pretty good at the beginning of the week, but get really tired legs by the end … hence my question to see what others are doing. I’ll probably slow down my morning runs and cut down on the nightly run or keep the same nightly distance, but at a lot slower speed.
Thanks for the input everyone … very useful. Keep it coming
I am not a runner, but one of my best buds probably runs about 12 times a week. His goal right now is running a HM around 70 min. If he does a speed or hard tempo workout in the morning, he will run maybe 4-7 mi in the evening 30sec/mi below HM pace.
His current mileage is 90-105/wk. If you have any more specific questions I could probably ask him for you.
-Physiojoe