Double Runs

Evening trail run on Saturday after long run in the morning

With only a few days left before my Fall marathon ... which will be my first marathon in over a year ... I'm feeling pretty good about things.  I'm healthy.  I'm almost to race weight.  And my legs feel really strong, thanks in part to all of the double runs I've done this training cycle.

When I changed from running six days per week to five a few years ago, I had trouble building enough mileage to feel confident going into a race.  So an elite running buddy of mine suggested running twice per day.  He said he rarely ran extremely long runs on the weekend, but rather opted for a couple of shorter runs, and it seemed to do build similar strength and stamina. So in addition to my morning run, I started adding a few late afternoon/evening runs to the schedule.  Typically I'll run 10-12 miles in the morning, including the tough speed and tempo workouts, and then run a shorter 4-5 mile trail run later in the day.  I usually don't hit the afternoon run too hard, as it's more for recovery.  And while I haven't eliminated my long runs, I have found that running shorter runs on tired legs in the evening seems to help build strength and stamina in a similar way.

Obviously it's a bit of a hassle, and tends to confuse my diet a little.  And the biggest drawback is that my heart rate stays elevated way into the late evening hours.  Plus I find myself having to coordinate my work schedule a lot more.  But overall I think it's been effective ... I guess we'll see when I run the marathon.

As far as training goes, I had a solid 73 mile week, and again hit pretty much all of my speed and pace goals.  Saturday's long run was interesting.  I had some severe stomach issues related to non-running problems that made me almost push it off until Sunday.  But I ended up running it anyway.  My legs felt dead and my focus was not on running, but I was able to do 19 hilly miles with 900 ft of elevation gain and 75 degree temps at a 7:40/mile pace with almost no trouble at all.  Here's how the whole week looked ...

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Sunday: 6 miles, core work, and stairs
Monday: No run, core work, and upper body work
Tuesday: 12mi AM + 5mi PM ... AM Speed 10x800M repeats w/90sec rest  ... 3:07, 3:06, 3:06, 2:59, 2:58, 2:58, 2:59, 2:56, 2:55, 2:54 ... followed by 1mi@6:23, light leg strength after
Wednesday: 10 miles easy pace, core work, upper body work
Thursday: 12mi AM + 5mi PM ... AM Tempo Run w/8mi@6:42/avg pace
Friday: No run, core work
Saturday: 19mi AM@7:40/mi pace + 3mi PM for 73 total miles for the week