Let’s talk two-a-days, doing doubles, or whatever you wanna call them!
I was supposed to run with a running group last night but the person I was going to meet couldn’t make it. I know from last week’s run that they only do about 4 miles and it’s at a slower pace. I was prepared this week to add an additional AM run to get more miles in. Both of these runs being easy, of course. I ended up doing 4 miles at night on my own (it was ungodly hot), bringing yesterday’s total to 11. I’m not a fan of two-a-days – I don’t think they are necessary.
Here’s what Advanced Marathoning has to say about two-a-days:
- As you increase your mileage in preparation for a marathon, you should resist the urge to switch from single to double runs.
- Marathon training focuses on endurance-based adaptions such as depleting your glycogen reserves to provide a stimulus for your body to store more glycogen and training your muscles to ulitize more fat at a given speed. You’ll provide a greater stimulus for these adaptions through a single 12-mile run, rather than a 7-miler and a 5-miler done at the same pace.
I wasn’t even going to paraphrase because it was so well said! I 100% agree with Pete Pfitzinger. Imagine splitting your 20-mile long run into 10 and 10?! Bottom line: It’s not the same and you will not reap the same benefits!
Another reason to forego two-a-days? Double the number of showers and gross, sweaty laundry!
While I would have preferred to run 11 miles (at once) yesterday morning, I made the best of the situation. This running group isn’t permanent and, as long as the two-a-day is 2 easy runs, I’m OK with it for the short term.
Have you ever done two-a-days when training for a race? Like ’em or hate ’em?