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two-a-days

Two-A-Days

July 19, 2011 by Kristy 6 Comments

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? 

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