Ever hear about two-a-days?
It’s doing two workouts per day
Some people do three-a-days
Why would anyone do that?
That’s what we’re going to cover in this quick article:
- 3 reasons to run two a days
- 1 reason not to
- A fun way to run the weekly long run
Let’s preface this with the fact that we don’t have to “run” two-a-days
If we have a high mileage week, then two days could be a great tool to help us hit our weekly mileage. Two-a-days could also be a workout, yoga, or any other form of movement twice a day, not just running.
I often do a strength workout and a running workout for my “two-a-days”
3 reasons to run two-a-days
- Increases weekly mileage
- A way to get experience with running at different times throughout the day (and to get used to running on beat-up legs) by splitting up long runs into AM/ PM time – it’s a great way to mimic the later stages of a race.
- Time – it may be easier for us to bang two 1.5-hour runs vs a three-hour long run for whatever reason. (pssst: we still want to get a few 3+ hour training sessions leading up to our race, this trains our endocrine system to keep us going longer)
1 reason not to do two-a-days
- Potential overtraining or burnout. Make sure you build that mileage up systematically, most recommend 10% but it’s just a rule of thumb.. Running 100 mile weeks sounds like a fun goal to shoot towards but if we’ve only been running 10 mile weeks and then try that 100 mile week? We’re in for a rude awakening.
A fun way to run the weekly long run:
This method can help keep us from going out too fast and pace ourselves.
The idea is to keep our miles under a set amount of time (for this example let’s go 12 minute miles because we’re training for a 100 mile race)
Here’s what I mean:
run the first mile. Oh, you did it in 10 mins? Then continue walking for 2 minutes to get to that 12-minute mark.
Once 12 minutes hits run the next mile. Oh, you got to mile 2 in 9 minutes? (21 minutes total) then walk for 3 minutes, until the 24 min mark. (because we added 12 minutes to the first set of 12 minutes)
run the 3rd mile, and walk for 36 minutes
And do this same process every 12 minutes throughout the run.
The runs progressively get shorter while the walks get longer – that’s the idea anyway.
I appreciate your attention!!
LMK anything!!
Go get your miles!!!! Peace!!!
Joe DiAndrea 