How should 30 miles per week be broken down into daily runs? What if you’re running 100 miles per week?!
No matter how much you’re running per week, there’s a smart (and not so smart…) way of structuring that mileage.
Since 2011, I’ve written over 1,200 training plans. Part of that process is reading through each athletes’ prior training – and sometimes, it’s not pretty.
I’ve seen it all. Runners who…
- jump from 20 miles to 50 in a single week
- run all of their mileage in just two runs – on back to back days
- complete the same distance every time they go running
These runners are doing it the hard way, sacrificing progress and skyrocketing their risk of a running injury.
And I refuse to let that happen to MY runners.
A few weeks ago, Team Strength Running member Richard asked the group:
How should weekly miles be broken down? So for instance, if someone is running 30, 70, 100 miles a week, how should it best be broken down into days?
The answer to this question is in our new mileage video below – don’t miss it.
More important than the mileage templates are the principles behind them. After watching, you’ll know:
- How to schedule rest days in your week
- How to break up a big mileage number (“40”) into daily totals
- Why you should run a decent amount the day after a long run
- If you’re ready to add double sessions (two runs in one day)
- What a 100-mile week looks like!
Even if you’re someone who likes to follow a plan written by someone else, it’s always a smart idea to know why a plan looks the way it does.
Behold the wonder of freeze-frames
If you found this video helpful, share this post with your running friends!
Don’t miss these resources about planning your mileage:
- Competitor Magazine: A Smarter Way to Increase Running Mileage
- Free download: The Season Planner Worksheet (for planning entire seasons of running)
- Let me do the work for you! Invest in a custom training plan
Jason is a 2:39 marathoner, USATF-
Great video! Two and a half quick questions:
1) At what point does splitting a day’s milage into two runs beat running only once? On a similar note, does splitting a day into (10/5) or (9/4) etc help with injury prevention?
2) Secondly, when you get into the 70, 80, 90 and above milage weeks, where would you put strength sessions. I know you are a fan of sandwiching runs between strength/core and doing 15min of body weight exercises before/after runs, which would be easy to include in such high volume weeks), but if I were to add in a plyometric set or a longer heavy lifting set (3×6 at 80% max for example like Tony Gentilcore stated in Ep 25) twice a week, where would I put them? Does the polarized approach still apply? Would lifting after a 15mile run be counter productive?
Thanks Chris!
1) It’s best to split a day’s mileage into doubles when the mileage is too much by itself. There’s more info in the resource on double sessions I linked to in this post.
2) You would still want to lift on a hard day. But it’s true that the hard running days in such a high-volume week are already really hard. So in these situations, I like to choose a medium effort day and preferably not the day before a faster workout or long run.
Thanks, Jason 🙂
Hi Jason,
I understood that the 3-5 miles run are easy run.
So what are all the other runs that are not long run or speed workout? What pace should they be run (personally I use to run it as a progressive run starting easy and finishing at t close to Marathon Pace).
Thanks
Sébastien
They’re often called “base runs” – or as my old coaches called them, “distance runs” or “easy runs.” These should all be done at your easy pace.
Thanks !
A bit boring though…but ok. I guess the price to be more or less injury free!
If you’re really advanced, you might want to do M/W/Sa as your quality days with Sunday as a long run. Or, embed quality into your long run. That’s a lot of intensity, though!
Thank you for the excellent video! I found it really helpful.
So would you say running 6 days, 65 miles a week, with a 30 miler as your long run a bad thing? If you do it one week out of 4 weeks?
Depends on what you’re training for… unless you’re training for a 50mi or longer ultramarathon, 30 miles is too long for a long run. And I’m not sure if 6 days of running or 65mi per week is a bad thing for you. It is if you’re not ready for that volume!
Thanks for the video Jason. I never realized the importance of balancing the #miles before/after the Friday rest day.
One question…..does this mileage chart include interval training & other speed work? Or should that be done in another session? I average about 25-30 miles per week.
Thanks,
Gary
No, it just includes the mileage. Any faster sessions will be embedded within the mileage (in these schedules, typically Tuesday or Wednesday. Or, if you’re advanced, Monday/Wednesday).
Hi Jason, Great information as always! I hope I am not repeating a question somewhere else but as you explain often and I totally agree strength training is paramount to keeping the body healthy and more injury free.
My question: ” If you are a 30-40 mile a week runner and want to incorporate heavy weight sessions of compound lifts to keep my strength twice a week as well as some body weight exercise before and after as recommended where should those 2 lifting sessions be placed in the week. I would imagine you want to keep the two rest days for rest only or perhaps one is a lift day and one day a week a double session of lift and run? I want to make sure I keep injury free while at the same time keeping away from overtraining.
Thanks!!!
Mark Z
Hi Mark – generally speaking, you’ll want to put your harder lifting sessions on your harder running days (to keep your easy days easy and hard days hard). If that’s too difficult (it’s a bit advanced), try lifting on your moderate/medium effort days. But maintain your easy days as truly easy.