Ask the coach: double training sessions running

I’ve seen many friends post up runs on Strava during marathon training, calling it a ‘double training session run’. What are the benefits of training in the morning and then in the evening? Surely I’m more likely to get injured?

Jonny

Running coach answer on ‘double training sessions running’
Mike Gratton:

There is a risk of injury the more training you do – by their nature, they shorten the recovery time between runs and it is possible you accumulate a lot of soreness that can cause injury. So, double days are not for everyone, at least not straight away. The principle of double days is that you build up robustness and additional aerobic capacity. All the athletes I work with see improvements, first when they get to running every day, then a second jump in performance when they start to do double days.

Like all training, you must build it in gradually. Adaptation is the key and you need to run the additional daily run at the low end of a steady pace, even slow some of your other training down for a while as you adapt and avoid overload.

The benefit of running training twice a day is that you get an additional dose of good endorphins, which help your body become stronger. If you are introducing double days, then make it just once a week to start with, then when you feel it is not making you overly tired then add an additional double day, and so on. I feel frequency is very important to endurance runners. Still, I remember Bruce Tulloh, a European 5km champion in his day before going on to coach (he coached Richard Nerurkar who ran a 2.08 marathon, won a World title and finished 5th in the Atlanta Olympics). He said at a seminar that if you have not got all you can out of 7 days a week of training, then get that right before you move to run twice a day. Wise words.

Once you are adapted to double days, they do become second nature, so to speak, and you just get used to running once in the morning (easy pace) and in the evening. Athletes I coach Steven Blake, who ran 2.20 in London thrived on it, and Treena Johnson, who recently set a UK female masters 60+ record of 2.57 at the Chester Marathon, did it off a twice-a-day programme. A lot of my athletes use double days as a daily commute in and out of work, if work is close enough… in London it can be quicker than using public transport or driving yourself.

I used to run twice on a Sunday too, 22 miles in the morning and 6 miles in the evening – but this was after about 3 years of endurance training for the marathon and my body had got used to it. In 1983, in my prime, I ran 22 miles one morning and that afternoon ran, and won, the Southwark 5 mile race, with a time of 23min 11sec.

It’s amazing what the body can adapt to, but it takes a lot of time and you need to be sure it is for you, that it won’t make you break down, and it is really sensible if you are already having to jungle a daily run around work, home and social commitments.

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