Run 4 days/week or 5 days/week? (for Half marathon/ironman)

The basic tradeoff is recovery time between runs. You need to enough time to recover after you've stressed your body with long distance runs. Only you can tell if running 5 days a week is better than 4. Try both and see how your body feels.




So your long run is an hour? You will need to get that long run longer. A half marathon is going to take you almost two hours to complete at 8:45 pace. Depending on your race goals, you'll need to ramp up those long runs into 1:30, 1:45, even 2 hours depending on pace.

When you say your running "needs work" what do you mean? What are your limiters? Cardio endurance? Muscular endurance?

This is going to seem like a lame answer, but it depends on you and what your body can handle. It will also depend on the number of miles and intensity you do for those runs.

I run a minimum of 4 days a week. Some days I'll do a recovery run after my long days or tempo days and sometimes I'll take a day off. That choice is made depending on how my body feels.

My wife runs 6 days a week. Her body is very durable and can handle the mileage.

How about having a 5 day a week training plan, with that 5th day being a 'flex' day. Make the lightest day an optional day and play it by ear. If you take it off, replace it with something that will still get your heart rate going for a while.

Thanks for the responses!

Yes, my typical 'long run' is actually about 6.1 miles -- I generally get it done in under an hour. I've run 7 and 8 miles before (one time each). My limiters? Two things -- I get ITBS when I run in the morning(6am-ish)...usually after about 5 miles...probably a warm up thing...but I've tried lots of different warm-ups from brisk walking (up to 20 minutes) to riding my bike on the trainer for 30-45 minutes before running in the morning. My work/life schedule makes running in the evening hard to get done.

However there's no logical reason why I should be limted to 5 miles at 6am...My IT use to hurt at 2miles, then 3 miles...I figure as I get stronger I'll be able to run farther before the IT starts bugging me (see IT details below).

The other limiter is has been the heat -- I start feeling really crapy after running for about hour in 90+ degree weather...I'm hoping that now that its cooling down, I'll get to run longer.

I say my running needs work because I see it as the best way to improve my Olympic distance time: I'm already at about 20 minutes for the Swim and 1:05 or so for the Bike, my run comes in around 50 minutes.

So, logically, I should be able to increase my long run by one mile each week -- then I'll be ready for a half marathon in 7/8 weeks! <:-)

As for the IT Band issue -- my IT problem is strange -- its actually more of an under-use than an over-use injury. Right now I can usually run 5-6 miles with no problem (but not much more). But if I take a week off running then I'll only be able to do 2-3 miles when I start again. Then I do stretches and use a foam roller (thats how I got up to 5-6 miles) and after a week or so I'll be back to 5-6 miles.

I'll probably just try doing 5/week for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. I think the key is consistancy.

Thanks again!!

I can't help you with the heat. We don't see 90+ degrees very often here in the Seattle area. I wish we did ...

I've had IT band issues. They developed while I was training for my first marathon. Mine were cured by physical therapy. I'm a big believer in message therapy for solving these sorts of problems rather than just treating symptoms. Recently I've been a convert of Active Release Techniques therapy; I was having some issues with my left knee before IMAZ last April and 20 minutes of free ART therapy the day before fixed it all. I did the entire Ironman with no knee problems whatsoever.

My experience with ITBS had nothing to do with warmups. It was all about muscle tension and the tendon itself. After a number of muscle and IT stripping sessions (involving what I lovingly referred to as the Elbow of Death) I was cured. These days I use the TP massage ball and a regular after-workout stretching routine to keep things working right. I don't believe in dynamic stretching before the workout because I think it's too damaging. Plus I despise stretching routines - they are so incredibly boring. So I do range-of-motion routines for about 3 minutes before running or swimming, and off I go.

So I recommend looking into PT for your ITBS solution, if you haven't already done so. They can really be miracle workers...

Edited by brucemorgan 2007-09-18 1:25 AM

If you have ITB issues that limit your long runs (morning or anytime) to 6.1 than I might suggest modifying your goals this winter. Several half marathons are probably not the best goal. Adding a 5th day is probably not the best goal.

As others have said, you need to see what your body can handle. More is not always better, period. The upside of more is more base, more conditioning, more experience. The downside is injury and recovery.

I know this. I used to be a 5 or 6 day a week runner. Many can run that often with no issues and that is great. i could not. When I hit around 35-40 miles a week my body really started to break down. I stepped away for a while and then dropped back to 3 or 4 and worked on my form and making sure I was healthy. I ran my fasted 13.1 after that (a 1:48, which is slow compared to many but I am proud of).

If you are hurting now, going to 5 days is most likely only going to make that worse. Work on what is causing the issue. IMHO you are better of staying at your current mileage or even dropping back some until you are able to train nearly pain free.

Then start to wisely build up some more miles, with a focus on a longer run. If you are going to do multiple 13.1s in an off-season, you need much more in your long runs. I typically do a few in the fall and I have 2 that are 2 weeks apart this year. I am running them as fun runs with no desire to do a PR. i will run one with my wife is slower than I.
That said, it is not uncommon for me to run up to a 14 or 16 as a weekend long run.