I attended a seminar by Justin Trolle back in September. As a side topic he mentioned that he had been training a young female that was prone to stress fractures. He prescribed a high frequency of running. Something in the order of 25 – 30 runs per week. Of course these runs would have to be short in duration. He proclaimed that this would increase her durability. In fact, in as little as 3 weeks Justin claimed that the athlete was able to perform at a high duration and intensity and has not experienced any additional stress fractures.
Recently, I have adopted a similar training program. Thankfully, I am not plagued by injuries or stress fractures but when I have increased my mileage in the past I have had some soreness. To combat this I have started running twice a day – morning and at noon. I started out with a limit of 6 miles per run – mainly just as a time constraint. I am trying to run this pattern 4 days a week and keeping the longer / faster run for the weekend. For example, leading up to the Baton Rouge Beach Half marathon, I ran a total of 44 miles during the week and then tapered for two days and ran the race. This gave me around city miles for the week – I ran a couple of miles after the race as a cool down. Granted, there is no intensity in these weekday runs – I keep these runs at my comfortable, conversational pace which is just under 8 minutes per mile.
I have noticed that as the number of runs accumulate, the first mile of each run I feel tired. However, after this first mile the fatigue subsides. Although I have mentioned that it is difficult for me to schedule cycling while trying to achieve my best marathon I am being hard headed and keeping two regimented trainer sessions during the week – these are scheduled on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.
I believe that this progression will allow for me to build my mileage into the high 60’s / low 70’s with very little chance of injury. Once I have the mileage established I will be able to add some sharpening – quarters, Yasso 800’s and mile repeats. The bread and butter of this training plan will be volume and weekend long runs / tempos. Sounds like fun to me!
My next race is the Ole Man River Half in New Orleans on 12/19/2010. This should be flat, fast and cold – I had a PR at this race last year and I look to repeat! Last years race report.
It's an interesting approach...I'll be anxious to hear how it works for you.
ReplyDeleteEvery time I hear Justin talk I learn something new.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing! That's very helpful information. It makes sense because stress fractures are the result of putting too much stress on bones that haven't built up strength, so to speak. (I've been reading a "Strength Training for Triathletes" that talks about it too)
ReplyDeleteI may have to try and see if I can get a few shorter two-a-day or three-a-day runs in.
Two a days are easy for me. I do them all year long it is usually split between swim / bike / run. So this time I have just made it run centric.
ReplyDeleteWhat I have found is that my body recovers from these short runs much easier.