running mileage

All posts tagged running mileage

Miles vs Minutes

Posted by DoombuggyRunner on April 13, 2013
Posted in: Running. Tagged: , , , , , , .

I read an interesting article this week that discussed the topic of running for miles or running for minutes for training. It is a question I too thought a lot about whenever I first started running. Here is a quick synopsis of each methodology.

Running By Time

  • This is a methodology that should be used for those beginning to run or those coming back from an injury. Do not worry with mileage or pacing, just focus on time and building up your endurance.
  • This will help you adhere to the appropriate training effort. This is best because you are going out for a certain amount of time. So if your pace is to high or too low, you still have to run x amount of miles.
  • This helps with injury prevention. If it doesn’t matter the pace or mileage, you can just focus on running for x amount of minutes, and build up your endurance.
  • Finally, this is a good plan when you cannot seem to slow your pace down. If you go out saying you are going to run for 30 minutes, you can slow down, enjoy the run, and not cause injury or furthering an injury.

Running By Distance

  • This is a methodology for learning the art of pacing. This is a critical skill for the advanced runner, so you can run a pace without thinking about it.
  • This will give you visual & quantitative feedback on honing in specific pacing desires.
  • This helps specifically for race planning. If you know you want a certain time of a PR, you know you have to maintain a certain pace.
  • Further, in race planning, it helps you train and prepare your stamina for the final kick near the end of a race.
  • It provides visual queues as to how far you still need to run. I know I have five more miles to complete. If the brain knows you need five more, you can help train it as well, to know you can do five more miles.
  • Finally, this helps push your pain threshold. If you know you want to PR the next race, training for distance helps push yourself through walls, so there is not such a burden come race day.

I found this article very informative. To read the article in detail, click on the link.