How to Build Running Volume

So I'm back building up my weekly running volume.

My over ambitious mind would like to run every day, but my other life responsibilities remind of the challenges to that plan.

Running everyday would be ideal, and that would be a great way to build the volume up.

But instead of running everyday, I've settled to an every other day plan. Every run is much longer too.

The current run plan is as follows:

• Monday - 4 miles
• Wednesday - 4 miles
• Friday - 4 miles
• Saturday - 6 miles

This makes the total at 18 miles for this week. I anticipate my peak weekly volume would be about 30 miles, give or take.

When you're in the early part of your training, there is no point in a sharp increase in running volume. This could lead to injury as your body gets little time to adapt.

If you're a new running, run for any distance that would take you at least 30 minutes to complete.

For example, at a 12min/mile pace, 30 minutes would cover 2.5 miles.

So for your training runs set the goal to 2.5 miles. Training and getting into the mindset of completing a set distance (instead of set time) helps you become mentally ready to complete a race distance.

And if you decide to run 3 miles instead, then you'll obvious take longer than 30 minutes, but that's okay! You're working to increase your mileage.

My preferred approach would also be to increase weekly mileage every 3-4 weeks instead of every week.

So you can think of each 3-4 week timeframe as a training block.

From one training block to the next you can progress the weekly mileage. A conservative increase would be a 10-15% increase.

Got questions about your current training? Send me an email, happy to answer any questions.

Thanks for reading!