Double workouts - what do you do?

If you must --- do what you DO NOT like in the AM and then enjoy the PM workout, imho

I do a lot of double days, but it's almost never swimming twice. The 2nd workout is running or weightlifting.

I'm looking at upping my weekly mileage a bit starting next month and want to do a 2x day on Wednesdays since I normally take Thursdays as a rest day. Later this spring, I might look at adding a second 2x day per week. For those of you who do some two-a-day workouts, how do you structure them? More distance in the morning, then a follow up in the evening (so say 3500 am, 2000 pm)? Or do you split them doing speed work in the morning? Looking for any ideas on how to break them up and still make them useful, not junk miles. Thanks in advance - Kari I was talking to a friend that was at the Olympics in 2012 about training, and what he said might be of interest. They tend to work a particular theme for a couple of weeks at a time - say speed or aerobic endurance. Although you do small amounts of other things in that block (to keep 'ticking along') the idea is to overload one system at a time, and let it recover, versus doing a bit of everything and getting generally fatigued. Using that rationale, it might make sense to stay with one theme, or at least make sure that if you do something different in the other session, that it isn't overly taxing - say some short, focused, sprint work mixed with technique, alongside a big aerobic set, rather than a big aerobic set then some lactic tolerance... As to "what do I do"? I don't generally!

Why are you doing doubles? Honestly, I don't see much value in doubles for adults. It's increasingly a relic of a bygone era.

She obviously has too much free time. :D

Looking for any ideas on how to break them up and still make them useful, not junk miles. Not sure you can meet this objective, because IMO breaking the miles up risks seriously compromising their usefulness. What will be useful is to increase your weekly long swim to approach the distance or duration of your event, so that you can practice all of the physical and mental skills that you will need for the event. Doing two two- or three-hour swim sessions with eight or ten hours between them won't be as effective for this purpose as doing a single four- to six-hour workout. And doing double swim sessions on other days just to put in more miles will interfere with your ability to rest and recover (both physically and mentally) from your long efforts, or from your high-intensity efforts (which should be on different days from your long swims). I don't think my teammate who swam Key West a few years ago ever did double swim days. She did do some monster long swims and she did some forms of dryland cross-training (yoga and lifting, I think). I have never done a race over 10K but I also have not done double swim days since my teens. Have you run your training plan past someone with experience training for a 5+ hour event?

I'm looking at upping my weekly mileage a bit starting next month and want to do a 2x day on Wednesdays since I normally take Thursdays as a rest day. Later this spring, I might look at adding a second 2x day per week. For those of you who do some two-a-day workouts, how do you structure them? More distance in the morning, then a follow up in the evening (so say 3500 am, 2000 pm)? Or do you split them doing speed work in the morning? Looking for any ideas on how to break them up and still make them useful, not junk miles. Thanks in advance - Kari It all depends, what are your goals? Why are you training? Are you preparing for a meet or a race? How are you currently training? ie times per week, time in pool per work out, type of sets, paces you hold in practice what your weekly swim schedule looks like You told us you take Thursdays off.

Great questions and great suggestions, y'all. I appreciate it. This forum is such a great source of ideas and information. I like several of the ideas presented. Any others out there? Swimspire, you're right, thanks! Yes, I've actually been working with a stroke coach the past 2 months and he's helped a ton already. I did that mainly to make sure as I put these miles in, that I can do it with less of a chance of being injured by overuse on the wrong stroke. He's been pretty amazing. The goal is that I'm training for my first big, big swim - 12.5 miles (~20k) around Key West in late June and think I'll be fairly competitive for the Master's age group. I'm getting long swims in on the weekend (building in 4-week cycles much like I did in my ultra-running days), but would like to do more during the week than just my 1 hour Master's swims in the mornings. Thought that adding volume on Wednesdays by doing a 2nd workout, that it would help in the overall training the next couple of months. I do take Thursdays and Sundays off, which are (will be) the days after the higher volume days. I also take occasional days off when I do feel overtraining coming on. This month, I've been averaging about 20-23k per week, but would like to get that closer to 25-28k/week in April/May. My Master's coach is great, working with me on "longer" sets during practices (200s-800s depending on the day), but still speed as well. But there's only so much you can do in the alloted hour. And man, I do wish I had more free time, smontanaro. This swimming stuff is sadly turning me into one of those people who eat a 5 and in bed, dead asleep by 9. Doesn't leave much for the single, social life. LOL! Thanks again y'all!

Would your choice for swimming twice in a day be due to constraints in available times needing to break it up in two? Even with a pool easily accessible for me throughout the day, making two trips, the changing, and having two pairs of continuously wet speedo's would start to stress my already, slightly chaotic management of time.

My first question would be, what do you plan to achieve with morning workouts? Besides volume, do you have a goal that could be achieved by introducing doubles into your workout plan. Are you trying to get your body aquainted to early morning prelim swims? Although I do not swim doubles anymore (had enough of those during age group and college years) my workout strategy would be to swim two workouts of equal distance and equal intensity on my double day. One thing that would worry me is my bodies ability to recover between sessions. My body doesn't recover like it used to and the added work may lead to burnout, or even worse injury. Hope this helps.