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
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?
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?
