Running Twice a Day

"My son is worrying me with running. He is going to be a senior in High School next year and he's putting on the mileage more than ever this summer. He seems to be increasing his mileage slowly as to not run a lot more one day than the previous, but I'm afraid he has more of a chance of injuring himself than improving himself.

Right now he's running twice a day, adding to about 8 miles all together. Should he stick to once a day? Do most varsity high school Cross Countriers run twice a day over the summer?"


No, most varsity high school runners do not run twice a day during the summer. I believe it is pretty rare for a high school runner to run twice a day at any time of the year, although there are exceptions (individuals and programs). I'll say more about that later, but first...

...It sounds like the real concern is that your son might be over-training. To make a judgment about this, I think it's important to look at his current training with a broader perspective.

How does his summer running this year compare to last year? Assuming he ran last summer, I think that increasing his average from last summer by about 10-15 miles a week is safe.

How is his enthusiasm for non-running activities? Does he still have time to enjoy other things, or has running become all-consuming? I think that enjoyment of other things in life is a pretty good indicator of appropriate training intensity. If he's too tired to do anything else but run, then he's almost certainly training too hard.

How is his appetite? is he having any difficulty sleeping? Healthy training is accompanied by a healthy appetite. Inability to eat or sleep normally is another sign that training is becoming too intense.

You also mentioned your concern about injuries. Obviously, if he has any injuries, staying healthy and not aggravating them should be the primary concern, even if that means taking time off or doing alternative exercise for a while

Now, let's talk more about running twice a day.

It seems to me that there are three good reasons why someone might want to run twice a day:

1) To commute to work or school

2) To start or end the day with an easy run to relax and loosen muscles and promote recovery from harder efforts

3) To achieve a pure increase in volume of training with no loss of intensity

I have had successful experiences with reasons #1 and #2, but have never been able to use doubling as a way of increasing the number of hard miles during a week.

My opinion is that if your son is not commuting, then the only positive reason to run twice a day is reason #2. I wouldn't dismiss that out of hand, because it really does work well for some runners. However, for maintaining training volume, I think he would be better off running his 8 miles (or 6 miles, or whatever his daily mileage is) in single runs on most days.

I want to end on a positive note. I think that an enthusiasm for running long distances is potentially a very positive thing. But I also believe that, like any other great enthusiasm, it can become obsessive. I think the best inoculation against this kind of obsessive running is to keep other interests and sources of self-esteem active, and to make sure that running itself has a social context -- so that running at a conversational pace with other people plays an important part in one's training.

Basically, if your runner has a healthy approach to eating, sleeping, and being social, then I think the chances are good that running is in its proper place.