Ok, grown ups and people who know what’ your doing heres the thing....
So I’m quite happily chugging along, but want to do more running and improve my pace ( dont know how that happened 🤦🏻♂️)
However I’ve been keeping in mind the rule that you should have a rest day in between ...but.....I’ve been online 😱😱😱😱....and there are an awful lot of conflicting ideas on this...
Some videos/blogs/magazines say that to improve your pace you should increase the amounts of times you run and the distance...
Some say NO! This is BAD you will get injuries!
Some say ,ah yes, but what your doing now ( I’m doing 3 runs a week) is the MINIMUM!! You should be doing at least 4, one back to back days and one rest day...
Some say 3 times a week, with some type of strength trading like cross trainer etc on your rest day...
Some say...Do a running streak! Run everyday!! Forever!!
I honesty have no idea..🤪
Over to you
Gloves on, ding ding , round one ...
Written by
OlderThanDirt
Graduate10
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Once you have developed good musculature to support running and you are running at an easy pace rather than pushing yourself towards a new goal then I see no reason not to run consecutive days. But if you are tearing your muscles by pushing them to new excess it seems stupid not to let them heal before reuse as it's a very inefficient way to make gains and may increase the risk of injury. Consensus seems to be 6 mths to 1 yr to develop a good muscle base and that seems to tally with how I feel my own body is responding to running so it makes sense to me.
I do weights and cardio on 4 days and run on 3. I am getting quicker and I have been building to further, so I'd say 3 runs is fine depending on your goals.
But you are a grown up, so make your own judgement call. We will still be here when your achilles has pinged off up your ass. We may even have a supportive comment or two to offer
I love my rest day and enjoy the day off. I do gym and yoga, walking the dog, the garden etc I tend to run long so having a non run day is bliss
I think it’s ok to run a short distance each day when your running legs are totally built which takes 18-24 months. Ron Hill, famous for running every day for donkeys years ,used to run a mile i think.
Government says 30 minutes of moderate cardio exercise 5 days per week at a minimum - or 3 days of vigorous cardio. Moderate being probably brisk walking , vigorous being probably slow jogging - they don't say anything about 5k races, tempo paces or sprinting The secret is to listen to what your own body is telling you. I have at age 71 run 5 days per week and didn't have any real problems except maybe for a bit of tiredness. It all depends on the distance , time and pace involved on each day. There are plenty of runners who say that total weekly volume mostly from slow easy running is the key to relative success - some say that faster interval training is. I suspect that the latter comes from time poor modern day people who couldn't dream ( or maybe even do) a 90 minute very slow paced jog. I believe it is fairly simple - long slow volume builds strength in legs and cardiovascular development and fast shorter runs builds lung capacity . We needs lots of the former and a bit of the latter.
I run parkrun on Saturdays and do a longer club run on Sundays between 6 and 10 miles. My body doesn't have much problem with it.
Pace won't necessarily improve by running everyday, dreaded hills and intervals will. So you could try incorporating that into your routine runs and do a different exercise on non run days.
As others have said, you need to check in with your own body as we're all different. I know some runners who run every day and others who manage twice a week but are still able to run HM's. It depends what you want to get out of it and how your body will cope.
I've been running for five years and still run three times a week. I adore my running and could run every day but a) I choose to do others things like gym work, Pilates, and b) I have too many other priorities in my life that need to get done, seen etc. This suits me fine.
I did increase to four times a week after I graduated and ended up injured and I would get away with it now but as I said I choose not to at the moment.
Build up your running body first and then decide what you want to do but ease in very gently if you start to increase your running days.The important thing is to enjoy it.
I would say consolidate for a while. Concentrate on your form and style and play around with different paces. I assume that like me you ain't no spring chicken. Whilst not over the hill we do have to accept that age is an important factor in how much training you can do and how soon. I graduated 4 months ago. This month I started doing 4 runs a week which has been fine.
I agree, we are all individual, as my training intensifies nearer an event, I push myself with some sort of training 5-6 days a week, I mix it up a bit but after a while I get tired and have to rest up a bit. I think if I were in my 20’s and lead a less stressful life I would need to rest up less. ju-ju- has done continuous running successfully and safely. As you progress with your running you will start to notice little signs and niggles that willl tell you when to take your intensity down, they are personal and happen to everyone at different levels of training and are dependent on a lot of factors. If you have all that information and understand yourself I think you can up the training safely.
Cross trainer is a useless machine unless you have a disability or injury. You might as well sit on the couch and watch exercise on the TV.
If you want to run more days, run more days. If you want to run every day then run every day. Our ancestors didn’t say “I shall not run after that antelope today because I ran yesterday and don’t want to overtrain.” Or “oh noes, a sabre toothed tiger is after me but today is rest day.”
Well, if they did they didn’t last long.
A rather unfortunate culture has built up recently of extreme over caution with regard to ‘overdoing it’. We are constantly reminded of people who have torn muscles, ruptured knees and being nibbled to death by okapi because they dared to run on consecutive days and thought they knew better than the ‘prevailing wisdom’.
I’m not sure it is based on much real world evidence. If you tear a muscle doing 5-10k jogs then you are doing something more radically wrong than running too frequently.If you suffer injury to hints or soft tissue from sensible intensity daily runs then it is probably exposing a pre-existing condition.
It reminds me eager of the people who who said human beings would suffocate if they travelled faster than 12 miles an hour when the steam train was invented.
Experiment with what works for you. Be sensible. If it feels too much, dial it back a little. If it feels okay, build it up. Do what you enjoy.
I am not really entering into this, as there have been some great replies...
The way the weather is at the moment, I feel I ought to run on any day, that it allows me too, I don't though !
But... I am old... I am creature of habit.. I shall stick to my routine.three times a week; and in our defence.. or my defence, as an advocate of taking a rest day... we do it in an cautionary and advisory way...to support/ deter those folk who may not be experienced, (as are many of the new C25Kers)... fit/strong/ sensible enough to listen to their own bodies.
"Do as you will and harm no one... " especially yourself
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The secret is to listen to what your own body is telling you. I have at age 71 run 5 days per week and didn't have any real problems except maybe for a bit of tiredness. It all depends on the distance , time and pace involved on each day. There are plenty of runners who say that total weekly volume mostly from slow easy running is the key to relative success - some say that faster interval training is. I suspect that the latter comes from time poor modern day people who couldn't dream ( or maybe even do) a 90 minute very slow paced jog. I believe it is fairly simple - long slow volume builds strength in legs and cardiovascular development and fast shorter runs builds lung capacity . We needs lots of the former and a bit of the latter.
Running without music
PARKRUN... And no more running into trees 🌳 
No running for 6 weeks ☹️
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