I currently run 4 times a week with a general profile something like this:
Sunday - long run 15-20km
Tues - Hill sprints or track repeats - 8-10k inc warm up/down
Thurs - tempo or similar - 10k inc warm up/down
Sat - Parkrun plus jog home - 9k total.
If i want to increase my weekly distance would i be better off adding an additional run or lengthening the ones i currently do? Is there an advantage of doing it one way over the other?
Comments
For your Tuesday and Thursday runs why don't you add some quantity to them? Do a 3 mile warm up and a mile cool down at the end, add the tempo/pace section to that would increase your weekly mileage..
It depends what you are trying to achieve.
From your plan, it sounds like you all your runs are "quality" sessions, i.e. include speed or endurance workouts, suiting up to 10k distances. If you are happy at this distance, then there's no need to run any further in your quality sessions, and you'd get most benefit from adding another session of easy running to help your body recover/work on running form etc. For example an easy run on the Weds, starting at 5k and gradually increasing up to 10k distance.
If you want to race at Half-Mara or further distances, then you'll need to increase the mileage in your existing sessions
As such, I would look at introducing a nice easy aerobic run on either Wednesday or Friday (or eventually both?). Depending on the distance you're training for, and your current speed, I would also suggest slightly extending your Sunday long run - how long does 15-20km take you?
Well im pretty inexperienced having only started running at the start of the year as a fat forty something so upto now ive only ran a 4 of 5k's and 2 10k's outside the weekly parkruns. My initial goals are firstly to go sub20min for 5k (im about 40secs off) and get somewhere near to 40mins 10k (44:08pb). Ive signed up for a 10M (i'd like to be sub 1:20) next month and was hoping to do a 1/2mara early in 2013. thats about my limit i reckon!!
Thanks for the comments - last sunday i did 18k in 1:35. For this type of distance i usually target 5:15-5:30/km pace.
Any advice would be appreciated.