And I only ran twice per week for the past 8 weeks to train for it.
And for the 4 months before that, I only ran once per week.
The rest of my endurance training was Zone 1 stationary biking.
There are two main reasons I don't run more:
I always get hurt when I increase mileage.
I love lifting and running takes too much away from lifting.
Zone 1 biking allows me to improve my aerobic endurance but is low impact and easy enough to recover from that it doesn't affect my lifting very much.
If you have a history of injury when increasing mileage, are new to running, are overweight, or love to run and lift, this post is for you.
And just to be clear, I'm not saying this is the right plan for everyone, or it's the best way to improve your running.
It's not. Running more is almost always the best way to improve your running.
I'm just showing what worked for me, why I chose this style of training, and how it could maybe help some of you.
Here is what my weekly training looked like over the past 8 weeks:
-3 hours of Zone 1 biking (115bpm)
-1-1.5 hours of Z1/Z2 running (120-150bpm)
-30-60 minutes of Z4/Z5 running
-4-6 hours of lifting
The short story is I have a history of running injuries when increasing mileage. I stopped running for about 20 years and decided to give it another shot about 6 months ago. But this time, I decided to take it VERY slowly and cross train heavily.
I first heard about Zone 1 training from Alan Couzens. At the time, in February, I had just started a cut. My plan was to lose 15-20 pounds to make running easier. I figured it was a great time to give Zone 1 biking a try. I figured, worst case, it would do nothing for my aerobic endurance, but at least it would burn some extra calories. And best case, it would do both. Well, it did both. And it did both very well.
Over those 2 months, I improved my 5k time from 20:35 to 18:46, and I only ran once per week. That one day of running was high-intensity intervals, mostly 400s and 800s. I also Zone 1 biked 45-90 minutes 3-4x per week at 115bpm.
I figured if it worked that well for the 5k, I might as well keep it going and see if it would work for a half marathon. But a half marathon is much different than a 5k, and I knew running once a week wouldn’t cut it. I thought even twice a week might not be enough to improve my muscular endurance sufficiently. But I knew my body wouldn’t be able to handle 3 days per week, so I ran twice a week for the past 8 weeks.
My basic plan was this:
- 1 long run
- One high-intensity run
The long run ranged from 60-90 minutes (6-12 miles), and the high-intensity runs ranged from 4-8 miles. The first 5 weeks, my long runs were all done at <140bpm, firmly in Zone ½. The last 3 weeks I turned these into progression runs, I would run the first 60-70% in Zone 2 and the last bit at race pace or faster.
Here are some examples of my high-intensity days:
2x2 miles at HMP
4x2k at 10k pace
7x800m
3x2 miles at HMP
5 miles at HMP
8 mile at HMP
Again, over the past 6 months, I only had one high-intensity running day per week. The rest was done in Zone 2 or slower.
The point of this post is this: Cross-training can be powerful.
It's a great way to improve your aerobic endurance if:
-you have a long history of getting injured from running
-you are dealing with an injury
-you are new to running
-you want to be able to run and lift heavy
-you are overweight
Again, I'm just sharing my own experience with cross-training. I absolutely loved running as a kid, and I'm very thankful that cross-training has allowed me to start running again.