How should I go about starting doubles?

Where in England are you? If you want to make such a big increase to your training, having a coach would be advisable.

Though without knowing anything about you I'd say that plan looks OK. Build up gradually- perhaps 70mpw by Feb/ March is too early.

I probably wouldn't start doubles on the first week back after a break. Take a week or two of singles to get back to where you were before. Then, the next week, add a couple of days of doubles. See how you feel, and keep adding mileage according to how your body responds. I think that your proposed schedule is good, but it would probably be a mistake to jump right into that. If you're feeling run down, think about knocking a few miles off of your long run.

a few things.....

why are you taking a week off? and do you mean zero running, or just no workouts? (ie. you'll still run the easy runs most days) - seems weird to run zero and then jump straight into a 70 mile week.

adding in easy doubles shouldn't be too much of an impact to you if you are comfortable at your current schedule. i went from zero doubles to 4-5 doubles over a 3 week period and it felt pretty easy.

I've been training since August and I feel pretty run down and stale at the moment. I've gotten a few niggly injuries recently and I think I need a break. The break would probably consist of easy 5 milers every second day.

I'm living in London. I went to the local club before but I didn't get on with the coach. He did short interval training like repeat 200s and 400s. I prefer doing longer intervals.

If you ever want to win any kind of championship, you're going to need to work on your raw speed. Do something like 8x100m sprints 3 or 4 times a week in addition to everything else.

Thanks I'll make sure to do that. It's definitely something I need to work on. Should I be doing some form of weight training also? At the moment I just do the basics like sit ups and push ups.

Don't start doubles and a weight training program at the same time--that's too much change at once. Stick to the sit-ups and push-ups and add a couple of doubles only like you were told above. Increase your mileage gradually--a lot of resources say you should only increase 10% per week, which may be unnecessarily conservative but something to keep in mind. And in London there must be many more coaches and programs fairly close by no?

Yeah there are plenty of clubs I could go.

To be honest, one of the reasons is that Dad likes to help out with my training. He times my interval training and calls out the splits and stuff like that. Some people might find that sort of thing oppressive and controlling but I don't really mind. He's got a lot of free time since he sold his business. It's not like he follows me in the car on easy runs(like Peter Coe did). I decide what training I'm going to do and he just supports me. I'll get a coach when I go to university (St. Mary's hopefully). He knows that and he's cool with it.

Ok so I'll start out with two weeks of singles, then add 3 doubles(Sat, Tue, Thur) and add the remaining two the following week. That means around the end of January I should be up to 65-70 mpw. If I can keep that up I should get some good times come track season and have a good xc race in March.

Thanks agains for the advice.

run two times per day

Shoot me an e-mail (click the link on my user name), I can e-mail you logs of my training weeks and training plans. Which are very similar to what you are looking for.

Don't be stupid and start doubles. Increase your mileage in singles up to 60mpw before you even think of doing doubles.

Shouldn't your running be in kilometers?

Firstly, if he was measuring his runs using the metric system it would be in kilometres(notice the correct spelling).

Secondly, England is the birth place of imperial measurement and it is still used on all the roads over there. They aren't giving up the last reminders of the Empire any time soon.

Your attempt at a pwning failed quite miserably.

Maybe, just maybe, if you pull your head out of your ass, you'd realize that he could quite possibly have done the conversions for you.

Has Ireland figured out yet if it wants to be metric or imperial? Drove me a bit crazy driving around the country...seemed like most official signs were in km, but some signs were in miles.

Sorry, I guess the question wasn't directed at me.

I am right though (look it up if you don't believe me).