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I run about 5 miles a day about 7 days a week. It usually takes me between 37-39 minutes to complete it and I run in the morning. If I ran another 5 miles at night, 4 days a week, would that be too much where I may only injure myself?

-Mike

Are you doing the 5 mile runs to improve your time over that distance or simply to improve on your fitness?

If you gradually introduced evening runs you would not necessarily get injured. It would be of more benefit to vary the length of your daytime runs. Do some shorter, faster runs of 3 miles, some 5 miles, some 7-8 miles and maybe some longer runs. Also try varying the course and the terrain you run on. Good luck.

Since you are running 35 miles a week and you want to add 20 miles per week, you can combine the total mileage to equal 55 miles per week. Divide this figure by 7 days in a week equals about 8 miles per day.

The benefit to running 8 miles one time per day is giving yourself 24 hours of recovery before the next day. Since you are running 5 miles per day, add 1 mile every 3 to 4 weeks until you reach the desired mileage.
There is an excellent article in the web site under Running by Jack Farrell that covers these same principles.

Another option is to run 6 miles one time per day and one day a week run a long run of 12-13 miles. The reason for the long run is to deplete glycogen to improve on endurance. Gradually build up to the 6 mile run and the long run.

Coach Payan
www.CoachesEducation.com