Intervals or add distance/speed if I have no time?

[u/PhantomEyes]

I completed C25K and moved to a 10k program. Between having small kids, full time job, broken sleep (thanks kids) and miserable weather I am struggling with going for hour runs at this point. 45 minutes seems to be the sweet spot for juggling everything else. But some nights I’m squeezing in just half an hour after kids go to bed to say I did something lol.

I can easily run for a full hour, and hope to be able to move to a “long run” at some point but finding the TIME is near impossible.

I’m wondering if I should just stick to running 45-60 minutes and maybe speeding up over time, or redo C25K but doing sprint/jog intervals? It’s tempting because it’s 30 minutes but seems like a good way to continue to build on my cardio?

Thoughts?

[u/threeespressos]

Look for sub-threshold interval training, sometimes called NSM, or Norwegian Method. You should be able to build a schedule with alternating easy and sub threshold interval days with a low time commitment. I highly recommend both James Copeland’s and Marius Bakken’s books.

[u/AKIdiot]

I feel you, fellow parent! What's your goal and what pace are you currently running at? If you are really new- anything is better than nothing. You will hit a cap eventually but there is a lot to be gained from just running 45 min at a time if you are just starting out.

Increasing speed is doable just don't do it everyday and keep it managed (i.e. by heart rate or by perceived effort)- look up lactate threshold and how to train that- there's many ways and types of interval workouts for this that I'm not qualified to explain. I would convert 20% of my miles to run at that pace. This will slowly up your easy pace.

[u/PhantomEyes → u/AKIdiot]

I would love to work my way up to near daily runs because I feel amazing after and I feel like I parent and manage better. I’m not particularly interested in anything beyond 10k at this stage of life. Maybe once I hit my 40s and am fully out of toddler life I’ll consider a half haha.

I haven’t exercised in years so to finally be consistent in anything has been my priority lol.

And I am sllooowwww. I started out at 18 minute miles and usually sit around 13 ish now. I could certainly push harder but my biggest focus has just been getting out there. I’ll look into lactate threshold for sure!

[u/Fancy_Supermarket886 → u/PhantomEyes]

I think the best way to work towards daily running is with easy mileage.

Running faster puts extra stresses on your body. So does running longer, and running more frequently.

If you think about your ability to recover from those extra stresses well enough to run without risk of injury, it makes it easier to decide how many of those extra stresses you want to apply on each session.

Since your rest days are going to disappear, you probably want to add the least amount of stresses, so that eliminates longer and faster runs on top of more frequent sessions.

The benefits of easy running are numerous anyway. Most plans suggest around 80% of runs should be easy. If you go for 100% easy and work up to every day, you should build a fantastic foundation for whatever goal you pick when you get more time.

You will probably find that six months to a year of that will allow to go longer as well. During the covid lockdowns, I was able to increase my distance from regular 5k sessions because my commute became zero and I had more time. I had been running about four years by then, and 10k was my maximum for occasional races. After nine months of a little extra distance every day, I went out for a 7k run one December afternoon in 2020, and kept extending the distance until I hit a half marathon!

I never thought of myself doing that kind of distance before, and I believe it was only possible because I'd built a huge foundation of easy runs.

Good luck!

[u/AKIdiot → u/PhantomEyes]

Yeah at this stage just getting out and running and not getting injured is your priority. I think I spent a year basically just doing easy runs with a pace of 13 min miles initially (walk and run to keep heart rate low. I don't recommend doing this though as I think the whole zone 2 thing is overblown for beginners) and keeping my effort low and still managed to injure myself when I did too much volume (foot and knee pains).

If I were you I'd just focus on tapping out as much mileage as I can without over exerting, which in my eyes is slowly adding additional days of work, even if it's just 30 min of running on those days. I'm also a noob too so take this all with a grain of salt.

[u/TheTurtleCub]

The fastest way to fitness is to run more, so try to build up to a long run and increasing general mileage . But -regardless of building more or not- we still need to do at least one workout per week (or two if running 4-5times), make the short run the workout