How Increasing Your Running Volume Can Improve Your Running

Increasing your running volume can be beneficial and can potentially result in improved performance times. It can lead to better running economy and improved endurance, as well as build a more resilient body that can handle the demands of running. However, you need to balance the increase in running volume with injury risk. Additionally, it’s important to supplement running with strength training, so if you don’t have time for higher mileage and strength it’s better to run a little less in order to fit in the strength work. 

How Increasing Your Running Volume Can Improve Your Running

If you are an intermediate to experienced runner, it may be worth taking a look at your training volume and seeing if it you can increase it a bit. Sure, you may run higher volume during your peak weeks of training, but what about using a base building period to increase your easy miles? This may be a gradual increase, and it may be slow- a few miles more per week that builds up just slightly each year- but if you can do so safely think about the potential improvements you may see during a training cycle.

If your base mileage is higher, you can build to a higher peak mileage during training. You can also do the same (or slightly more) intensity per week while keeping the percentage of hard to easy miles the same or lower.

Let’s look at an example. Let’s say one year your base mileage was 25 miles per week. During your training cycle, you ran your peak weekly mileage of 40 miles per week with one hard workout. By the next year, your base mileage is 35 miles per week. You build up to 50 miles per week during training and can do 2 hard workouts a week. Additionally, if you can run 50 miles per week during the peak weeks of marathon training your longer run could potentially be 20-22 miles, while still getting in a good amount of other runs throughout the week.

The Benefits of Increased Running Volume

Improve Running Economy

Running economy is how efficiently your run, or how much energy you use at a given pace. If you use more oxygen to run at a certain pace, it will feel harder. This is why some runners can race faster than others based on running economy, even when other factors are the same. Running more can help improve running economy. It gets your body really good at using oxygen which is what we want to see happen. There are other factors that can impact running economy too by running more by teaching our body to run efficiently.

Improve Endurance

If you are running more, you get more comfortable running for long periods of time. This can improve endurance. Rather than most of your weekday runs being 45 minutes, if they are 60-70 minutes you will get used to running that amount. Small changes can really add up!

Become a More Resilient Runner

This one can be tricky because while running more can help build resilience, it can also lead to injury if not done appropriately. However, as your body gets used to running more miles it will be better able to handle the demands of running. This can be especially true for long runs during marathon training. If you are only running 3 mile runs during the week but then you go and do a 20 miler on the weekend your body is likely not prepared for that. Consistent running can help your body get used to running more.

More Opportunities for Easy Runs

Easy runs (or runs in zone 2) are very beneficial for building aerobic capacity. The more volume of running you do in a period of time, the more time you will be able to spend doing those easy runs. This can also help prepare you for harder workouts.

Things to Keep in Mind About Increasing Running Volume

Your runs will only be beneficial if you can recover from them. If you are running so much that you are sacrificing sleep or recovery, then it’s probably not worth it. You also want to make sure that you allow time for strength training. It’s also important to make sure that you only increase one running variable at a time, so if you are increasing your volume then don’t start adding in speedwork at the same time. Make sure you are fueling your runs well too!

For runners who are injury prone it may be difficult to increase running volume, but keep in mind that as you increase your volume that the additional miles should be easy. Often times runners find that when they truly slow down and keep easy runs easy they get injured less and can run more.

Have you ever tried increasing your running volume? Was it beneficial?

You may also like:
Are You Ready to Run a Sub 4 Hour Marathon?
How to Prepare Yourself to Run a Strong Downhill Race
Popular Spring Marathons on the East Coast
3 Ways to Progress Your Running After Building a Base
Is Training By Time Or Distance More Effective For Running?
How Long Distance Runners Can Train For a Strong 5k
Your Step-by-Step Guide to Improving in the Half-Marathon