Mileage Is Not Training Load

You can run the same mileage two weeks in a row and have very different training weeks.

Say it's 20 miles both weeks.

The mileage didn't change at all, but the work you did changed quite a bit.

Same with the lifting. Both weeks have 2 lifting days, but moderate full-body sessions with reps in the tank don't come close to heavy squats and bench one day and hard deadlifts and presses the other.

You could do week one for a year

Four easy runs and two moderate lifts won't leave you excessively beat up. You recover between sessions, show up to the next one feeling pretty good, and do it again the next week.

Most people could repeat week one for a year with no real issues, and they'd definitely improve. Easy miles done consistently build a lot of aerobic fitness.

But they'd be leaving some gains on the table. With no faster running at all, you're only training one gear, and you'll improve slower than you could.

And over 6-8 weeks, week two would almost certainly see greater improvement if (BIG if) they were able to complete all sessions without getting injured.

But take two people and have Person A do week one for a year and Person B try to do week two for a year: Person A is going to be way, way fitter after a year.

Week two isn't sustainable

Week two packs a hard interval session, a 10-mile long run, a moderate 4, two heavy lifting days, and hard bike intervals into the same 7 days.

You can get through a week like that, maybe even a month or two if you really enjoy beating yourself up.

But most people couldn't do it more than a couple of weeks in a row without running into serious issues.

Every hard session is pulling from the same recovery. The squat day makes the intervals feel worse, the intervals make the long run harder, and by the time you get to deadlifts, your legs are cooked. Then you still have bike intervals on top of that.

Eventually you get hurt, get sick, or start dreading training, and the consistency that drives progress is gone.

Balance is what makes it last

This is where a good training program earns its keep.

The goal is to balance intensity and volume across your lifting and running so it's sustainable long term.

For most people, that means keeping the majority of your running easy, adding one or two faster sessions, and being smart about where your hard runs and heavy lower-body days land in the week.

That depends on your goals, your training volume, and how many days you have to train.

High-volume athlete
It may be best to do your heavy lower-body day on the same day as your hard intervals. That keeps your other days easy.

Fewer days or lower volume
It can be better to space them a few days apart.

You want a week you could repeat for months that still has enough hard work in it to keep you improving.

Try this
Look at your last two weeks of training. If you couldn't keep that up for the next 3 months (or didn't keep it up for the last 3 months), something needs to change.

Capacity Training

I built Capacity Training to do this balancing for you. It plans your running and your lifting together, from your goals, your training volume and the days you have to train, and gives every workout a load score, lifting and cross-training included, so you can see what each week asks of you.

Run faster. Get stronger. capacitytraining.app

Mike