Accumulating Big Volume – How and Why?

 

What’s the point of completing workouts like this? Ones that accumulate large run volume in multiple “short” (relatively speaking) efforts? Let’s dive in…

First of all, a session like the one in the picture is called a BIG MILE or BIG VOLUME session. This is one of the mandatory marathon prep runs you need to be incorporating into any marathon prep! Not too long ago, the Hill Pursuit Podcast highlighted 5 Key Runs that must be included into your marathon prep! For more background on this, go back and listen to episode 86 of the Hill Pursuit Podcast HERE!!

This type of run requires some background information, specific to the individual. So I’ll elaborate.

There’s a really important concept with endurance running called “threshold training.” Some athletes define “threshold” in terms of physiological. This relates to real-time lactate assessment: doesn’t get more accurate than this! Measuring blood lactate in real-time allows an athlete to see at exactly what pacing/intensity blood lactate is accumulating so much, that is not removed in time to sustain that specific intensity. There are numbers and values that apply to this assessment, and these are generally universal, although there is always a bit of individual variability…again, I dive into those specifics in episode 86 of the podcast (linked above).

But without assessing lactate in real-time, athletes are able to guage their “threshold” off a planned pace for endurance racing, or they could also use heart rate. For ME personally, I find that I respond well to planned pacing, since my heart rate aligns nearly perfectly in all circumstances. So instead of obsessing over my heart rate, I hit pacing. Now…where does the pacing come from?

Well, I’ve developed my own pacing off of my goal for the upcoming season. These goals impact threshold training, and also LSD (long slow distance) training. This season, I’ve increased the pacing for my LSD runs. This was intelligently designed after I took a critical and thorough look at what I could improve following last season. At this point, my LSD runs are all at 10:20/mile pace. Typically, any LSD sessions should be predominantly zone 2 intensity. For me, that falls in the low 140’s or mid 130bpm range. In terms of performance and not physiology, this equates to around 90 seconds to 120 seconds slower than planned marathon pacing. That being said, 10:20 perfectly falls into this zone 2, since my marathon goal is around 8:30-8:40/mile pacing.

So what does this mean about “threshold” training, or accumulating big run volume within a session?

Large volume run sessions involve accumulating total mileage of high volume, with brief recovery bouts. Since these are repeated bouts of small volume, the intensity can be at threshold, right at race pace, or slightly faster than race pace depending on the total volume.

Today’s session involved 10 total miles of “intensity” and purpose, with all warmup, recovery, and cooldown volume right at 10:20/mile pace. Based on where I’m at in my prep, I decided to run all of the 2.5 mile intervals at 8:30/mile pace. In theory, this is at, or slightly faster than my planned marathon pacing in May of 2025. As the season progresses and I re-visit this exact session, I’ll slightly push this pacing and reassess when looking at my heart rate response!

So in summary, accumulating big run volume is super valuable. It allows you to accumulate great volume at “race pace” or threshold (whatever you ultimately decide), without completely beating yourself up in the process. After all, we need to also train intelligently and with purpose! We can’t simply go out and run 20 miles at our planned pacing…all day every day. Eventually, sure. But for now, I’ll take the total volume while being smart about recovery and without sacrificing my sessions for the rest of the week/block!

I genuinely hope this information helps. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have specific questions about this, or anything else!

Train smart, train hard.

-Coach