Once you’ve been running long enough, you’ll no doubt hear another runner suggest that you should only increase your miles each week by 10 percent. I’m not sure where this advice first came from, but 10 percent rule running is pretty flawed, even if at first glance it seems sensible. Here are my thoughts on why it’s not a good rule, followed by some tips on doing it better:
The most important aspect of running training progression is listening to your body. Following the 10 percent running rule and thinking that will keep you safe (rather than listening to the body) isn’t going to end well, with possible risk of injury. Here’s why.
People have selective hearing. If someone says “Don’t eat that cake”, the only words that really get through are “Eat that cake!” Hearing a rule that says “increase running miles by no more than 10 percent each week” leads to people actually doing “Increase running miles by 10 percent each week!”
So firstly, that boundary gets pushed a bit – “15 or 20% is probably OK this week?!”. Secondly it’s EACH week, so unless someone has explained that you need recovery weeks every few weeks (do less running / exercise to let the body recover), the body will quickly fail.
As a beginner, a 10% increase in running miles or duration is too small. If you are running for 10 minutes, you don’t need to do 11 minutes next – you can try more.
As a more experienced runner, a 10% increase is too much – if you are running for 60 miles a week, 66 miles might be a step too far. It takes many years for the body to get resilient enough to cope with very high mileage.
Let’s say a newish runner tries to follow 10% for a year. Perhaps they are doing a three mile run, three times a week, so nine miles total. There are 52 weeks in a year, so let’s be conservative and say the runner succeeds in ramping up 10% for just 30 of those weeks. 9×1.1^30 = 157 miles a week! That’s obviously a ludicrous amount for most runners, let alone a beginner. But how do you know when to stop ramping up?
What’s better than 10 percent rule running?
Get a running coach – I can guide you based on your feedback. Instead of being a slave to an identikit plan, you can constantly adjust your running progression plan according to how you feel.
Not everyone can afford a coach, but ask yourself if you can afford to be side-lined from running because you are constantly getting it wrong?
Some tips so you can progress your running better than using 10% rule running:
- Listen to your body. If you are achy or sore, perhaps you need more rest / recovery and to do less next week and ramp up more slowly.
- You don’t have to blindly ramp up every week – try doing a bit more than last week, but then staying at that level for a couple more weeks. Did everything go well? Only allow yourself to increase again if everything feels good, even if you are a marathon plan to follow!
- Every six months or so, have a couple of weeks off. Let the body recovery properly and let the mind get thirsty for running again.
- You don’t need to increase miles or duration. Instead you could try changing something else. If you never do hard sessions, you might try one if you are ready. Or change the intensity of an interval session you are already doing, so do one more repetition than normal. Or change to a different hard session – if you always do Tempo runs, try some very easy hill reps for a change. The fact that it’s a change in itself makes it hard, even if it feels easy at the time.
- Arriving at the start line of a race with fresh legs is better than arriving having done lots of high miles, but knackered.
- Listen to your body.
- Oh and listen to your body. You can probably guess what the next running tip would be!
