Adding a Second Long Run Without Overloading Your Week

The short answer: place your second long run 72+ hours from your primary weekend long run — Tuesday or Wednesday, if your main long run falls on the weekend — and size it at 50-65% of that primary distance. Below you'll find the full 7-day template with it placed, what it replaces in your existing week, the pace to run it at, and the early signs you've added too much.

Only make this move once your weekly mileage has held steady at 35+ miles for three weeks straight — jumping in before your aerobic base is properly established is the single most common cause of the overuse injuries I see mid-cycle. Below that mileage mark, the honest move is to keep building total volume first.

The Full 7-Day Template With the Second Long Run Placed

Do the maths on your own week before you add this: your two long runs combined still have to respect the 10% weekly-increase ceiling that governs your base mileage progression. A second long run doesn't get a separate budget — it comes out of the same total.

What the Second Long Run Replaces (and What It Doesn't)

The second long run replaces what would otherwise be a medium-long easy run — never a quality or speed session. If your week is already full at four or five training days, add it by extending an existing easy day rather than adding a new training day on top.

I had an athlete once add a second long run on top of an already-full week instead of swapping it in for an existing run. Within three weeks she had persistent lower-leg soreness that didn't clear between sessions. The fix wasn't dropping the second long run — it was going back and actually replacing a run instead of stacking on top of the week she already had.

Pace and Effort for the Second Long Run

Run it easy — 60-90 seconds per mile slower than marathon goal pace, genuinely conversational. This is my standing rule, not a generic "take it easy": the second long run's job is time-on-feet and aerobic volume, not a workout. It should feel a little boring. If it doesn't, you're running it too hard and eating into recovery you need for the weekend session.

Signs It's Too Much

Two flags specific to this addition: an elevated resting heart rate on the morning of your primary weekend long run, or that long run feeling harder at the same pace than it did before you added the mid-week session. Either one means back off. For the complete list of warning signs across the whole progression, see full list of warning signs you're overloading.

Back to the full long run progression hub, or check your base mileage progression first if you haven't already. Training on 4 days a week instead of 5-6? See if you're training on 4 days a week instead — the second-long-run structure works differently there.

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