How to increase mileage safely
Without doubt increasing your mileage is easily one of the best ways to improve as a distance runner, but not everyone knows how to do it effectively and in a safe way!
So how do we implement an increase in mileage without getting injured?
Well most of the time people get hurt as they run too much too fast. Increasing mileage is a gradual process and anything more than 5% of running a week is probably to much. If you are serious about your training I wouldn't increase your annual mileage by any more than 20%
Regardless of trying to increase mileage or not you'd want at least 60% of your runs on a soft surface to give yourself a break. Hammering out runs on the road day in day out isn't the best for your body. If you plan to increase our mileage you may want more of your runs on a soft surface to help out those tired legs.
When you plan to increase the mileage it would be a good idea to cut back on the intensities of your runs to make this increase easier. For example lets say you are meant to do a track session on Tuesday and a tempo run on Thursday, I would make both of them of less intensity and more volume e.g session Tuesday was meant to be 5 X 800 at 3k pace to 5 X mile at 10k pace, and Thursdays tempo would change from 4 miles at 6 mins/mile to 6 miles at 6 mins 15 secs/mile. This will help increase your weekly mileage and will be easier to recover from. Once your body has adapted to that mileage you after a month or so you can start to then increase the intensity (not all at once though)
Increasing mileage is done slowly but steadily over a long period of time, or there is a good chance you will get injured. Warning in advance! , your legs will feel quite lethargic and tired from higher mileage but that is whats meant to happen so just push through it (unless you feel sharp sudden pains). While increasing mileage it is important to eat right and get a good nights sleep. Although increasing mileage may seem like the smart thing to do, consistency is key and is more important so if you do feel like you will get injured it is important to listen to your body and back off from the training. As after all rest is when the effects of training take place!