Safely Increasing Your Running Distance

The Southern California branch manager of Home Community Mortgage, Diana Irene Dibble rebuilt trust between the KB Home mortgage team and sales staff and recruited a new team of driven loan originators for the Southern California area. When she’s not busy with her responsibilities at Home Community Mortgage, Diana Irene Dibble enjoys distance running.

Many individuals increase their running distance according to the 10 percent rule - the idea that runners should add 10 percent to their total weekly mileage. However, safely increasing your running mileage is often a bit more individualized.

Before increasing mileage, you must know what your baseline mileage is. This is the number of miles you can complete without struggling or feeling challenged. Knowing your baseline mileage gives you a better idea of how often you should increase your weekly mileage. In most cases, you can increase mileage more aggressively when working up to your baseline and can safely add anywhere from 15 to 20 percent each week. After reaching your baseline, this should be dropped to between five and 10 percent.

As you increase your distance make sure you use adaptation weeks. You do not increase your mileage during your adaptation week and instead focus on maintaining the new mileage you set in the previous week. Adaptation weeks are great for beginners and allow your body to recover from and adapt to your new running distance. Keep in mind that you can vary how often you have adaptation weeks. Some runners may only need them once a month, but others may need several adaptation weeks in a row before increasing their mileage again.

Finally, always make sure you take a recovery week every month or so. This does not mean you should take a complete break from running. Rather, you should decrease your mileage by about 10 to 25 percent to give your body adequate time to recover.