Short runs?

Most days, I run 1.5 miles (3 miles there-and-back) from the station to work.

I’ve always seen this distance as too short to do anything ‘useful’ training-wise with. If I need to do a proper run I get off at a station further from work and run 5/7/9 miles or so.

Past day or so I’ve just been enjoying being able to run well again after a stupid calf injury, so I’ve been absolutely flogging it, just for the fun of going dead fast for a change.

This got me thinking – does anyone have any experience/knowledge about using these short 1.5-ers as useful training runs? If so, how? Or are they only ever going to be an improvement on getting the bus?

I think they’ll certainly make a difference. You could always run them as a series of 30sec reps or something to mix it up (although you may look slightly mental on your commute!)

Probably even better to do the 5 mile route, and incorporate a warmup and cool down.

On our club sessions, the “hard effort” part of the session rarely if ever gets above 5 miles in total, and usually a little bit less... although they are primarily training for road/xc/track as opposed to Fell...

Makes sense.

I do the 5s and 7s when I’m able, but I limit my weekly mileage a bit as I inevitably knack myself.

I don’t think any conventional coach is going to prescribe it as a training plan, but equally I don’t think doing roughly 260 x 30second sprints every year is going send my fell times backwards!