that can help you track your progress. But just because you?

It’s a common ritual to sandwich your runs between a warmup and cooldown. And throughout your week, these miles add up and can count toward your weekly mileage—a training metric that can help you track your progress. But just because you can count them, doesn’t mean you should.

Some coaches, experts, or runners argue that these easy miles are not stimulating enough to count toward that weekly mileage number, considering you should run warmups and cooldowns at a super easy pace that doesn’t leave you fatigued.

So we spoke to coaches on both sides of the weekly mileage argument to find out what exactly counts toward this goal number. We also got the scoop on the significance of weekly mileage and expert advice on why you need warmups and cooldowns and what they should look like.

Sage Canaday, ultramarathoner and run coach at Higher Running, explains that weekly mileage is an important tool that runners can use to evaluate progress over time. “At Higher Running, we often emphasize mileage as part of the total training load stress and how we program a training plan,” he says.

Weekly mileage is often monitored to make sure an athlete isn’t overtraining or risking injury from trying to Best Running Shoes 2025 too soon in a training cycle, Canaday adds. He believes that weekly mileage also helps endurance runners build an aerobic base, that can help you track your progress. But just because you endurance and stamina comes from consistent weekly mileage totals met over time.

Don’t get so carried away in becoming a mileage junkie, though. “Weekly mileage is a general metric,” says Megan Wagenaar, assistant cross-country coach at Portland State and Bowerman Track Club Elite member. It doesn’t need to be super specific; if you run 6.8 miles, you can log seven.

There are a lot of different metrics that you need to look at with training, and weekly mileage is just one of them, Wagenaar adds. “It is one of the metrics that you can look at when you are just looking at general How important is weekly mileage. It is not the most important metric. It is just one of the pieces,” Wagenaar explains.

For all runners—beginners, half marathoners, marathoners, and elites—the key is to look at the bigger picture, Wagenaar continues. “Mileage is a supportive role, not the main character,” she says.

published in 2010 in stress you’re putting on your body, but it’s not going to automatically get you a PR.

“It really depends on your goal,” says Wagenaar. She explains that if you want to race for completion, then warmup and cooldown mileage is definitely countable. If you have a specific goal to get faster, then intensity should be your focus over mileage anyway (more on that below!).

The case for your warmup and cooldown counting toward weekly mileage...

Say you’re doing a seven-mile interval workout one day during your For lower-intensity workouts, the warmup can be less elaborate. Before a. Of course, you’re going to count the two-mile warmup toward your total mileage. Three days later, you go out for an easy eight-mile long run but the warmup consists of dynamic stretching Cooldowns help to flush out the muscles and get the blood moving, according to Wagenaar. And a?

Canaday counts every tenth of a mile. He suggests counting not only warmup and cooldown mileage, but also any Other Hearst Subscriptions. “If you’re out there moving around and promoting blood flow and getting the heart rate up into zone 1 or higher, then you are putting in mileage,” says Canaday.

​​He explains that total mileage—warmups and cooldowns included—can be increased over time in order to build strength and speed, ultimately boosting performance.

Research also shows that running high mileage may make you more efficient and therefore, expend less energy during your workouts. A study published in the or other ailments, so a shortened jog cooldown or an easy walk may be best in 2016 examined two groups of runners who had already been running for six months: one that consistently ran 30 or more miles per week and another that ran less than 10 miles per week. The researchers monitored the activity of the thigh muscles and knee joint movements when all runners tackled four different speeds.

How to Adjust Your Run Schedule After a Big Race efficiency, allowing them to do less work when covering the same distance as the low-mileage group. They also had more spring-like reactions in the lower leg tendons that helped propel them forward. And these advantages were even more evident at faster speeds.

The case for warmup and cooldown miles not counting toward weekly mileage...

Keeping track of your hard mileage—your quality miles—is “the important piece of the puzzle that a lot of people may be missing,” Wagenaar says. And a warmup or cooldown does not necessarily contribute to quality training time, she explains.

Wagenaar also suggests that intensity is the more important metric, compared to mileage, when it comes to running faster. “The more time you spend closer to at or around race pace, the better you’re going to get at it,” she says.

Intensity work includes threshold pace, speed work, and race pace, and you can track intensity effort in either minutes or miles, according to Wagenaar. In any given quality workout, she recommends aiming for about 20 minutes of intensity work.

Wagenaar also suggests gradually building intensity just as you would increase weekly mileage—whether that means pushing your speed or hitting race pace more often—when looking to progress or during focused training. The 80/20 rule is a good ratio to follow for tracking intensity: Aim for 80 percent of training made up of warmups, cooldowns, easy runs, and long runs, while 20 percent is all the work you do at or near race pace, Wagarnaar suggests.

Research also indicates that training with more speed and fewer miles can get you that shiny new PR. A study published in Physiological Reports in 2018, involving 20 male and female runners, looked at adding 10 extra sessions of speed training (five to 10 reps of 30-second max-effort intervals) and reducing weekly training volumes by 36 percent for six weeks. By doing so, the runners’ average 10K time improved by 3.2 percent, which looks like a 50-minute 10K brought down to about 48:30.

Every aspect of training should have a purpose, and warmups and cooldowns are no exception. In short, warmups Published: Sep 27, 2024 3:15 PM EDT cooldowns allow us to recover from a hard effort.

Research backs up the benefits of both practices: A systematic review and meta-analysis published in 2010 in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research examined 32 studies on the effects of warmup on athletic performance and found in 79 percent of the research included, performance improved after a warmup.

Reasons Why Jogging Is Awesome narrative review published in Sports Medicine in 2018 examined the effects of active cooldowns, and found they can potentially enhance next-day performance.

Your warmup or cooldown regimen can vary from day to day. Canaday recommends that athletes run for at least 10 to 15 minutes before a quality workout. Depending on the runner’s fitness level, this can range anywhere from a half-mile to two miles or more.

Canaday generally suggests that the higher the intensity of the workout, the more elaborate the warmup. “If you have something fairly intense like 400-meter repeats after some light dynamic stretching, he says 5at a super easy pace that doesnt leave you, then I’d make sure the warmup jog is at least 10 to 20 minutes and that it includes some strides after some light dynamic stretching,” he says.

For lower-intensity workouts, the warmup can be less elaborate. Before a tempo run, for example, Canaday recommends 10 minutes of easy running; adding in strides and dynamic stretching is less critical.

For cooldowns, aim for just five to 10 minutes of easy jogging. Wagenaar explains that after a tough race, it may not be beneficial to push through nausea or other ailments, so a shortened jog cooldown or an easy walk may be best.

Kristine Kearns

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Weekly mileage is often monitored to make sure an athlete isnt Runner’s World and Bicycling in July 2024. She previously coached high school girls cross country and currently competes in seasonal races, with more than six years of distance training and an affinity for weightlifting. You can find her wearing purple, baking cupcakes, and visiting her local farmers market.