[AlexanderKingsbury]

I have searched around for an answer, so if there’s a resource I’m missing, I’d appreciate if someone could point the way.

The book and the training plan make it pretty clear; the 80/20 ratio is not set in stone, but it’s important. However, what about those of us who run or bike for practical reasons? I frequently run or bike to and from work, and I use a bike to run most of my errands. It’s not really practical to make these trips part of the 80/20 plan (something tells me I’d find it hard to stay in zone 5 at a stoplight), so what should I do? Should I stop running for anything other than the 80/20 plan (I’m about to start the level 1 marathon plan) and just bike? Should I try to count biking and running towards the 80 percent of my exercise time spent in low intensity? Any help is greatly appreciated.

[alancraig]

How far is work from your home? Can you tell me about how long it takes you to run to work on an average day?

[AlexanderKingsbury]

The shortest route I can take is a hair under 8 kilometers. Over the last 6 months or so, I’ve been pretty much exclusively running (biking in the winter is not super fun for my hands), and I’ve been working up to longer and longer distances. For the last two months or so, I’ve tended to take a route to work anywhere from 10 to 15 kilometers, and a route home that’s a bit shorter than whatever I ran that morning. I carry a backpack in the 4-5 kilo range. I’m almost embarrassingly slow; my pace hovers around 6 minutes per kilometer, which is why I want to give 80/20 a shot. So my run to work could be as short as 48-50 minutes, but lately has been as long as 90.

[leyla@8020endurance.com]

I would say you can use your “commute” runs and bikes as your foundation or recovery runs in the plan, and sounds like some of them can be your long endurance runs as well. Then you do your 20% sessions more structured and not as part of your commute.

[AlexanderKingsbury]

The main difficulty with that is that my 80/20 plan ranges from 4-7.75 hours/week. 80 percent of that is 3-6.2 hours/week. Even if I take the shortest path to and from work every day, that still puts me running more like 8 hours a week just for my commuting.

[leyla@8020endurance.com]

It sounds like your smartest approach will be to consider your commute runs your training, and if and when possible adding in some intervals to your commutes that match up with those prescribed in the plan.

[alancraig]

You could always walk home in the afternoon if needed. Or even make the afternoon a run/walk, if your joints need a break.

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