Early morning/evening running?

Paco Rodriguez

Is there any difference in the benefit of running in the morning or in the late evening? I am new to running, and I remember someone in a cycling club telling me that you should do something after the cycle, like a walk or something.
So would running when you get up in the morning, be better than running at night and then going straight to bed?

TFBubendorfer

Not sure which is more beneficial.

I run in the morning because that's the only part of the day when I have time. The missus would not take too kindly to me disappearing every evening just when it's time to get the kids to bed.

Going to bed straight after a run is a bad idea. Your base metabolism will be elevated for a couple of hours after a run, which might make it impossible to fall asleep. If you run early enough in the evening, that would not be a problem, though.

On the few time when I ran in the evening, I noticed that my pace was always faster than for the same effort in the morning, but I'm not convinced that this will have any impact on your race fitness.

Do whatever suits you. In my case, real life dictates what I do for running.

sconhome

Paco Rodriguez wrote: »

I am new to running, and I remember someone in a cycling club telling me that you should do something after the cycle, like a walk or something.

I remember reading about this and it is to do with your muscles and ligaments. Basically the concept is when cycling there is a limit to the movement of your legs which can lead to a shortening of the hamstrings. Runners by stretching their stride have a more natural bounce to their step that.

Cyclists were encouraged to do a walk or slow jog on occasion when training to allow a more natural gait with full leg extension.

The advice was generally aimed at those who do a lot of cycling training rather than beginners. The discussion was that a walk or run would achieve more benefit that simply stretching after training.

On the morning V evening run apart from the points made re sleep and higher metabolism rates in the evening a morning run can fire you up for the day by the same elevation of metabolism. You also have the chance to run on an empty stomach before breakfast (which can have its own training benefits) rather than trying to juggle evening meals to avoid an upset stomach on a run.

Any run is better than no run in any event

Rebelrunner

I did a lot of my runs in the morning in previous years but have to do them late in evening now. I agree with most of what’s mentioned but the main benefit I find with running in the morning is your energy levels. You are fresh and able to give more effort into the run. Running in the evenings and in darkness can be draining and at the end of a day’s work it’s difficult to but max effort into it when needed. The only benefit with running in the evening is that you are missing the late evening snacking with biscuits/rubbish that’s occasionally happens, as long as you don't do it after your run.

Nwm2

Paco Rodriguez wrote: »

Is there any difference in the benefit of running in the morning or in the late evening? I am new to running, and I remember someone in a cycling club telling me that you should do something after the cycle, like a walk or something.
So would running when you get up in the morning, be better than running at night and then going straight to bed?

Depends what benefit you are looking for.

For example, there is research to support the claim that exercising in the fasted state is beneficial for weight loss. Some respected people would say that you're mad to be trying to lose weight without having this as part of your program. The research would say that the exercise would need to be at a reasonable level of intensity.

So, for example, I did this over the 2 week XMAS break (45 min run at a good pace each morning when I got up, with nothing but a drink of H2O). This meant I kept my weight gain to a minimum even though I ate about 3 big boxes of biscuits plus all the other stuff.

It is harder to exercise in the fasted state, so if you're training for some particular event like a race, you're unlikely to get the training you need that way.

Regarding night/evening training, I train about 10-12 hours weekly and at least half of this (the weekday training) is all after 9PM and I regularly get off the (indoor) bike or treadmill at close to midnight with no obvious ill effects. I'll sometimes do a run after the bike or a bike after the run if my training plan calls for it, but that's purely done to develop that specific ability for duathlons/triathlons.

I do eat directly afterwards and go straight to bed. It's not optimum, but that's the way it is, and it works well enough.