What event sparked the 90's philosophy that "less is more?"

Keep in mind, the mileage someone is running late in their career is a poor reflection of what you need to run early in your career to improve. Guys like Bekele don't NEED to run huge mileage now, mostly because they are extremely close to their aerobic limit. They USED TO run huge mileage (120+ for sure) but it's no longer necessary.

Fast British track athletes in the early-mid 80's, followed by crippled American marathoners from the early 80's (Virgin, Beardsly, Saladbar, et-al), followed by RW, hijacked by the Gallowalkers, perpetuated by a vast conspiracy of HS coaches that get first crack at the positions b/c of their day jobs and not because they know anything about the sport... Shake it up and you have only one rep per gender in the Olympics

I'm glad to hear legat does around 60mpw. There's some high mileage guys on this board that just won't give up!!!

A lot of talented runners really just have the "tendency" to hold back some in workouts, and let go during the fast stuff.

This was mentioned earlier, but kind of buried. The lower mileage approach was probably due to all the high mileage guys becoming coaches and trying to fix what they did wrong in training. Take Salazar's approach with Rupp. He has had a very moderate, developing mileage approach, and he has often said that he ran too much.

The initial backlash early in the 90s was a corrective overreaction. Now, it seems like people are figuring out that like everything else in training, mileage development and the total amount any runner can handle is variable according to the type and needs of the runner.

CoachB speaketh the truth on this one. I was in HS in the mid80's, and that was my experience as well.

A common saying was "Long slow distance running only makes you a slow long distance runner."

I would argue that (1) a few popular examples advocating a low mileage, high intensity approach, (i) a lack of information due to worse technology (i.e. no Internet) and (3) a weak competitive landscape resulted in a poor understanding of the impact of high(er) mileage on distance running performance.

I ran for Newton at York in the early to mid-90’s and while we undoubtedly ran higher mileage than anyone, there still tended to be a general view that high mileage made you slow, over trained and injury prone. To that point, the team captains and senior leaders of the team tended to do everything possible to cut back on mileage short of openly defying Newton. Summer timed runs would be cut a few minutes short, intervals would be skipped, few would come back for afternoon runs and even fewer of us would do the 90 minute long run that Newton recommended for Sundays. While some of this could be attributed to laziness amongst certain runners, the bigger reason we tried to cut workouts was because we thought anything other than hard interval and tempo work would make us slow.

The important point is that all of this was tolerated because we were successful on a relative scale, having won 6 straight state titles during a time when the overall distance running competition was weak. 15 flat to 15:10 for 3 miles would guarantee that you were all state. Compare that to the mid-to-late 70’s and late 90’s early 00’s when York had teams with 5 or 6 guys that could break 15 for 3 miles.

casual commentary wrote:

Secondly, no world record holder runs that much currently. Bekele does less, El G did less, and I bet Komen did nothing near 150mpw

El G did 200km weeks (125 miles), this is well documented.

You have no idea what Bekele does

You bet wrong, Komen often trained 3 times per day and put in huge mileage.

mcgato wrote:

Combination of Galloway and Runner's World.

Galloway came out with his book about running less is better. This was based on his observation that after years of running 100+ miles a week, if he actually tapered for a race he ran better. He translated that into running less is better.

Runner's World, at a similar point, was catering to the more casual runner. They figured most working runners didn't have time for 100+ miles a week, so they offered tips on training better while running 30 or 40 miles a week. Too many coaches and parents interpreted that to mean that you could be a highly successful running while doing 30 to 40 miles a week.

That's just off the top of my head, so some details may be a bit off.

What he said and I remember a mother went to our AD complaining that the XC coach at the time was doing way too much mileage (her daughter was doing at most 30 a week, usually less). She said "everything I've read said they should be playing more ultimate frisbee and soccer.

RW and Galloway are to blame.

Rarely is there just one cause for something like this. If you recall the 60s, we were producing high school phenoms like Lindgren, Ryun, Danielson and Liquori. All of them trained very intensely and while all had great post high school careers except for Danielson, none of their careers were as great as some had predicted. Even when these guys were still running well there were critics who said they were worked too hard and would burn out. When none of them brought home Olympic gold people began agreeing with the "burn out" theory.

Then guys like Doug Padilla, Jim Spivey, Henry Marsh and Coe came along and got good results on what was reported as pretty low volume. Coe's career in particular seemed to influence loads of people even though he later reported that at times he did train a lot more than people had known.

Physiologists got into the game at about this stage too claiming that VO2 Max didn't improve once you went over about 75 mpw. People took this to mean that running performance didn't improve once you got much over 75.

None of this would have had much effect though if not for the fact that loads of runners wanted to believe that you could "run faster by running less."

HRE wrote:None of this would have had much effect though if not for the fact that loads of runners wanted to believe that you could "run faster by running less."

HRE, I generally enjoy your analyses, except for the way you frequently end with an unsubstantiated general claim about cultural attitudes about work, labor, and effort.

Of course, on a thread like this, we shouldn't expect more than speculation, but these sorts of claims about what runners "wanted to believe" in the '90s vs. what runners "wanted to believe" in the 80s just seem unfounded to me. Did human nature really change in 10 years?

As a runner who came of age in the 90s, I can tell you quite clearly what I and my teammates wanted. We wanted to kick ass, take names, and train as hard as we possibly could to make it happen. We weren't afraid of work. We weren't looking for shortcuts. We were doing what we thought was best, just like the runners before us and after us.

I think you have analyzed this well. Two things that come to mind is that when the Africans came over to the US in the 70's and early 80's, many of them trained at high intensity and low mileage and that was "discovered" and the message was carried through "word of mouth", mainly. Great Britain, I think also had a great influence on the faster is better theory of training, as that seemed to be the "norm" for most if not all of their middle distance and distance runners.

Here in the states information was always at a premium, as few lead coaches seemed to be concerned about sharing their training "secrets". Whether it was Jumbo Elliot, Bill Bowerman, Fred Dwyer, Bob Giegengack or any of the other top coaches, information was hard to obtain. Bowerman's original book was no big shakes and the others kept their workouts close to the vest. Dellinger at least brought some of the Oregon training to light with his book and Liquori was one of the first "stars" to publish his training. Track and Field News had their "How they train", which was a simplistic view of some of the top runners and their training.

Exercise physiology studies for elite training was still in its infancy with lots of strange training formulas being tested (re. Fox and Mathews Interval Training).

I do believe training methods seem to be cyclical in nature and seem to move back and forth as one or another method of training works for a particular group. As the science of exercise physiology continues to mature and more and more information is passed around via the digital medium, I believe a more stable and efficient method to training will be the end result.

Concur. I think the same thing existed at many of the top HS programs of the 90's. I experienced it at California's Jesuit HS. We produced great teams however it was very much a quality focus rather than quantity in terms of mileage. I think I was one of the few who actually ran 10-12 miles on Sunday's. I've looked at my logs and 50 MPW was the max I ever ran. Anyone from Kingwood, Thousand Oaks or Mead want to comment?

I don't think attitudes changed at all. In the 70s there were plenty of people who wanted to believe you could run your best without running very much. But there weren't a lot of "authorities" telling them that would work. By the 90s there were credible people selling the "less is more" idea and there were people wanting to believe it.

I was there. There was vitually a backlash against moving up to the marathon until you were over 26. Had to develop that track speed and 140 mile weeks weren't what any American runner in those days was doing other than marathoners and Marc Nenow who held the AR for 10,000 about 20 years.

So a lot of 28:30 college guys were afraid to do volume then. Alberto Salazar was supposed to be the prototype of the future world class marathoner. Get to 27:30 and keep developing that track speed. And more so Carlos Lopes. He broke the world record at 38 years old. Salazar peaked at 24. Believe me the thought at that time that the marathon, marathon training and mileage was the devil. Any one that even admitted running over 110 miles a week in the late 1980's to early 1990s' was looked at as nuts or stupid.

Jerry Lawson should get credit as far as ignoring all that and proving 29:00 college 10k runners that take a few years and push the mileage could run under 2:10.

No particular event sparked such a philosophy as "less is more" it was more of a fashion which some people followed.

In my opinion, more training volume allows more intense training to be done. A lot of runners who do high mileage don't do enough hard workouts. And a lot of low mileage runners obviously don't have good endurance.

To put things in perspective, Wilson Kipsang's last hard session before winning the London Marathon was 15 x1000 in 2.38

i think several of you hit it. + what "or maybe" just wrote is dead on.

1) Coach B - I agree with...there was a vo2 study + this study was referenced in major running magazine (I believe Runner's World - which at the time was geared more toward serious runners...i seem to remember them citing Dr. David Costill in this article probably 1988'ish.

2) the internet & technology stuff - no, that had not happened yet

3) there was also the Coe et. al. training which was getting some attention (in those days it was said he did about 30-40 miles per week, but very intense circuit style training)

4) some of the big miles runners who had cut back - were getting great results and were crediting the lower miles and better quality. Others would say it was because they first did the higher volume, then the lower milage worked.

Of course i should add we are talking about runners like Fred Tornaden who was the leading American running 2:12 one year maybe 1984 (who had been running 140 dropping down to 100 - 120). So even those guys were not advoacting low, low milage.

I think there is evidence on both sides of this debate and i have done it both ways:

- when i was 10 years old i ran a 10 mile race by training about every other day going 4-6 miles per time at a good steady pace....at 13 my time was 63:01 - this was training on my own, but then

- once i entered hs the coach was an all interval coach....and i slowly watch everyone catch me and pass me by (i did run 9:52 as a junior. but i went from running 10 miles faster than anyone in the state from ages 10-13 to a high schooler who only broke 10 a a handful of times and not by much.

- college (coach was much more Lydiard in style) so i went from running 20-25 miles a week in hs to 70-90 in college. Got better over time. 9:00 steeple; 3:00 1200m relay leg on DMR; 14:56 5,000) but not great

- after college (training on my own once again = meaning i could run my own pace) within 2 years i had run 20K in 1:03 and 8K in 23:45...on 40-45 miles per week (i actually only ran 4 days per week = so everything was fresh and quality = mostly steady states; very few intervals....my typical pace was 5:30'ish sometime faster...typical distance 10 miles sometimes shorter - sometime longer)

- then the running shoe industry stopped making shoe for real runners and added all the bells and whistles (and Runner's World became Jogger's World)...this ruined it for me...i was no longer able to do long runs - so even though i only ran 45 miles per week (i had been doing 10-15 miles per run)...this now dropped to 20-25 with 0 long runs over 10 miles = times got worse i eventually switched over to triathlons to up my volume.

- years later Nike Zoom XC steaks are finally made for minimalist runners who don't like wearing clogs - i have done as long as 30 miles runs...biggest week was 146 miles on 7 runs = so i was doing 20+ per day. Times were getting good for masters stuff.

- of course they no longer make the XC 1's - so i have had to change my training yet again because the xc'2 just aren't the same.

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I have had a lot of running friends who have tried to make a comeback but got injured...my theory is - it may be the shoes...because the shoes we trained in back in the 70 and 80 were nothing like the shoes of today. The old style shoes were quite minimalist in nature - today's shoes are too bulky.

It may also be the speed - they are trying to run too fast too soon without doing enough simple running first.

HRE wrote:

I don't think attitudes changed at all. In the 70s there were plenty of people who wanted to believe you could run your best without running very much. But there weren't a lot of "authorities" telling them that would work. By the 90s there were credible people selling the "less is more" idea and there were people wanting to believe it.

Ah, got it. Thanks for the clarification, and sorry that I misunderstood. I guess it was the "wanting to believe" that threw me off. I'd say people just believed it.