Fastest Marathoner who trains once per day

Jack Foster ran 2;11 at age 41 off singles, as far as I know. According to reports, he didn't go over 70 miles a week and sometimes ran as few as 35 miles a week.

I have heard that Marc Smet and Gerry Helme trained once per day. Smet ran about an hour a day and did 2:10. Helme also did 2:10 on about 60 mpw. Bernie Allen ran 2:16:54 at Enschede in 1971 on one session a day and 60-70 mpw. Mike Freary did 2:17 and reportedly ran once a day, though he was probably in the 90-100 mpw range. Amby Burfoot was just running once per day in 1968 when he ran 2:14. Lou Castagnola did 2:17 at Boston in 1967 on one run day and 50-60 mpw. Dale Warrender went from two to one sessions per day a couple of years ago and finally got under the Olympic A standard. I think he did 2:11 something but I'm not sure how many miles he did in a week. Staying in New Zealand, I've always heard that Jonathan Wyatt is a once a day guy, though he might do the odd double. He's done at least 2:13, maybe faster and seems to do about 90 or so. I think Phil Costley also just runs once and has done 2:14, again, I'm not sure how many miles per week. Bob Deines did a 2:20 marathon on one run a day but maybe 100-110 per week.

I'm of the strange belief than 1x a day is best for Marathoners, and will be adopted by the top Marathoners of the future. Most sessions will be 30k+. 4hrs a day will be set aside for physical training - running, strength, mobility.... - and 20hrs away from any physical training will be most beneficial. Doubles is for sprinters.

Discuss.

Skuj

http://cvrr.ca/cvrr-tuesday-track-workouts.php

HRE: you seem to be very familiar with these runners. Did they every run high mileage and doubles on their way to become so fast and then only run singles and lower mileage in maintaining that speed? Or did they always run that low mileage and singles?

Im curious wrote:

HRE: you seem to be very familiar with these runners. Did they every run high mileage and doubles on their way to become so fast and then only run singles and lower mileage in maintaining that speed? Or did they always run that low mileage and singles?

I'm wondering this too. Though Jack Foster from what I have read of him took his training (running not training) very relaxed, once a day. If he didn't feel like running on any particular day, no dice he would say.

Bump to the great potential of this thread

Cosmas Ndeti.

100+ when hitting form.

Skuj wrote:

I'm of the strange belief than 1x a day is best for Marathoners, and will be adopted by the top Marathoners of the future. Most sessions will be 30k+. 4hrs a day will be set aside for physical training - running, strength, mobility.... - and 20hrs away from any physical training will be most beneficial. Doubles is for sprinters.

Discuss.

Skuj

http://cvrr.ca/cvrr-tuesday-track-workouts.php

For every successful marathoner you can find who runs once each day you will find 100 who train twice each day.

Remember a guy that used to post here with the moniker DOSSANTOS?

He claimed to prefer running 90 minutes once per day for his

normal, not long, runs. I think his name was Luis Dos Santos and he won the Rome marathon, I think, a couple of decades ago. I'm not sure of his personal best, but think it was on or about 2:15.

HRE will probably know his PB.

Im curious wrote:

HRE: you seem to be very familiar with these runners. Did they every run high mileage and doubles on their way to become so fast and then only run singles and lower mileage in maintaining that speed? Or did they always run that low mileage and singles?

I knew a couple of them. Bernie was a good friend and often a roomate. He was never a high mileage guy until late in his career. The 60-70 he did for Enschede was quite high for him. In 1974 he came 9th at Boston in 2:17 on 40-50 mpw, always once a day. Well, sometimes less than once a day. By the way, when he was in his late thirties he spent some time running a lot more and doing doubles at least a few times a week and ran a PR at age thurty seven, though oddly he'd tried a similar thing a few years before that and couldn't get close to 2:20.

I had a good talk with Lou Castagnola once after he'd retired and he told me he did one session a day with a lot of it interval work on the track and only about 50-60 per week.

The other guys I've mentioned were either people who friends of mine knew or people I've read about. E.g., I know people who know Jon Wyatt and they confirm what I've read. The same for Costley and Warrender. I do know people who knew Mike Freary but can't recall who or where I learned about his training. Smet and Helme are mentioned in an old thread here at LR. Burfoot and Deines were friends of a friend.

I did mention some of their weekly volumes in the first post but don't know what all of the volumes were. Wyatt runs for time often on mountains and "bush tracks" and only estimates volume, but as I said, 90-95 mpw seems a fairly consistent estimate. I get the sense Costley does similar amounts. I think a Kiwi friend mentioned something like 70-80 for Warrender when he went from two to one run, but I won't swear to any of these numbers. Freary was coached by a guy called Joe Lancaster who was an advocate of big, easy paced volume and I seem to recall that Freary had several longish to long runs each week so 90-100, maybe a tad more seems right.

You might notice that overwhelmingly these are guys from the old days when there was no money in the sport and runners had jobs, the exceptions being the Kiwis where it's much harder to be a full time runner than it is here.

I think most of us would agree with Hodgie-san's comment about the 100-1 ratio at least in principal if not to exact specifications. Barry Magee told me that he thinks you can get to about 90% of your potential on one run a day but need that second run to squeeze out the last 10%. If you look at the names I've mentioned you see that there isn't an Olympic medalist in the group. Smet ran very well at 10,000 meters in Montreal,but was 6th or 8th. Wyatt has several golds from the World Mountain Running Championships. But the big wins went to two a day folks. Even Burfoot was doing doubles frequently when he won Boston.

Bob,

I thought of DosSantos as well. I think he did 2:10 and says he mostly ran singles. I think I can dig up some of his comments.

Here are those comments from dossantos:

dossantos RE: Who is the slowest (5k PR) guy to ever run sub 2:22? 8/17/2003 3:15AM - in reply to trail runner Reply | Return to Index | Report Post

i ran almost more than a hour, i would rather ran 1x a day 1 hour '15 than, 2 x 30 and 45. i really long ran on the weekend,5'45-6 minute pace(started at 13 miles, all the way to 22) a lots of 3/4 x 5k on the track at the marathon pace, with 3 minutes in terval. a lots of 20 up to 30 x 400 on the track, little fast than the my marathon pace, with 45 sec, / 1 minute intervals. when i had a race to do, exemplo, i had i half marathon on sunday, i would 15 miles at a confortable pace day before. then i would jog to the race, sometimes were 5, 8 miles, i would race, then i would jog back.(yes a 23-28 miles day) if i ran the half at the marathon pace, i knew when i would rest i would be able to run the marathon on that pace. i was compete tired, i would always let and not care who beats me, because i knew i was trainning fo a marathon.lots of volume. i still believe in an old trainning method. now days we talk SO MUCH about scientific language, this and that and bla, bla, bla, ......but we gotta remenber how fast bill rodgers, shorter, greg meyer, breadsley,salazar, bjorkland, tabb, and many others ran 25 / 30 years ago. American distance runners, specially marathoners it is sad to watch. Now days, a guy ran 2'11 everybody says WOW!! come on, PLEASE!DERek clayton, ran, 2'08, 40 years ago.Bud edelen ran 2'14, an america , in the early 60's.WE NEED TO THINK MORE LIKE THE OLD DAYS AND THE RESULTS WILL GET BETTER.

dossantos RE: Who is the slowest (5k PR) guy to ever run sub 2:22? 8/17/2003 11:56PM - in reply to trail runner Reply | Return to Index | Report Post

i always had a 12 week trainning, starting 60 miles a week,ending 150, at 3 weeks before the marathon. i had time i was ru nning 1 hour 30 minutes as my regular daily ran. remenber i ran mostly 1 x a day. i would rather ran 1hour 30, 1 x, than 2 x 45 minuts. i did not care if i would get tired , i had 24 hours to rest. my body was running 1 hour 30 minutes ,, and i would feel like a 45 minute run. like i said now, we are SO WORRY about talking a SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGE when cames to trainning, and it is SO SIMPLE, VOLUME, VOLUME, VOLUME. we have all these sports drinks, Power bar and bla, bla, bla.............ALL BULL SHIT. Power Bar is good Do you know for whom? Brian Maxwell, because made him a Milionaire. The best drink is....WATER, the best enrgy bars.................FOOD, FRUITS, VEGETABLES.......breaks my heart, seeing all this guys becaming american citizen, and winning races, and not giving a chance to the REAL AMERICANS.....breaks my heart see a 41 year old Belgium, be the first american at Boston marathon. breaks my heart Dan browne ran 2 ' 11 marathon and everybody goes.....WOW. Guys, bill Rodgers ran , 2'09'55, in 1975, wearing a t-shirt, ans stoping 4 x to tie his shoes. PLEASE!!! WAKE UP USA!! YOU GUY HAS ALL YOU NEED TO BE BACK ON THE TOP!! Remenber again, BUDDY EDELEN ran, in 2 14 in 1964, wearing a shoe as heavy as the shoes that i wear to go to work now. GUYS, running is so simple, VOLUME, EAT WELL, sleep well, volume, eat well, sleep well,volume, eat well, sleep well, volume , volume.YES, IS THAT SIMPLE. Forget about this "quality" trainning, all bull shit. YOU ARE TRAINNING FOR A MARATHON. 15 x on the track, 10 seconds faster that you marathon pace, with 1 minute interval, IS BETTER than 8x 30 second faster than your marathon pace. YOU ARE TRAINNING FOR A MARATHON. 30 x 400 for 70/72, with 45 seconds interval is better than, 15x for 65. YOU ARE TRAINNING FOR A MARATHON, I GOT go, take care ....

Oh, I forgot to answer some of what you asked.

As far as I know, Warrender and Burfoot were the only guys who had done doubles to a significant degree and then cut to one session.

I believe that Burfoot was still in college when he won Boston in the spring of 1968 but had graduated and was teaching school by December when he ran Fukuoka. He cut down to about 85 on sinlges from 100-120 or so with fairly regular doubles.

Deines was always a once a day guy. So was Bernie Allen and Lou Castagnola, and I'm pretty sure the same is true for Freary and Wyatt. I'm not sure about the others.

I do know that Jack Foster had some very brief stretches of time when he ran twice, or occasionally (very) three times a day, one of them being in the weeks before his 2:11. Afterward he wrote that perhaps training two or three timea a day was the secret but that he didn't have time to do it.

that dos santos dude is the man. eat sleep volume, pretty simple.

Hodgie-san is a voice of reason and experience here, but I believe the bottom line is that not everyone is cut out for 2 a days- either becasue they did it wrong or simply were more prone to break down. Certainly, the ideal situation is to be able to run 2 or 3 times a day, but not everyone can do it.

I remember someone posting there training as singles and listing a sub 2:24 I think. I thought I saved the thread, but can't locate it. Basically was a 2 week cycle, 13m most easy days, 2 days of reps per week, and a long run once per cycle. If I remember right it was about 26-28m long run.

Bob Wildes wrote:

Remember a guy that used to post here with the moniker DOSSANTOS?

He claimed to prefer running 90 minutes once per day for his

normal, not long, runs. I think his name was Luis Dos Santos and he won the Rome marathon, I think, a couple of decades ago. I'm not sure of his personal best, but think it was on or about 2:15.

HRE will probably know his PB.

Luiz Antonio do Santos

Marathon

Outdoor Alltime

1994 2:10:39 13 Boston MA 18 Apr

1995 2:09:30 1 Fukuoka 3 Dec

1996 2:11:24 3 Fukuoka 1 Dec

1997 2:08:55 6 Generale Rotterdam 20 Apr

1998 2:11:23 11 LaSalle Chicago IL 11 Oct

1999 2:11:13 4 Tokyo 14 Feb

I think I remember it as well, it was something like:Mon: 10 miles recoveryTue: Threshold-TempoWed: 13 miles easyThu: 13 miles easyFri: VO2 Max IntervalsSat: 13 miles easySun: 23 miles progressionTotal: 95-100 per week

5K wrote:

I remember someone posting there training as singles and listing a sub 2:24 I think. I thought I saved the thread, but can't locate it. Basically was a 2 week cycle, 13m most easy days, 2 days of reps per week, and a long run once per cycle. If I remember right it was about 26-28m long run.

Hodgie-san wrote:

Skuj wrote:

I'm of the strange belief than 1x a day is best for Marathoners, and will be adopted by the top Marathoners of the future. Most sessions will be 30k+. 4hrs a day will be set aside for physical training - running, strength, mobility.... - and 20hrs away from any physical training will be most beneficial. Doubles is for sprinters.

Discuss.

Skuj

http://cvrr.ca/cvrr-tuesday-track-workouts.php

For every successful marathoner you can find who runs once each day you will find 100 who train twice each day.

I agree Hodgie-san. That's the way the best are training today. But I believe that the best can and will do it differently in the future.

Let's break this down: Why doubles? What is the reason for that?

As we have discussed on other threads, there is a case to be made for singles for certain purposes. If aerobic/cardiovascular fitness is the main goal for the day then the main run for the day should not be broken into 2 runs until it exceeds 90 minutes. But often times runners have other conflicting goals for the day/week which may make doubles a better way to go.

I do think that one can be a very successful marathoner on 90-100 miles per week on singles.

This is the point where Malmo will chime in and tell us (again) that doubles are always better than singles and we go round and round again as we have done before on this topic.