Malmo what's the best way to structure a 100 and 110 mile weeks?

Hope to bring back a good old thread...

So malmo where exactly do hurdles fall in summer training? I'm pretty sure i need to increase my hurdle volume as i just finished my first steeple season. Should i just relax and jump over hurdles a few times a week, or should i go after a certain set of hurdle drills and/or hurdle workouts? I have a friend thats pretty good at the intermediate hurdles that i might be able to borrow for some help. thanks a ton.

malmo wrote:

ukathleticscoach wrote:

'That was not by design. In 1981 I severely injured my plantar fascia,'

Malmo, how did you get rid of your PF?

You don't get rid of plantar fasciitis, it gets rid of you.

This made me LOL, it's so true!

Malmo, how much did you run in High school, could you specify what your Prs were and how much you were training at that time throughout high school and during your freshman year of colloge, and how much were you running at the end of college. Just curious.

College freshman wrote:

Malmo, how much did you run in High school, could you specify what your Prs were and how much you were training at that time throughout high school and during your freshman year of colloge, and how much were you running at the end of college. Just curious.

Thank you so much those are really cool to look over.

I too appreciate you posting these for others to look at. I'm new on here, and I've read a lot of your posts, but maybe I missed it somewhere, so I'll ask:

Comparing your high school/freshman year of college logs to your 1985 log, it seems as though you started producing some really good times once you increased mileage (a general increase, not a specific target). Is this a fair assessment? And I know you're an advocate of doubles -- did you do these in high school, or was it something you added in college (or added more of)? Was there anything else you changed?

Yes, of course I did doubles. Everyone I knew that was any good did doubles, and since I wanted to be good I did them too. You are correct, the more that I ran, the more talented I became.

I started doing doubles my sophomore year. 2 miles.

1970 High School Sophomore (totals did not include warmup/warm-down)

Sept 6 – Sept 12 7.5 miles

9/10 T – PM 2 easy

9/11 F – PM 3 mile time trial 17:27

9/12 S – PM 2.5 easy

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Sept 13 – Sept 19 26 miles

9/13 S – AM 2.5 easy

9/14 M – PM 4 easy

9/15 T – AM 2 moderate PM 2 moderate

9/16 W – PM 7 moderate

9/17 T – PM 3 easy, 4 x 150 hill

9/18 F – PM 3 mile time trial 16:58

9/19 S – PM 2 moderate

---------------------------------

Sept 20 – Sept 26 30 miles

9/20 S – PM 3 moderate

9/21 M – AM 1.5 easy PM 5.5 moderate

9/22 T – AM 2 easy PM 2 miles of sprint/jog, 2 miles easy

9/23 W – AM 2 easy PM 4 moderate

9/24 T – AM 2 easy PM 2 easy

9/25 F – PM 2 moderate

9/26 S – AM 2 moderate

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Sept 27 – Oct 3 33 miles

9/27 S – PM 2 moderate

9/28 M – AM 2 moderate PM 4 x 440 @ 70

9/29 T – AM Meet vs Surrattsville 2.5 miles XC 15:27 (10th out of 21) PM 2 easy

9/30 W – PM 5.5 moderate

10/1 T – AM 1.5 easy PM 1 mile hard

10/2 F – PM Meet vs Parkdale 2.5 mile XC in 14:10 (12/14)

10/3 S – AM 11 moderate PM 2 easy

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Oct 4 – Oct 10 28 miles

10/4 S – PM 2.5 miles hard at High Point course 15:09

10/5 M – AM 440 hard, 440 jog, 8 x 110 sprint jog, 4 x 220 sprint jog

10/6 T – AM Meet vs Central HS, 2.25 mile XC in 13:09 (10/21) PM 2 easy

10/7 W – PM 6 moderate

10/8 T – AM 2 easy PM 4 x 220 sprint jog, 4 x 110 sprint jog, 1 mile easy

10/9 F – PM 4 easy

10/10 S – AM AU Eagle Invite, 2.7 mile XC in 15:30 (12/77) huge breakthrough race

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Oct 11 – Oct 17 55 miles

10/11 S -AM 4 easy PM 4 easy

10/12 M - AM 3 x 440 S/J, 6 x 110 S/J, 1 x 220 S/J

10/13 T - AM Meet vs Suitland HS, 2.5 mile XC in 14:38 (9/14)

10/14 W – PM 14 moderate

10/15 T – PM High Point Course 2.5 miles easy 17:00

10/16 F – AM high Point Course, 7.5 miles moderate PM 4.5 easy

10/17 S – AM 8 x 150 hill, 1.5 easy

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Oct 18 – Oct 24 53 miles

10/18 S – AM High Point Course, 2.5 miles 15:15 PM 4.5 easy

10/19 M – AM 2 miles fartlek PM 3 moderate

10/20 T – AM Meet vs High Point, 2.5 mile XC in 13:59 (5/21)

10/21 W – PM 7 moderate

10/22 T – AM 3 moderate PM 5 easy

10/23 F – AM Meet vs High Point, 2.5 mile XC in 14:07 PM 4.5 easy

10/24 S – AM High Point course, 10 moderate PM 2 easy

----------------------------------------------------

Oct 25 – Oct 31 45 miles

10/25 S – AM 4 moderate PM 4 easy

10/26 M – AM 4 mile fartlek, 3 easy PM 5 easy

10/27 T – AM 5 mile fartlek PM 5 moderate

10/28 W – PM 5 easy

10/29 T – rest

10/30 F – County Championships, 2.5 mile race in 13:41 (2nd) Team 1-2-3-5-6 = 17 points

10/31 S – AM 2.5 easy PM 5 moderate

--------------------------------------------

Nov 1 – Nov 7 37 miles

11/1 S - AM 5 easy PM 5 easy

11/2 M - AM 4 miles fartlek PM 5 easy

11/3 T - PM 7.5 miles fartlek

11/4 W - PM 2.5 easy

11/5 T – PM 5 easy

11/6 F – AM Maryland State XC Champs, 2.5 mile XC in 14:01, Team 4th

Malmo, you've brought of the example of semi-protege Terrance Mahon going from a nobody in June of 1990 to a cross-country All-American by November and a 28:57 on the track in December by essentially adding doubles and following the SOM. I'm curious, do you remember what kind of mileage he was running?

I've always said had I to do it over again, I would follow something similar, but probably more like Joe Vigil's schedule for his Adams St. guys, which was roughly a 110-mile week, doubling four days. That guy squeezed more blood from turnips than anybody I know.

Sagarin, that was actually 1989, and I believe Terrance was running about 90-100. He had just finished his freshman year without success. His PRs (9:13 two mile) were set his Junior year of high school and hadn't improved since then. He decided he was going going to get serious and train for the Summer with a small group of Oregon runners -- Brad Hudson, Colin Dalton, Peter Fonseca and myself. Others jumped in from week to week that Summer. By 'serious' the change was that Terrance was going to start doing doubles. I remember in May or June, Terrance asked me what it was going to feel like. I told him that initially he was going to feel tired, but after about three weeks the fatigue will pass. Sure enough, just as advertised, his body went through fatigue, then the transformation, and he ran running better than ever. The fatigue had passed.

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/images/stories/NCAA_XC_PDFs/1989-men.pdf

While Terrance wasn't really running SOM paces -- he was running closer to PR paces in workouts -- this was the seed for the idea of SOM. I had been knocked out in the Spring with sciatica, and I thought that rather than doing easy runs in my conditioning phase, I'd immediately jump in with the group twice a week, and run whatever pace they were running but much shorter. So if they were running a 5 mile tempo run at 4:50 pace, I'd jump in and run 200m, wait for a lap until they came back around, then jump in 200m, wait for a lap, etc. Then each successive week I'd run a little bit farther, until, eventually I was able to keep up most of the way. The training was easy, but I progressed rapidly over the Summer.

That's a good story, on many levels.

Amazing seeing Olympians Kennedy, Williams, and Croghan all bunched up in the top ten, not to mention Hudson and Butler.

Sagarin wrote:

That's a good story, on many levels.

I think that this thread is great on many levels. For a up & comer runner lookin to find their way this is a very good blue print.

Save this thread.

Malmo, SOM gives the advice to increase mileage to more than you are doing now. Since this is out of season training it seems to be the opposite of the way you trained, from your logs in high school and college you ran less out of season and more in season. I am just wondering what is the best way to run more. I think you said once that if you could go back you would do it slightly diffrently.Not sure just wondering.

Shake wrote:

Malmo, SOM gives the advice to increase mileage to more than you are doing now. Since this is out of season training it seems to be the opposite of the way you trained, from your logs in high school and college you ran less out of season and more in season. I am just wondering what is the best way to run more. I think you said once that if you could go back you would do it slightly diffrently.Not sure just wondering.

I'm not getting the logic here?

Why would I need to INCREASE my mileage in the Summer when I was already doing enough the other 10 months? SOM gives advice for those who want to increase their milegae because they are the ones who are not running enough.

Malmo, if you are still around and reading this Thank You for taking the time to explain all this to readers.

Hey Malmo, quick question, your personal preference, not looking for a rule here...

When ramping up your mileage, do you tend to increase the distance of both doubles evenly, or do you get one of your runs up a little higher and then raise the other up to match?

themanontherun, generally I'd be trying a bit of everything, BY FEEL. I might throw in two 10 miles runs, or 4/10, or just 10. Whatever my body is telling me is fine.

malmo,

I started this thread:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3940149

, a few weeks ago about ramping up mileage.

Basically I've been around 50 mpw for the year and legs feel fine. I'd have been doing more but time constraints were an issue and now I have time. I put it out there about what kind of experiences others had going from 50 mpw to 100 mpw (my previous high is 85) and was basically told to forget about it or I'd get hurt. Well, this week I will be in the 60's and still feel ok thus far am just going to let it go, based on your advice, and just run as much as possible and when it feels too much I'll back off and then just count the miles later. My one concern is that I was trying to squeeze in some hill sprints once or twice a week and was thinking I should maybe drop these if I am going up in mileage so much. What do you think?

Hill sprints are the ideal kind of training, ofr a couple of reasons.

1) Cardiovascularly, they are speed training without the force impact.

2) Impact of running increases by the square of velocity. Going uphill decreases the speed, thereby decreasing the force impact. Also footplant of each stride is a bit higher in elevation than the last ( a 5 ft stride on 5% grade the footstrike is 4" higher than the last), also decreasing the force impact. Turnover remains the same.

Running increases bone density. Sprinting increases it even more. The problem with sprinting is that you also expose yourself to the higher impacts that can lead to tissue or bone injury. By running hills you dramatically reduce that risk.