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

Thank you malmo for your expertise and advice! I learned the hard way a couple of years ago to not be so rigid and that its just numbers. I destroyed myself a while back because I told myself I had to get 80 no matter what and I would be exhausted and if I had just stopped at 74 or whatever than I would have been fine, but I would keep pushing and had alot of weeks at 80. Then I just burnt out because I refused to take days off and to rest. After that I would go out for a run and only do about a mile before I got tired of running and would walk back. I had to take two weeks off and then run slower and not be so anal. And I got my mileage pretty high in only singles (about 100mpw) but that was during the summer so I could just run at a steady pace and then go home and sleep for several hours. Now that I have classes I can't do that, so I am going the doubles route.

Now I have gotten much smarter about training and dont worry about getting an exact mileage. I usually set a goal for the week but dont care if I hit it perfectly (like this past week was 80 and I hit 77). And I always convert mileage to 7:15 pace even if its more likely faster, like sub 7 on most runs. Trust me, if you look at my running logs you will see that I have mostly odd numbers like 74, 69, 83, 97,77, 66, 117, 103, etc.

malmo, glad to hear the swelling is going away.

Thank you for your advice. As Oscar Wilde put it, "I am not young enough to know everything," so it is appreciated.

unregistered miss wrote:

malmo, glad to hear the swelling is going away.

If I could only stop the hydrocephalus all would be fine...

Ahhh good thread a breath of fresh air. I usually try and double at like 3pm/9-10pm because yes, I do stay up late. Midnight is an early bedtime for most college students, including me. There is just so much more time to run compared to high school.

"I have been thinking of buying a bike, but its so damn confusing. So much gay gear to buy. Just give me a Viking helmet and a bullhorn on the handlebars and look out, maniac coming through! Spring is just around the corner."

POD

One question though Malmo, when it says 9 miles at 5:07 pace or whatever do you warm up for that workout or ease into it? Do you run a few minutes at 6:xx to get the blood flowing? I feel tight at the start of most runs as I have never ran this much before.

Also did you do any stuff faster then mile pace and when did you it?

And if you could go back in time and change around your schedule from then would you? Do triples ever have their place in a runners schedule? And I am working in short hill sprints into my runs at 800m speed, do you think they are helpful?

(sorry about all these questions, I do not have a coach and do not know any runners faster then me so opportunities like this are few and far between for me)

fUrCeOsNhN wrote:

One question though Malmo, when it says 9 miles at 5:07 pace or whatever do you warm up for that workout or ease into it? Do you run a few minutes at 6:xx to get the blood flowing? I feel tight at the start of most runs as I have never ran this much before.

Also did you do any stuff faster then mile pace and when did you it?

And if you could go back in time and change around your schedule from then would you? Do triples ever have their place in a runners schedule? And I am working in short hill sprints into my runs at 800m speed, do you think they are helpful?

(sorry about all these questions, I do not have a coach and do not know any runners faster then me so opportunities like this are few and far between for me)

Those were efforts on my morning magneto loop. A magneto loop is what Dave Gordon called any loop that you could do in your sleep. Everyone has them, everyone has a different name for them.

On my morning magneto loop there was a 1 mile measured gutcheck point. Generally I'd hit that anywhere from 6:10 to 6:20, at that point I'd get a feel how the run was going to go. I finished with quite a few 1 mile run-to-the-barns on that loop.

Triples, I've done a few. At some point you have to realize there must be some optimal frequency. I don't believe that triples are it.

If I could go back in time I'd probably try some of the Danny Henderson workouts. I'm fascinated by the brilliance of his training.

malmo wrote:

Those were efforts on my morning magneto loop. A magneto loop is what Dave Gordon called any loop that you could do in your sleep. Everyone has them, everyone has a different name for them.

I'd probably try some of the Danny Henderson workouts. I'm fascinated by the brilliance of his training.

I know what you mean-I do all of my mileage back and forth on a 1 mile road.

I'll have to look into the Henderson stuff.

Matt tenkchamp wrote:

Now I have gotten much smarter about training and dont worry about getting an exact mileage. I usually set a goal for the week but dont care if I hit it perfectly (like this past week was 80 and I hit 77). And I always convert mileage to 7:15 pace even if its more likely faster, like sub 7 on most runs. Trust me, if you look at my running logs you will see that I have mostly odd numbers like 74, 69, 83, 97,77, 66, 117, 103, etc.

Yet, every day on this message board you hear runners planning months ahead weeks 60,65,70,75,80,85 or 60,70,80,70,80,90 and then rigidly sticking to these arbitrary numbers, not for a moment listening to their own bodies.

I wonder how many runners add up their mileage on the last day of the week, then proceed to add an extra 2 or 3 miles just to match an arbitrary number that was written on paper?

malmo wrote:

If I could only stop the hydrocephalus all would be fine...

There's a cure for that you know. Just poke your head with a horn on the Viking helmet, and then put the helmet on and hang upside down, allowing the fluid to drain through the horns.

fUrCeOsNhN wrote:

One question though Malmo, when it says 8.5 miles at 5:07 pace or whatever do you warm up for that workout or ease into it? Do you run a few minutes at 6:xx to get the blood flowing? I feel tight at the start of most runs as I have never ran this much before.

Funny story about that morning.

One day I come back after a morning run to find Ron Tabb and my roommate playing darts. I join in, the conversation drifts to the usual - how far d'ya go, etc. I said that I ran the morning magneto loop, 8.5 miles in 46:00 (5:25 per mile) which I described as being "moderate" paced. A "magneto" loop was a term coined by Dave Gordon (your average 2:11 guy), referring to any loop that you could do, and probably have done, in your sleep. Everyone has their own lexicon, you might call them a "chip shot" or a "lay-up", etc. Magneto loops tend to be shorter warm-up/down loops and morning loops, but can be longer -- I had a 29 mile "mega-magneto" loop. My morning magneto loop was marked at the first mile so I'd use it as a gut-check. I'd usually hit the first mile in 6:10-6:15, determine how I felt and take it from there. Tabb asked me what the fastest I've done the loop, I replied that it was 44:07 (5:11/mile)

A day or two later, I awakened one morning and there is Tabb in the living room stretching, not unusual -- except that he's got his racing flats on. I go to the local bagel shop for a snack and a newspaper, when I get back, it's not too long before Tabb finishes his run. He tells me that he just ran the magneto loop in 44:00. Very animated, shaking my head and waving my arms, and with tongue planted firmly in cheek, I rant "What the hell are you doing? You come over to my backyard, wearing racing flats, just to break MY magneto record? Do I ever come over to your house and break YOUR magneto records? NO I DON'T ! That's because there's a runners code, "Thou shalt not break your friend's magneto records!"

The next morning I ran the loop in 43:28 (5:07). You don't mess with the runner's omerta. No, I didn't wear racing flats, I did as I usually do--rolled out of bed and ran. I'll concede that the gut-check point that day wasn't over 6:00.

fUrCeOsNhN wrote:[quote]

I know what you mean-I do all of my mileage back and forth on a 1 mile road.

I'll have to look into the Henderson stuff.

Actually Danny Henderson did a lot of running on the track, sometimes, or many times, 5 days a week. If you study the efforts of his training, you'd uncover the brilliance of it all. There was a lot of at pace (for 5k and 10k) running, yet nothing that would really tax a runner. Enough speedwork, yet again, nothing really taxing.

I wish I was young enough to try 2-3 weeks of it.

Your advice has always come across as the most sound. I've tried a plethora of "training" methods and they all become too complex and rigid.

You're exactly right about most runners, they think they have to hit every little thing on a schedule or they are somehow "losing" fitness, (I was definitely one of them).

I have studied your 1985 log intently and you truly seem to have mastered training by feel. I like the idea of lower volume, hiher intensity, more frequent speedwork that you seem to roughly follow, which is all imbedded in your higher volume weeks.

You also are not "wed" to the weekly long run, as you have mentioned many times on many threads. I think this advice is great. In my last marathon build-up I focused too much on the weekly long run and left myself dinged up and fairly flat for my big marathon debut. I think next time around I am just going to keep training by feel, like an "all-around" distance runner, rather than a marathoner, and see how it goes.

precisely wrote:

You also are not "wed" to the weekly long run, as you have mentioned many times on many threads.

Thanks.

I should make this point, while I'm not wed to the long run, I'm certainly a practitioner of them, probably running almost as many 20+ milers as anyone who posts here (I've done two or three of them in the same week many times).

What my point about the long runs is that they are way overrated, are disproportionately done with respect to the overall mileage and training goals, and should not be done at the expense of the other aspects of your training.

malmo wrote:

fUrCeOsNhN wrote:[quote]

I know what you mean-I do all of my mileage back and forth on a 1 mile road.

I'll have to look into the Henderson stuff.

Actually Danny Henderson did a lot of running on the track, sometimes, or many times, 5 days a week. If you study the efforts of his training, you'd uncover the brilliance of it all. There was a lot of at pace (for 5k and 10k) running, yet nothing that would really tax a runner. Enough speedwork, yet again, nothing really taxing.

I wish I was young enough to try 2-3 weeks of it.

You know where Danny got his ideas, right? His post-college coach was swim coach at his alma mater, Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL. Danny and I both ran for UCTC and had a long discussion one night over a beer in his room, probably fall '83, prior to TAC cross nationals (his pre-race ritual was a Fosters oil can, a bit odd for a Wheaton man) about the approach. He was just starting to see some results, though of course he came out of college as a pretty special guy already. I haven't seen his written system, but remember telling me about intervals where you had a set amount of time to run the interval and rest, you could do it at whatever pace you wanted and rest however. For example 16-20 x 400, one 400 every 90 seconds. Run it in 60, you get 30 seconds rest. Like that. Everything was very different than what others were doing at the time, had to do with the swimming.

Sympathize with being on the DL. Was just getting recovered from summer cardiac ablation for my a-fib and then crashed x-country skiing last weekend in the North Cascades. Shoulder "crushed," now waiting for surgery to insert screws. Orthopod says I will not run for 6-8 weeks. Will not feel the wind in my face for awhile.

Hmmm maybe I will try that...although I am not sure which has been longer, since I finished my last race or since I have been on a track for anything other then 25-28 second 200's. I notice that the henderson stuff is a lot of using a certain amount of time for both the run and the recovery, which I think Jim Ryun did as well as his coach came from a swimming background and those folks in the pool do a LOT of intervals.

I actually just did my first run, 5 miles in 27:30ish.

If one of my friends broke one of my magneto's I would be pretty pissed too, although none of my friends are runners so I don't see that happening anytime soon.

I read a thread on here about high mileage (the high mileage story or something like that) where a guy did 200+ miles a week using triples and quadruples. I don't think he was all that fast though.

fUrCeOsNhN wrote:

I do all of my mileage back and forth on a 1 mile road.

Why?

CT_Runner wrote:

Why?

I think that fUrCeOsNhN was trying to be funny. It happens a lot here.

Good thread. That's why I come on to this site. I usually learn something once or twice a week.

Not sure if he was trying to be funny.. I do all of my runs on a 1-mile strip of road as well, 1M up, 1M down... horrible city to train