Anyone run PRs off of just consistent high mileage and no workouts?

It depends. If you never really got in the miles and skipped right into the workouts then you should get prs. Correct me if I'm wrong

Why don't you want to run any workouts?

First ye of college running. I did simply easy running for my track base. Ran 50 mpw. That was something I've never done at the time. I dropped my 1500m time from 4:31 - 4:19. Now I do high 60s. Plan to do 70-75 throughout the winter

Yes I have. My freshman year of college XC I ran faster off of my high base mileage than when I dropped mileage for workouts.

I do want to do workouts, I'm just working on a strong base right now. I'm doing higher mileage than I ever have. I'm going to start doing tempos and some other stuff, but was curious to hear from anyone that had some good races with just easy high mileage. I think I'm going to throw in some 5ks in the next week, so was a bit curious.

How is it possible to run high mileage without workouts? Is this pretend miles?

Malmo, what did your high school PR progression and mileage look like in high school?

Chances are you're probably running workouts as tempos in the middle of your runs w/o realizing it. This is what being fit affords you. And also why I laugh when people on here claim they ran a PR from just base mileage and no workouts.

If you truly ran all your high mileage at slow paces like 8 min pace then you're lying because you'd be injured by now. You would be spending a LOT more time pounding on the pavement.

What I mean is...The past 6 weeks have been high mileage with no planned tempos, intervals, etc. It has strictly been sub 7min pace easy runs with a long run on Sunday. Just base building with some strides here and there.

malmo wrote:

How is it possible to run high mileage without workouts? Is this pretend miles?

malmo wrote:How is it possible to run high mileage without workouts? Is this pretend miles?

I did this, lots of people do. In my case I was stuck at 60-65 miles a week for a while and kept feeling burned out if I tried to increase, even slowly. So I decided to try to increase the miles and drop the workouts for a while one winter. Got up to 85-90 over about two months (all easy runs but I remember feeling exhausted for a while), and was able to drop back to 70-75 with workouts in the spring. This is all in my 40s, FWIW. It just worked well for me.

What Malmo means is that if you are running, you're doing a workout.

Gary Oldman wrote:What Malmo means is that if you are running, you're doing a workout.

Got it. My apologies, I have always viewed the term 'workout' as meaning one of the key harder (tempo) or more structured (track intervals) runs of the week.

william3rd wrote:

What I mean is...

The past 6 weeks have been high mileage with no planned tempos, intervals, etc. It has strictly been sub 7min pace easy runs with a long run on Sunday. Just base building with some strides here and there.

malmo wrote:

How is it possible to run high mileage without workouts? Is this pretend miles?

I think we all know what I meant. All runs are workouts. My most important workout? 7am Dark, rainy and cold. 5-10 miles easy.

I think what OP means is "Can I stay away from the track/organized and structured preset times and just do Progression Runs? Will I get faster, and if so, by how much?" That's what I took it as. My answer is yes, but the variance in improvement depends on your training courses.

I've been fortunate to have 7000-10000ft Elevation to train in and mountainous LONG cool temp courses that don't allow me staleness. I moved away from those things and things have gone, no pun intended, downhill for me.

Basically no track might be the best thing for you especially if it's BASE RUNNING. Paint it with Progressions, Sprinkle the EZ Runs, and for speed: Strides got you covered. Have fun

Sloppy Joe wrote:

Malmo, what did your high school PR progression and mileage look like in high school?

Sophomore: 9:43 2 mile

-- Cross country: 25-60 mpw. The more I ran the more talented I became.

-- Track 25-65mpw, then one week every Summer I’d try to see how much I could run …

-- 105 miles once before Junior year cross country

Junior: 9:17 2 mile ….

-- Cross country injured, almost no running.

-- Track 40-88 miles, most weeks in the 70s….

-- 131 miles once before Senior Year

Senior: 9:10 2 mile, 4:16 mile …..

-- Cross Country 64-110 , most weeks in the high 70s and 80s. 4 consecutive weeks over 100-110.

-- Track: 75 – 109 miles, most weeks 80s and 90s. 3 times over 100mpw.

+1

babyface wrote:

Chances are you're probably running workouts as tempos in the middle of your runs w/o realizing it. This is what being fit affords you. And also why I laugh when people on here claim they ran a PR from just base mileage and no workouts.

If you truly ran all your high mileage at slow paces like 8 min pace then you're lying because you'd be injured by now. You would be spending a LOT more time pounding on the pavement.

easy weeks wrote:

Gary Oldman wrote:What Malmo means is that if you are running, you're doing a workout.

Got it. My apologies, I have always viewed the term 'workout' as meaning one of the key harder (tempo) or more structured (track intervals) runs of the week.

I, and everyone I've ever trained with, have always referred to "workout" as anything that makes you sweat. "What's your workout today?" "10 miles easy."

I ran 140 miles a week for November, December, January with no speed work and got slower. Most miles were sub 6:40 with a few 5's.

If you have a higher proportion of FT fibers, just jogging might not work in

the short term until you cut mileage and let a faster pace come to you.

I have. I upped my summer mileage leading into my junior year of college and ran an 8 second track 5k PR two months into my summer training block with no workouts at all.