By easy runs I mean up to 6 miles or 80 minutes. Maybe a few long runs of 15 miles or so but not weekly. Many short recovery style runs before and after other runs and track workouts, so doubling or tripling even. High time on feet due to slow jogging recoveries for long distances between sprints.
As opposed to maximizing mileage. Including running hard tempo, not merely going for most time on feet.
I basically have to train like the above since I have overuse injuries (the sprinting builds up my leg similar to lifting and the range of motion of a sprint prevents the knee from getting too imobile and itbs resulting).
how well can I match up with higher mileage runners in events such as the marathon by training this way? I read Galen Rupp say "he is more naturally a marathoner than Mo Farah" or something like that. And I know from watching the oregon project he does fast flying 80 m sprints and running on the treadmill has less horizontal distance between his heel strikes, like a sprinter or soccer player. Could there be some correlation between sprints and marathon which doesnt exist at 5 k and 10k?
I read that modern 10km runners have lots of fast twitch fibers. I also read that marathoners incorporate fast twitch fibers into their long runs after their runs training them to endure similar to slow twitch fibers.
Perhaps the reason people see limited improvements to their road races from sprint training, because the endurance it builds doesnt matter if the slow twitch fibers are doing the most of the work in a 5k, since they arent starting fast or kicking the last 400 meters in under 60 seconds. Yet in the marathon everyone does have to rely on fast twitch fibers to get up hills, and when you hit the wall at mile 20-24. In fact my knee seems to act up when I hit 'the wall" either in top speed or in distance I can run without starting to favor one side. I suspect either set of fibers fatiguing limits marathon performance, and I may actually be able to shoot for 3 hours or less in the marathon, despite a slow 5k( its hard for me to break 20). Workouts would include long hills sprints and high volumes of flying sprint repeats on grass to build endurance in the legs.
Mileage would be run but to maximize the number of minutes spent running, 4 hours of running and jogging and sprinting per week total, to simulate running for up to 4 hours in the marathon. Realistic? I got to break 4 hours using this method, but it required a walking stick as my knee went mile 24. Yet I only trained 3 hours per week on my long run. Perhaps if I bumped it up to 4 hours per week (id phase out the sprints and eventually just jog 4 hours one day and jog 1 hour the other days before tapering) 3 hours in the marathon becomes more realistic. I understand it isnt a perfectly inverse correlation but the hours do seem to scale that way, as if time spent running could be seen as an hourglass shaped graph, even if the distance run is not as great as other people running the same number of hours. However, the speed work, being run in a fresh state and thus not beating up the legs more than it builds them from strength gained, I think even 1 hour of speedwork on the track is worth at least that mileage run. I mean workouts like 800s in 4 minutes and 4 minutes jogging recovery. 300s in under 60 with full recovery (as fast as you need to run to recruit fast twitch so they start slowget faster every workout) 100m flying sprints 300m recovery. So the workouts get gradually faster as the reps get shorter, with the easy runs being as slow as the 800m recovery runs, or only faster if it feels easy.
I'm thinking of something absurd like 10:00 mile pace but on hilly terrain so its challenging to motor skill and raises heart rate sufficiently. so 30 miles per week at most but the sprint training is so minimal in mileage, and 50 percent of the 800 meter workout is run at a very slow pace. The amount run, not sprinted workouts out only to about a marathon, But I actually think this would work, as racing the marathon itself is a stimulus to improve endurance, and this is also a recovery plan to run even more road races and marathons.
Details im 30 30-40 age group is more competitive in road racing so im stragegizing to win some. I won in the 20-29 groups some races which paid for the investment cost of entering races in terms of winning valuable mizuno shoes one time but obviously unless you are an XC runner usually 30 is not a peak for 5k-marathon racing. It was kind of funny I have been racing the 40-50 year old age group mostly not 20-30, because most people my age ran 23+ minutes in the 5k and 40+ minutes in the 5k mile. Before you call me a hobby jogger I can sprint over 20 miles per hour and I used to win 800 meter races and under when I ran spring and winter track.
To wrap it up I am serious, even though my training is minimalist I work hard on the track and do devote a lot of time to conditioning myself through running for distance, even transportation I run instead of bicycle sometimes, so my occasional long runs are of significant distance and well paced.