How much of your 10k potential can you hit running 40mpw?

Followed by:

M rest due to injury

T rest due to injury

W rest due to injury

T rest due to injury

F rest due to injury

S rest due to injury

S rest due to injury

The amount of overall running isn't anywhere near enough to support the volume of those workouts.

100% if you know what you are doing (or your coach does)

I agree, but it probably depends on age and background. Can't tell you how many times I've met those 40/50 year olds who only started running late in life and run 20-30 miles a week, all of it fast, and clean up in the age groups. Then there's the old fogeys who started in HS and continued on like me. I'm 50 and used to run 80-100 miles a week but now can only tolerate about 30-40 with max 1 interval session a week and the occasional long run with a tempo towards the last third. Maybe I'm just lazy now but I've found that I enjoy running the most off that.

This is obviously very suggestive, but there's definitely a point of diminishing return after a certain milage for different distances.

Someone running 15 minutes off 40 mpw might not run much faster than 13:5X off 100 mpw.

Hard to turn it into percentage, but I would say someone who has the potential to run 13:5X off 100 mpw, would get something like :

< 10mpw : 17 minutes high

< 20 mpw : 16 minutes high

< 40 mpw : 15 minutes high

Then it would start to look like :

< 60 mpw : 14:30

< 80 mpw : 14:1X

< 100 mpw : 14:00

> 100 mpw : 13:5X

Is there a sub-26:45 10000m runner running less than 100 miles per week in peak mileage portion of training?

Say you are the standard male letsrun poster who was a 4:30
miler in high school.

If that individual was 30 years old, independently wealthy
(no need to pursue a living or have a day job) and committed fully to the task
of building up to 100-mile weeks, working with a good coach, massages every other day, 10 hours of sleep, etc., they’d probably get to around 30-32 minutes in a 10k. Some could even break 30.

I would expect the same individual on your proposed program (which isn’t a terrible program, with the given constraints) to run between 36-38 minutes in a 10k.

That equates to about 80% of your true potential.

Alter the question a little... What if said person ran 40 miles/week and then did 4-5 hours of cross training on top of it though?

2016 - 2018 I was racing 10k and HM on 40mpw. It worked out well (bear in mind I am 60ish.)

2019 I built to average 55mpw and dropped 90 seconds off the 10K of the previous couple years. Strength is indeed in numbers!

I also got injured, but it was from going hard too often, not from volume.

I am in this boat. Former-college runner (almost 40) who cannot handle high mileage any longer because of injuries sustained over time. I run 25-35 mpw all of it under 7 min pace, one workout (usually 5-6 mi tempo at 6:10 pace or quicker intervals), long run of 8 miles. I can't do much competitive over 10k but stay in 16:45-17 min 5k shape which will win most local 5k's. Old guys 50-60 running 70 miles a week will destroy me in a half. Frankly, I just enjoy being able to be on my feet these days and like to compete with myself.

Hs runners are a pretty good demonstration of this. We have a ton of kids running 40-50nmpwp and running 9:20/15:10/31:30. They go to college, run 80+ mpw and run 14:1x/29 high. A little bit of that is maturity and more training years. A ton is more mileage.

Even if you have "shallow talent, ie very obvious genetic talent, you will not come close to your potential at that volume. If you have deep talent (only becomes obvious after heavy training load) you won't even know you're talented.

My college team was a low volume affair, 40-50mpw and I ran 34:20. After a few years at 100+mpw during core training cycles (4000+ miles annually) I was sub-31.

I remember when Selemon Barega ran his 12:43 there was an article where he trained about 80 MPW. Don't think he had run a good 10k yet. I'm sure he is over 100mpw now

i broke 40 running 40 so there's that. but everyone's different.

You won’t get far on that mileage, but I have a concoction that can certainly help…

I'm a 19:36 and 42:27 10k guy

And I'm fat..

Ymmv

If you're going to do low volume, most of it had better be pretty hard. I ran 32:22 off about 40-50 (at most) miles a week, most of it pretty hard. I truly don't I could have ever run a minute quicker (never broke 15:00 for 5000m, other than eventually doing it age graded).

Hello to all!

I think 90% in terms of speed.

I recall when I was young, I was running exactly 40 mpw for about a year with rather a chaotic training (no system, no books, no coach). At that time, I had 15:0x/5k solo time trial and 1:06:1x/20K (was doing orienteering and never ran on a track and very rare on road).

Assuming I could reach 13:30-13:45/5K at best if fully concentrated on running, it woud result in about 10% increase of the average speed.

Why are you training in miles for a metric race distance? Enough of this nonsense.

Try training 65k per week