Hassan Chahdi, France, 8th in Boston, 2:09:46, averages 50mpw, most of year, once a day! Hates mileage, double days

Hassan Chahdi: I suspect he only does half the mileage of all the people in front of him and many of those behind him. People should realise that there are athletes who are fragile and that going above a certain mileage makes them break down and renders them more inefficient in distance running. Runners have to find their sweet spot.

danslateteduncoureur.fr

#33 - Hassan Chahdi — Dans la Tête d'un Coureur

Hassan Chahdi est un des prodiges de l'athlétisme français. À force de travail et de persévérance, il est devenu l’un des meilleurs marathoniens français.

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I will post the translation later. Thanks for your patience.

What US runners are doing 160 miles a week? Who are you talking about?

Not sure what this thread is talking about, according to his strava in the 12 weeks before the race he ran 3 weeks over 100 miles and 2 of them were 117 and 112. He also ran long runs of 2x20 milers | 1 18 miler | and at least 2x17 milers. He also averaged 95.25 miles for 8 weeks.

In the audio Chahdi mentioned that biking and other endurance work is counted as km. I will specify exactly where he said that. What he said (listened this morning) is that he converts all endurance work, including non running exercise into km. Not sure about the Strava. Will get back on that. Travelling from Bradford, West Yorkshire to Eastbourne, East Sussex. Cheers for the update.

I hammered averaging close to 2 hours every morning on an indoor bike including regular competitions for three years, with zero running due to a knee injury.

When the knee was healed I was not able to run at all due to not getting any lift off the ground. Also my balance and propulsion were not very good for walking. I built up to walking 4 miles a day and then moved from walking to running.

The walking helped but the cycling did not help with running. I would definitely not count cycling miles or time as being a part of running time, and I wouldn't count elliptical either.

Overall, sure, they count as good CV training time, but definitely not as running time.

It's possible he would be 2:05 with more mileage. Just a massive talent.

You know, that's entirely possible. But at the same time I can think of examples of guys who did really well on modest volume then did a lot more in hopes of getting even faster but didn't do as well as when they were running less. When Kawauchi announced he was going to turn pro and train full time there was a lot of speculation about how much faster he could go and really, he didn't. As far as I can tell the 2:07 came when he got back to something more along the lines of what he did when he had a job.

Just running mega miles is not going to make you a sub 2:09 guys.

Lots of 2:10+ guys ran upwards of 150-160mi 20 odd years ago.

Alan

That's true about his Strava datas for Boston but mileage was definitely lower during others marathons ~70 miles/week peaking at 80. It's not only about him but more about his coach training system.

Maybe he does more mileage now because he's no longer coached by Vollmer (he now coaches Amdouni, French RH in 2h05) who had Chadhi do long runs on a...treadmill ! I'm not sure about this whole "keeps getting injured" theory, unlike Amdouni I can't really remember Chahdi being sidelined by an injury in the past 10 years (maybe because of "low mileage").

At the end of the day, whether he can't or doesn't want to do the extra mileage, if he doesn't he won't break 2h08 and won't be competitive on a fast marathon course as he was in Boston and could be in NY and at the Paris Olympics.

His Strava account has not been updated since December 2022. Where did you see most recent mileage up to Boston?

NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL- not one of those sports has anyone who can run a fast marathon.

Our best long distance runners are doing it (or they never got into it in the first place.

I think a lot of of our problem is our system that encourages running shorter track races and the lack of coaching at the high school level.

I've seen some promising runners quit because the guy they have taking the stipend to babysit the track and cross-country teams had no knowledge and didn't put in the time to learn.