Haile tried that at some point at the end of his career and could only manage 30min on 10k.
El Guerrouj after his retirement, tried a road 10k and could only manage 36min 10k only 3years after retirement! Use it or lose it it’s just simple as that!
No one really knows. It just works. Notice how no one can really answer your question? It's something that just works.
I already answered it. It’s improved running economy, which can only be honed through the trial of miles. WeJo was never going to become an almost sub-28:00 10k man, pre-super shoes, by only running 60 mpw with double threshold year after year. He might’ve been able to break 30:00 doing the J.S. method, but not almost 28:00.
I used Mark Nenow as an example because I had just started running after that article about his 27:20 came out and it really stuck in my mind. Here’s a guy who just went out and ran two hours in two runs each and every day, no plan, no structure, just as he felt. And if he felt good, he pushed. And his body got so fit, so wired to run fast that he was covering 20 miles per day in those two hours.
So simple, so elegant, no elaborate, magical training plan. And I always wished in college that I could train like that or take a year off and just see how much running I could actually do without overthinking and overcomplicating it. Just a “gap year” to build an awesome base. Run for time, in doubles, and just let the mileage grow naturally as the body adapted.
No one really knows. It just works. Notice how no one can really answer your question? It's something that just works.
I already answered it. It’s improved running economy, which can only be honed through the trial of miles. WeJo was never going to become an almost sub-28:00 10k man, pre-super shoes, by only running 60 mpw with double threshold year after year. He might’ve been able to break 30:00 doing the J.S. method, but not almost 28:00.
I used Mark Nenow as an example because I had just started running after that article about his 27:20 came out and it really stuck in my mind. Here’s a guy who just went out and ran two hours in two runs each and every day, no plan, no structure, just as he felt. And if he felt good, he pushed. And his body got so fit, so wired to run fast that he was covering 20 miles per day in those two hours.
So simple, so elegant, no elaborate, magical training plan. And I always wished in college that I could train like that or take a year off and just see how much running I could actually do without overthinking and overcomplicating it. Just a “gap year” to build an awesome base. Run for time, in doubles, and just let the mileage grow naturally as the body adapted.
We will never know what WeJo or Nenow could have done on low volume with the J.S method. Just speculations.
More training volume = more mitochondria = more aerobic energy production.
The problem is that mitochondria have a half life of around 10 days. So low mileage beyond that time frame will lead to less aerobic fitness in most people.
They do it because they can, and it works. You should try it sometime.
Really just because it works. And if they didn't run high mileage they wouldn't be elite. No one's running a 27 low 10,000m or a sub 2:10 marathon off 15 mile weeks.
They do it because they can, and it works. You should try it sometime.
Really just because it works. And if they didn't run high mileage they wouldn't be elite. No one's running a 27 low 10,000m or a sub 2:10 marathon off 15 mile weeks.
Or 60 mile weeks. You are correct. As is the poster about developing more mitochondria (and capillarization).
But, the risk/reward tradeoff might not be worth it for many people as 60 mpw is all their schedule will allow. And that’s fine. But you cannot become world class in the distance events doing just 60 mpw.
More training volume = more mitochondria = more aerobic energy production.
The problem is that mitochondria have a half life of around 10 days. So low mileage beyond that time frame will lead to less aerobic fitness in most people.
Half-life of 10 days? What does this mean? Where did you get this?
More training volume = more mitochondria = more aerobic energy production.
The problem is that mitochondria have a half life of around 10 days. So low mileage beyond that time frame will lead to less aerobic fitness in most people.
Half-life of 10 days? What does this mean? Where did you get this?
Not OP, but the basic idea is that training stimulus induces increased biogenesis of mitochondria, as well as an increased rate of mitophagy, where damaged/degraded mitochondria are pruned out. The poster is probably referring to the rate or mitochondrial protein turnover; the half-life is the period over which half will be destroyed. I'm not an expert, and I may be incorrectly conflating mitophagy and protein half-life, but the general gist is that you're always losing mitochondria. Training gives you more mitochondria because of the biogenesis rate exceeding the mitophagy rate until equilibrium is reached. When the training stimulus ceases, the biogenesis rate decreases, and you lose them faster than you make more. A half life of 10 days would mean that your mitochondrial density decreases pretty quickly when training stimulus ceases. This article goes into a lot more depth: https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jappl.2001.90.3.1137
I already answered it. It’s improved running economy, which can only be honed through the trial of miles. WeJo was never going to become an almost sub-28:00 10k man, pre-super shoes, by only running 60 mpw with double threshold year after year. He might’ve been able to break 30:00 doing the J.S. method, but not almost 28:00.
I used Mark Nenow as an example because I had just started running after that article about his 27:20 came out and it really stuck in my mind. Here’s a guy who just went out and ran two hours in two runs each and every day, no plan, no structure, just as he felt. And if he felt good, he pushed. And his body got so fit, so wired to run fast that he was covering 20 miles per day in those two hours.
So simple, so elegant, no elaborate, magical training plan. And I always wished in college that I could train like that or take a year off and just see how much running I could actually do without overthinking and overcomplicating it. Just a “gap year” to build an awesome base. Run for time, in doubles, and just let the mileage grow naturally as the body adapted.
We will never know what WeJo or Nenow could have done on low volume with the J.S method. Just speculations.
Very true. It is also possible that they both never would’ve broken 30:00.
Either way, Nenow found something that worked. Give him today’s super shoes and bicarb and he might’ve been our first ever sub-27:00 man.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
Haile tried that at some point at the end of his career and could only manage 30min on 10k.
El Guerrouj after his retirement, tried a road 10k and could only manage 36min 10k only 3years after retirement! Use it or lose it it’s just simple as that!
Actually, Renato Canova has posted on LR about how runners with an older training age don't need the same aerobic volume in training.
He gave the example of Saif Shaheen (Stephen Cherono), who by the time he ran the steeple WR had been running at a high volume for many years. In the balance of diminishing returns and benefits of other training, Shaheen's training learned toward more threshold, race effort, etc, and less pure volume.
It's not as if an elite distance runner can go full low-mileage and stay on a plateau, but indeed the priority of volume can decrease as OP suggests.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
Reason provided:
Typos.
Really just because it works. And if they didn't run high mileage they wouldn't be elite. No one's running a 27 low 10,000m or a sub 2:10 marathon off 15 mile weeks.
But you cannot become world class in the distance events doing just 60 mpw.
Even if running at a high level comes down to something like 75% talent 25% hard training, you take 15-20% of that 25% away and a 12:50 5k athlete turns into a 15:00-16:00 5k athlete
If a guy with 12:50 ability actually comes out for the sport, he’s not going to run 15:00-16:00. You say talent and training are 75/25%, but to reach the highest levels it’s not possible to do so without the necessary talent. Meanwhile, anyone can train hard.
Abdi Nur ran around 15 flat for his first 5k untrained so the other comment is actually spot on.
The talent of elite runners is, that they can do high mileage without getting injured.
You're simply wrong. I have consistently run 150mpw and not go sub 2.30
Your post doesn't contradict the other comment's point. Elite runners are elite because they possess a high baseline, respond well to training and can handle a lot of training.
That doesn't mean that if you can handle a lot of training you will be elite. Just because a square is a rectangle doesn't mean that all rectangles are squares.
Perhaps you need to take a formal logic class to understand this?
More training volume = more mitochondria = more aerobic energy production.
The problem is that mitochondria have a half life of around 10 days. So low mileage beyond that time frame will lead to less aerobic fitness in most people.
Half-life of 10 days? What does this mean? Where did you get this?
Didn't you know? Well, then you learnt something . But don't feel bad you didn't know,many more don't know this , both coaches and runners. An adult has around 100000000000000 mitochondria !!
Another couple thing many don't know about mitochondria is that even when you run quality workouts mitochondria is produced, but stronger/ more effective and not so many as when only aerob produced. This partly is an explanation why some runners have reached the world top on relatively low volume. Another interesting thing a scientific study showed thst there is an extra boost of mitochondria production when running easy 70-80 min compared to 60 min . This can also be a part of explanation why some runners reach a very high mitochondria density on running just single runs daily. 🧙♂️