Exactly. People who advocate high mileage are generally not talking about maximizing mileage, they are advocating optimizing mileage which means as many easy miles as you can handle while still getting in a couple of quality days a week (where a quality day will vary over the year and season).
flightless wrote:
Exactly. People who advocate high mileage are generally not talking about maximizing mileage, they are advocating optimizing mileage which means as many easy miles as you can handle while still getting in a couple of quality days a week (where a quality day will vary over the year and season).
True, with the caveat that 'a couple of quality days' does not mean two quality days for most serious track runners. Three (or even four) hard days are pretty common.
I think by the end of the summer I can get close to 13:05. I’m only 24.by MT
nice to read this
I am very interested in this question. My first thought is that there is no way you can race 3 and certainly not 4 days a week. So what qualifies as a quality day? A long run? There is no doubt that as you get in better shape you can do more hard work but is it better to have 3 or 4 hardish days or two killer days?
it's called, "being a good coach and not being a dumbass."
you know that mileage is good and necessary to performance at middile and long distance racing.
ok, but this athlete is going through a growth spurt and is a little sensitive, so...
you back him off a little and while he may not be running AS FAST as he would off of more optimal training, he won't "slow down" by any means and he'll be healthy.
When he's back up to optimal ocnditions, you can push the envelope again.
it's good coaching.
Ummm, wtf is a badger mile?
not a badger wrote:
Ummm, wtf is a badger mile?
Yeah what he said. What the heck is a badger mile?
If you're doing 3-4 track sessions they're probably not that hard, not "killer" days. As always, relative to one's ability to run the times, and ability to recover.
There's no one answer to this question, since it depends among other things on, what period your training is in, what distance you're aiming to race at, and your development as a runner. Good discussion of this in Joe Rubio's chapter in Run Strong, and of course, in Daniels' Running Formula.
In a base phase, you probably want to be doing 3-5 hardish days a week. malmo, who posts here, would say that a natural tempo run is one you can repeat the next day. In terms of specific paces it's still above marathon pace, comfortably fast. Then as you get closer to goal races, easing off some to be tapered for races is the idea.
Possibly also, the shorter the race, the more hardish days you'll do. The two killer workouts is great for marathoning since it simulates what the race will be like.
And what people can handle will vary individually.
If, by "above marathon pace" you mean faster than, then you're wrong. If you mean, slower than, then you're right.
To answer some of the questions: "Badger miles" means you run by time, in this case I think its a mile for every 7min of running. The thing is, most guys like teg are actually going to be running more like 6min or faster....on their easy days. So if he ran for 60min, and was really going 6min pace that would be 10 "regular miles"....in badger miles it would only be 60/7 = 8.57 miles. I think thats how it is, someone correct me if I'm wrong. I actually do the same kind of thing but my miles are at 8min pace.
Remember also that lots of fast 5k runners are only doing 80-90mpw. Sure, most in the lets run crowd argue 100+ or 125mpw...which is fine. To run a fast marathon or 10k you need high mileage. The main point is...what do you do with your mileage?...over the course of many seasons- many years of training? How do you progress? Up the volume? Up the intensity? You can do both when you are mature enough to handle it...mature being you can sense when you are about to break or suffer from overtraining.
80mpw doing 4 "workouts" a week would be possible for teg. I bet on easy days he goes sub 6 pace. A workout may include a long run at a pretty fast/steady pace, a 7-8 mile tempo run, something short and fast (fast being only your 5k goal pace) like 20 by 400. And a longer repeat session of fartlek or mile repeats at 10k pace. It would be a lot, but you could get away with it...and maximize? your potential at the 5k off of it? - I think it depends on the person. Finally, consider that he was running 100mpw years ago.
FTIR wrote:
As a total scrub in college I ran all my miles at 6 minute pace.
maybe that's why you were a scrub...
What other US distance runner has trained consistently over the last two years without injury?
Right. So do we agree that NO ONE needs to run 6 minute pace EVERY day? Then why does the idea that Teg must run faster than 7 minute pace EVERY day keep coming up? My previous question was about the number of hard days in a week. The best reply seems to be that there should be 4 days in seven that are either faster than dead easy and/or longer than say 8 to 10 miles.
The question has been answered definiteively by Teg himself (unless he was lying) and that is he did this on 90 MPW Base.