Why is everyone so obsessed with milage?

I got 74.533334 last week...whassup now, fools????

You guys keep forgetting that I'm a HS dropout.

Kids- stay in school.

Actually no, volume is not everything. It is, important however. Volume is how much work you do. If I go out and run for 70 minutes at 7:00/mile pace (10 miles total) one day and then I go out the next day and run for 70 minutes at 14:00/mile (5 miles total), have I done the same amount of volume?

No. I have done half as much. I'm still going to burn roughly 110 calories per mile, regardless of the pace at which I run it.

We already do that. We just measure it with mileage instead of with time.

Time by itself is no more useful than mileage. You need them both if you truly wish to record how you trained. But when it comes down to quoting a single number, using mileage is fine. And if you prefer time, by all means go measure time. Neither tells the whole story.

Runners have successfully used mileage as their yardstick for decades. That doesn't mean they forget about intensity.

The "mental drawbacks"? I don't get those. I have never understood why people here (and I don't just mean you) feel that simply knowing a bit of information is a "mental drawback". There is no need to fear information. One may use it or discard it as need be.

Thanks malmo. It was a joke. It might have been a bad one, but it was an attempt.

LaWoof wrote:

Was it the lifetime miles that made then fast?

Yes it was. Lifetime mileage (or training hours) markers are good approximations of the amount of background neceassry for a given athlete to start running near his/her potential at a given race distance. For example, Sebastian Coe and Steve Scott both started running sub3:50 (1979-1981) when their lifetime volumes had hit the 20,000-25,000 mile range.

Who is going to be closer to running his best at a 5000m race: a runner who has run 6,000 miles or a runner who has run 30,000 miles? That's why Americans are so far behind the Africans: The Africans have been training for an extra 8-10 years of solid volume while the Americans are playing Nintendo. And you've got to value lifetime totals and keep track of them in order to know where you are and what you can do. I wasn't going to run a 4000 mile year (avg. 80mi/wk) before I ran a 3500 mile year (avg. 70mi/wk).

Three more weeks Miles. Better rent "Miracle on Ice."

almost all of my runs have been measured by a bike odometer or are run on those great country dirt roads where there's a fence every mile or half mile.

nevertheless, go ahead and forget mileage. go by time instead. just be sure to be running 2 hours a day.

Thanks for your ringing endorsement (or not), ha.

I think most runners like to keep at least general track of their weekly mileage. Nothing wrong with that. I also think it\'s reasonable for runners who know their pace well to estimate miles based on time and pace. For myself, I really don\'t care if I\'m 100 yd off. I know the margin of error goes up if I\'m on a hilly trail run.

LaWoof, if someone is running 20 mi/wk at 8 min/mi pace and says they\'re doing 100 mi at 6 min/mi, why is that your problem? So a lot of people here are FOS. Get over it. Or challenge them to a 10K race for $1,000 if it\'s so offensive to you.

Also, just b/c wejo does his LSD runs at 7 min pace doesn\'t mean the next guy who normally runs at 7 min pace can run a 28 min 10K. Wejo\'s quality runs will trump the next guy\'s quantity runs every time.

PREACH ON BROTHER TRACKHEAD!

This is exactly what Lydiard was saying, but it seems to be the one part of his philosophy that nobody hears...training isn't just about conditioning muscles or even improving the circulatory system. The most important part of training (precisely because it takes the longest) is the strengthening of the bones and connective tissues that is necessary to do the hard training to win races. Nobody's arguing the fact that you have to train fast to race fast, but an important component of that is that you have to first train in order to train fast. That's why Trackhead is exactly right. Lifetime miles are the key to having a strong system that's ready to absorb fast training. Getting the bones and tendons strong takes much longer than conditioning muscles and capillaries, and that's the key to the importance of high volume at paces that allow you to recover enough. Lifetime miles, Booyah!

TESTIFY!!!

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

You are not getting what Lydard was saying. It is not the lifetime milage that determind the runner. Not by a long shot. If that were true Lydards runners would have been doing more miles. THE FACT THAT A RUNNER PERFORMS BEST AFTER A CERTIN # OF MILES IS NOT THE CAUSE OF THE FAST TIMES. It it mearly a product of good training programs. The lifetime miles of a runner do not come into play when training, at least with an experienced runner. If it was the best runners, should be running far more miles a week. They should be running all day everyday, only stopping to eat and sleep. If you ran 250 miles a week at 10min pace you would not be able to run a super fast 10k or even a marathon. SPECIFICITY of training is what makes people fast. Besides, even if it were true, what would be the point of caring? so I didn't have the lifetime miles to run my best today, I still gave it my best. Even then, what would you say to someone who set their best marks at age 23 and never get to that level again? Did their lifetime miles go down from age 23 to 27? NO! Lifetime miles is a useless number for any runner with the exception of marathoners, and even then why would you care about it? IT PROVIDES NO USEFULL INFORMATION! W keep running to improve. If our programs are set up properly and we excicute them well we will get faster and stronger and better, regardless of the # of miles we have run. We cannot leap ahead to a larger # of miles. We are as fit as out last run, as fast as our last race.

"Miles, as a runner, you should have been aware that milage and mileage are both correct."

I don't know why, but this really made me laugh.

Anyway, most of my runs are measured in time. This includes distance runs, tempo runs, intervals, reps, everything. This is unless I get on a track.

That being said, I keep a training log in miles. I think it is just because it is more fun or interesting to have an idea of how far you have gone rather than time spent. But either work well. You need to have some measurement of volume.

So, most of my mileage totals are estimates, but I am definitely within a mile of the written total. About a year ago, I got a friends bike and went to measure all my running routes, and I was a little worried that they might all turn up short, but in almost every case, the runs were a little bit longer than what I had totalled. I've always been pretty good at pace, especially when I'm running a lot and in good shape, I just tend to be able to feel it out.

There are these watches out there that get 98% accuracy of your run, which is a better measurement than your car. Welcome to the year 2004 and get a clue loser.

im sorry for tracking my mileage. It's spelled mileage by the way. and i like to keep track of my times and such so i can see my improvement.

LaWoof wrote:

the next day it might also be a 64min run but I went 7 miles or 10 miles. The point? Milage does not have an impact on my training schedule.

This is a perfect example of why *only* recording time has the same problems as *only* recording mileage. If you want to have some measure of your training volume, you need some idea of how how hard you went, and how long you went for.

If you record a time and a perceived exertion, that does the trick. Or, if you record a distance and a time, it gives you the same combination: how far AND how hard.

Of course, there's no law that you have to record anything at all. Some great runners don't keep a log, others keep minimal ones. But to argue that time is somehow better than distance is missing the point.

As a postscript, I agree that lots of runners fool themselves about the pace they're running. But the better they are, the more likely they are to be able to nail it.

did you seriously do a 10k in 56minutes???? thats amazing. i cant believe people are arguing with you having credentials like that.

my friend,

we're talking about lifetime totals and not weekly. remember the lydiard article I gave you. lydiard said, "there is a such a thing as too much muscle viscocity."

he ran 250 miles per week and found it was too much -- that 150-160 mi/wk was about the most.

Lifetime totals are KEY. It is representative of the muscle and cellular strength.

Yes; a lot of guys went down in performance from 23 to 27 -- because of how they trained and not lifetime totals. Rather, a runner who at 30 with 30,000 miles behind them and get's hurt, will have a far easier time returning to a former level of performance. If you have a kid who has run 1,000 miles in his life and he get's hurt and his down for 3 weeks, you're starting from scratch again.

Of course you make your best effort everytime you race. American high schoolers don't have the appropriate background to race 1500 or even 800m but we race them knowing that they are not at their potential yet.

So tell me that Geb's 70 mpw from ages 8 through 16 didn't help him get to where he is today.

mega mileage wrote:

did you seriously do a 10k in 56minutes???? thats amazing. i cant believe people are arguing with you having credentials like that.

we all start somewhere. and if you read his post he said "if ... I would STILL BE a 56 min 10k..."

LaWoof,I'm curious. Why is that you measure running and biking in time, but swimming in meters?

Note: I do not run 14 hrs a week presently. As a triathlete I limit it to about 8 or 9. right now I am doing about 5 running, 10.5 cycling, and 12,000m swimming.

my max is about 9, 15, and 25,000.