marke wrote:
To those who have made the jump, how long would you suggest to take? Is jumping 10 mpw per week safe? 5?
I've been steadily running about 50 mpw for a month after building up to that since the start of the year. I peeked out in the 80's last year briefly for a very short time but probably average between 40 and 60 last year.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I wrote the following (it's a little long) based on my experiences with 100 mile weeks. My suggestion, try hitting 60-70 miles a week for a season first. If you are healthy, still having fun and running faster, it's working for you. Jumping from an average of 50 miles a week to 100 is plain too much for most folks and I suspect you'll either burn out or get injured along the way. Sometimes you have to reign in the will to achieve by being smart and channeling the energies constructively.
"Hundred mile weeks. Have you ever heard this phrase? For many folks who have explored the history of running and training the phrase "hundred mile weeks" is sort of a catch phrase for the budding "elite" runners. Yet, what do "hundred mile weeks" have to do with becoming an "elite" runner? As with anything related to running it is important to know what's really behind the clever label. In this article, we will explore the concept of high-mileage running and try to understand what really helps build your abilities as a runner.
The phrase "hundred mile weeks" stems from a New Zealand coach named Arthur Lydiard. Lydiard, who is still alive and coaching today, started running in the early 1950's to regain the lost fitness of his youth. Through a difficult set of trial-and-error experiments Lydiard performed on himself-such as running up to 250 miles a week-Lydiard developed into one of New Zealand's fastest marathoners at the age of 38 years old. Eventually, Lydiard began coaching some local athletes, several of whom became Olympic champions. Throughout his coaching career Lydiard advocated long-term, aerobic development to the tune of 100 miles per week for up to six months at a time.
Now, let me be perfectly clear about one thing. No one should ever just start running 100 miles a week because some coach has said it worked for others. I had to learn this error at the heart of this mistake for myself. During the summer between my junior and senior year in high school I called a runner from California by the name of Jeff Atkinson. At the time, Jeff Atkinson was an Olympic 1500m runner. I thought, "if I do what this guy does, I will become a great runner too." Well, guess what...he did 100 mile weeks. So began my experience with high mileage.
I spent thirteen weeks running, at times, up to five times a day. At the end of the summer my mileage totals were over 1100 miles. That total put me second on the list of mileage leaders for the all-time summer volume list at my high school. I thought, "Man, it's going to be a great year." However, my body had different plans. The first six races of the year that year, I barely broke into the top seven on my team. My coach tried to explain to me that at the time I had run too much and over trained. He suggested that I back off the distance take it easy and get some rest. But I would not hear it. In the end, my efforts to run "hundred mile weeks" proved disastrous.
After the season was over, something interesting happened though. Once my season had closed out and my body began to recover from the enormous amount of stress I put on it over the summer. A few weeks passed from the state cross country meet and we had a team time trial to see what kind of shape everyone was in. I ended up running thirty seconds faster than I ever had before for three miles. Had I run the time I did that day at state, I would have probably been near the all-state team. Something good had happened, only at the wrong time. I wanted to know why.
My running experiment had failed...or at least I thought it did. I had begun with the idea that running hundred mile weeks would make me a champion. The miles came and went, as did the races, but, I never reached my goal. However, it was not because I did not become better; my post-season time trial clearly showed I had improved. It was because the timing was off. I did too much mileage, too soon in my career and I failed to take the time I needed to recover from what I did to my body. But, I did learn that running more had helped me get faster."