Nick Willis 10 hour training week - low mileage

i don't think it's a bad attitude for mid d 800/1500 types, you'll get more out of sprint/power training if you're fresh while doing it. now if you're a 5K on up guy you might want to think twice about throwing out volume...

might be wejo wrote:

"I have removed the two to three 30-minute secondary runs I used to do in order to top-up my weekly mileage, and this has greatly opened my days to focus on my studies or family activities. What real fitness gain was I getting from a few extra jogs anyway? Now I have more recovery time to give me spring for my sprint training." - Nick Willis

This was pretty much the attitude of US runners in the '90s. We all know how that turned out.

This is a little how my schedule works and I have a full time job and busy family life. For someone who is a professional runner and probably has a decent pay, I would say he could give a little more time to his profession than 10 hours a week.

So all he does is run and do 15-25 minutes of plyo a week? It turns out if you don't stretch, only do minimal strength work, never have to drive anywhere to run, never have to wait around for running mates, and never have to sit around at track meets, there isn't that much time involved in training. Even if someone followed this method and went up to 120 miles a week it would probably only be 13-14 hours.

while you are on your feet busy at work or rushing somewhere to pick up your kids, he is sitting on his azz recovering from a hard workout...that's part of his job too. also, he has an olympic silver medal, so i think he knows exactly how much time to put in.

holdup wrote:

This is a little how my schedule works and I have a full time job and busy family life. For someone who is a professional runner and probably has a decent pay, I would say he could give a little more time to his profession than 10 hours a week.

I guess the lesson here is "each to their own". Willis has had injury in the past - big enough injuries to keep him out of the sport for a while. He would have over 10 years of solid, high-level training under his belt now. I read somewhere he is focusing more on speed this time around so maybe this will work for him for coming seasons.

In an interview from 2008 he said has seldom run 160km in a week.

http://www.odt.co.nz/sport/athletics/27919/athletics-willis-proud-continue-kiwi-1500m-success

"I'm a great believer in holding a consistent 70 to 80 miles [112km to 128km] a week. I don't want to be a slave to the Sunday to Sunday type schedule."

So this doesn't seem like a huge difference to what he was doing in the past (mainly dropping those 2 x 30 min runs).

long sox wrote:

In an interview from 2008 he said has seldom run 160km in a week.

http://www.odt.co.nz/sport/athletics/27919/athletics-willis-proud-continue-kiwi-1500m-success

"I'm a great believer in holding a consistent 70 to 80 miles [112km to 128km] a week. I don't want to be a slave to the Sunday to Sunday type schedule."

So this doesn't seem like a huge difference to what he was doing in the past (mainly dropping those 2 x 30 min runs).

Here at last in this thread 4 years ago the smartest (as I see it,hehe! ) comment comes. Less is more!

COACH J.S

This interview with Nick Willis 2008 definitely "kills" the often told argument that Willis runs so fast on "10 hours per week" just because he has pounded out weeks after weeks with high mileage in many years before! Here we see he has not! He has been consistent at 70-80 miles per week!! Within here is some of the secret to reach once highest capacity. To be consistent and hold a resonable amount of training to stay away from injury over a long time.

COACH J.S

J.S wrote:

This interview with Nick Willis 2008 definitely "kills" the often told argument that Willis runs so fast on "10 hours per week" just because he has pounded out weeks after weeks with high mileage in many years before! Here we see he has not! He has been consistent at 70-80 miles per week!! Within here is some of the secret to reach once highest capacity. To be consistent and hold a resonable amount of training to stay away from injury over a long time.

COACH J.S

70-80 miles per week works for Willis, a talented 1500m runner. Then again, Snell an 800m runner, ran 100 miles a week in the base phase in singles (+ 2nd runs). How many world class 10k runners run as little as 70-80 miles per week on average?

Another giver of +1 wrote:

J.S wrote:

This interview with Nick Willis 2008 definitely "kills" the often told argument that Willis runs so fast on "10 hours per week" just because he has pounded out weeks after weeks with high mileage in many years before! Here we see he has not! He has been consistent at 70-80 miles per week!! Within here is some of the secret to reach once highest capacity. To be consistent and hold a resonable amount of training to stay away from injury over a long time.

COACH J.S

70-80 miles per week works for Willis, a talented 1500m runner. Then again, Snell an 800m runner, ran 100 miles a week in the base phase in singles (+ 2nd runs). How many world class 10k runners run as little as 70-80 miles per week on average?

I heard that Willis did about 95mpw. Willis does at least one 2hr run per week where he bragged on Twitter of doing 18-20 miles (or even 22 miles). Over the last 3 years Willis has done endurance training right up to late June. When you get older you can extend your career by being sensible. Lagat only runs once per day, he is 42 and still going strong.

I'm pretty sure that Snell only got in 100mpw consistently during his build up to Tokyo 1964. In Walker's biography he said that he looked at Snell's training diary and found lots of gaps where he was supposed to do long runs but couldn't be bothered. However, Walker claimed that his speed sessions were so impressive that Snell could likely have run faster than his "1:44.3 on grass" if pushed.

might be wejo wrote:

First of all, that only adds up to 9 hours. Second, how is he only getting 10-12 miles in on his 2 hour workout days? Presumably there is a lot of sitting around or standing rest, so does this really count as 2 hours of running? Suppose during those two hours he is only running for 90 minutes (at best), now we are down to 8 hours a week of training.

Maybe this type of schedule will work for an aging super talent like Willis (then again maybe not), but I don't think this is an ideal schedule for the majority of people looking to get faster.

do not forget the amount of time for warm ups/downs (e.g. drills, stretching, stides) and other workout routines. do you honestly think that an intelligent, successful athlet like willis is unable to count numbers from one to ten?

precisely because the majority of the people is not talented like willis, this might be the right way. many runners are desperately focused on mileage, hammering the pavements for nothing other than sustaining a volume that is not appropriate for their personal needs.

tell bernie lagat that "low mileage" is not working.

(anecdotal evidence: i ran all my pb's on about 30-40mpw, all of it high quality. i thought i could get faster and all i have to do is to double my mileage. false. i never went faster.)

Again, misguided and kinda stupid.

The US record 800/1000/1500 /2000/3000/5000 all held by runners doing less than 7h / week of running.

might be wejo wrote:

"I have removed the two to three 30-minute secondary runs I used to do in order to top-up my weekly mileage, and this has greatly opened my days to focus on my studies or family activities. What real fitness gain was I getting from a few extra jogs anyway? Now I have more recovery time to give me spring for my sprint training." - Nick Willis

This was pretty much the attitude of US runners in the '90s. We all know how that turned out.

It has turned out pretty well for him.

I know stuff like this this will drive all you mileage junkers crazy.... Just wait when you guys found yourselves crippled after you turn 40...

True.

Why do people criticize an olympic medalist? Utterly nonsense. Some need to run less than others to achieve their goals.

He posted this in the comments

"It really depends on what distance you are training for. If I were training for the 5000m or longer, I think more mileage is important. I have just not found a way to recover enough from double days, and still have enough pop in my legs to get quality out of my sprint training. The minor fitness improvements from 30 minute runs come at a cost, and you have to way those up with the contrasting benefits that rest provides – both physical, and emotional."

Firstly, Seb Coe tok a day off each week (or thereabouts). Is there any real difference between taking a day completely off from running or going and doing a really easy run?

Secondly, what is he doing in the two hour workouts? If he is doing really hard sessions this makes his programme much harder than most people commenting on it appear to believe? A really savage interval session can take a couple of days to recover from fully so seen from this angle Willis' programme starts to look quite sensible!

Thirdly, lots of runners realise that they have to adjust their training as they get older. Coe, Linford Christie (from another running discipline) and Ovett have all talked about this in the past.

This program is high mileage for a 1500m runner by my standards. You don't train for an event lasting 4 minutes by running for two hours.

Paradigm Shift wrote:

This program is high mileage for a 1500m runner by my standards. You don't train for an event lasting 4 minutes by running for two hours.

In my mind 60-70mpw is only medium mileage especially for a professional athlete. But Coe ran much (?) less, Steve Scott logged several 90+ mile weeks in the winter before mile AR. Both methods have had success.

Like someone already said, dropping 2-3 30min runs ain´t a big deal in this case. Willis has the lifetime miles and the talent, and can stay competitive with less training. You could think that could this little drop in training frequency and volume be little detrimental in championships though.

Tell that to Peter Snell! :)