Ryan Hall eliminated JUNK MILEAGE

Conventional wisdom on letsrun.com used to be that there is no such thing as JUNK MILEAGE, but Ryan Hall made it clear that he tries something new this time.

I’ve been running a lot less on my recover days, but my workouts have been higher quality and higher in volume because I am recovering better by not running as many miles.

I basically audited my training and eliminated a lot of junk mileage that wasn’t really helping me and leading to injuries.

I guess we will find out if recovery runs are really necessary on Monday or if a focus on quality works better. Keep in mind, this is what Lagat has been doing throughout much of his career.

(Disclaimer:I removed the source because it is an interview by one of his sponsors so I am not sure if this is against Letsrun.com policy. Anyway, you can find it when you look at his twitter)

LetsRun.com Editor's note: We tried to figure out where the OP got the quote from. It apperas it came from here: http://blog.proform.com/?p=1846 Please do not post stuff on the messageboared without attribution, but thanks for explaining yourself.

llort wrote:

It isn't idiotic, you just don't understand the point, stop projecting.

To say there is no such thing as junk mileage is false. If you can't recover from it then it is junk.

No, it is idiotic as is your latest post. I understood your point perfectly. Do you not understand mine?

I said if you can handle and recover from 200mpw then you WILL improve. Do you disagree with that? If you do, then you don't know what you're talking about.

The idiotic thing about your latest post is that I never said there was no suchtthing as junk mileage. Nor did I say anything about projecting (whatever that's supposed to mean). Nor did I say that if you can't recover from it then it isn't junk.

RationalActor wrote:

I get the sense anecdotally that there is certainly a residual effect from lifetime miles, but have never seen any research on how long that lasts or by what mechanism it is effected.

i get this sense to, especially for masters runners who have been going at it for 30+ years. but i would really like to see some research that backs this up.

LetsRun.com Editor's note: We tried to figure out where the OP got the quote from. It apperas it came from here:

http://blog.proform.com/?p=1846

 Please do not post stuff on the messageboared without attribution, but thanks for explaining yourself.

"DON"T POST STUFF WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION"????? WHAT?????? This entire website is almost solely dedicated to posts WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION.

Lagat always says that he and James Li approach things as "only do what will benefit you the most consistently long term, not more, not less. I could go out there and kill a hard workout but compromise a couple weeks of training. Do a moderate workout instead and get more fit over the long term as a result."

So yes, there is such a thing as junk mileage. I've run over 100 mpw twice now and both times only got slower. The extra miles made me slow and I couldn't recover. In line with what Lagat says, you run what will make you good, not less and not more. Lagat found that for him that is usually 60 mpw with 70 mpw at times in the base phase or during his half marathon prep. For some people that mileage may be more though(Wilson Kipsang doing 110 mpw). It depends on the individual. Some recover fast, some recover slow.

I applaud Hall, because he finally is realizing the most important thing, getting to the starting line. If you can't even start let alone finish a marathon you're doing something wrong. I remember heading into NYC he was so confident after getting in 18-20 miles a day every day for 2 months or something. And he thought he'd stay healthy by not going faster than marathon pace til 6 weeks out. And he got injured.

Hall is better off doing say 10-12 miles on his easy days and making the starting line than going 18-20 miles on his easy days and getting injured. Plus as another poster alluded to earlier, the miles stay in the legs. With years of work you don't need a monster base. At this point in his career Hall could do fine off of 90 mpw for marathons because he has been doing 100+ mpw for so long.

he rarely races

now he's not training

he rarely races

now he's not training

HRE wrote:

I think you've nailed it. Hall has years and years of big miles behind him and I don't think he'd have been as fast as he has without those miles. But after a while you don't need as much mileage as you once did and may be better off on less.

After about six years at 100-150 weeks I had almost two years with no PRs and dropped to 75-90. I got one last stretch of PRs from that. If you followed Ron Hill's career, you saw that he did 120-130 mile weeks when he was prepping for marathons from the mid 60s to mid 70s. Then he dropped his average to around 65 per week with high stretches of 90 or so and ran some of his better times, though he never got under 2:12 then.

THIS EXACTLY. People too often focus on MPW. It's so freaking arbitrary. In the end is CUMULATIVE MILES IN YOUR LEGS. HALL HAS A TON. He will benefit from those for a long time.

NEUORTIC NERD RUNNERS HAVE SOME BElIEF THAT IF THEY EVEN DROP THEIR MILEAGE FOR A DAY, ALL OF THE BENEFITS WILL DISAPPEAR.... It's mind boggling.

yyy wrote:

he never counted warmup/cooldown

he said anything 3 miles or longer counts on twitter

add 30mpw.

wut

the epo test was flawed because it wasn't developed properly at the time. Today he would have tested negative.

Innocent in other words.

was the epo test flawed when marion jones's b sample came back negative for epo?

P.S. - She was taking epo the entire time

OverTheHillAndBackAgain wrote:

NEUORTIC NERD RUNNERS HAVE SOME BElIEF THAT IF THEY EVEN DROP THEIR MILEAGE FOR A DAY, ALL OF THE BENEFITS WILL DISAPPEAR.... It's mind boggling.

THIS!!! Exactly like the moron kid running around Boston last year who got detained.

Very good point here. I think its worth pointing out, that some like Lagat could probably not run a step for 2 weeks then run a sub 4 minute mile simply because he has all the years of training in his legs.

Yeah I'll believe in the efficacy of this training method when Hall A) actually finishes a marathon and B) Wins a marathon that actually counts for something.

Considering that EVERYONE uses recovery/maintenance runs, he should in theory have an advantage over everyone. Because as we all know, more volume and high quality always equals more improvement, because people never plateau.. That's why Al Sal had such a long, successful career with multiple world championship and olympic medals....

Yeah I'll believe in the efficacy of this training method when Hall A) actually finishes a marathon and B) Wins a marathon that actually counts for something.

Considering that EVERYONE uses recovery/maintenance runs, he should in theory have an advantage over everyone. Because as we all know, more volume and high quality always equals more improvement, because people never plateau.. That's why Al Sal had such a long, successful career with multiple world championship and olympic medals....

You might get away with much lower mileage in racing season or for one year, and you can always try to pick up the pace on the non-workout miles when you are feeling good, but the extra miles that put you well over 100 have been proven over and over to be irreplaceable over the long-term in the marathon. We'll see if Hall even starts the race, but the # of times people trumpet the value of a new lower mileage system before a race is far greater than the # of times they do so after the races. I feel quite fresh, when not sick, on my current low mileage of about 70 per week, as opposed to the usual 100-112, and have run some good workouts, but so far no special races and this is just one season. In previous years trying this, I usually run a bit over my pr's, not too badly, but not achieving any aims.

funny...i've never gotten injured doing an easy 4-5 miler...but i have hurt myself try to run too fast or do too much volume in a workout.

I’ve been running a lot less on my recover days, but my workouts have been higher quality and higher in volume because I am recovering better by not running as many miles.

I basically audited my training and eliminated a lot of junk mileage that wasn’t really helping me and leading to injuries.

How much warmup for 11mi tempo at 5 pace? And does 70 figure account for his 80 days off and several week summer taper?

How much warmup for 11mi tempo at 5 pace? And does 70 figure account for his 80 days off and several week summer taper?

HRE wrote:

I think you've nailed it. Hall has years and years of big miles behind him and I don't think he'd have been as fast as he has without those miles. But after a while you don't need as much mileage as you once did and may be better off on less.

After about six years at 100-150 weeks I had almost two years with no PRs and dropped to 75-90. I got one last stretch of PRs from that. If you followed Ron Hill's career, you saw that he did 120-130 mile weeks when he was prepping for marathons from the mid 60s to mid 70s. Then he dropped his average to around 65 per week with high stretches of 90 or so and ran some of his better times, though he never got under 2:12 then.

Hello HRE

I open with a sound bite. In the past Ryan did burn himself with more mileage that necessary, and the consequence it´s that he will never run a sub 60:00 once again and he will never run again the same performance quality he did in the marathon.

Do you want to bet that with me ?

This is always the same problem. How long do you want to delay your career at your best top performances, or you want to get the very high top and you are done ? We got the answer to Ryan Hall to this question, Their Pbs are records or his personal history and i can´t replicate that in ten present. However he wants to continue, or he would give up from try long ago.

The day Alan Webb did the US record, the day Solinsky did sub 27:00 10000m the day Dan Ritz did the 5000m US record and the days Ryan Hall did sub 60 HM and the day he did sub 2:07 i did beat that they will never do never again the same quality performances and that the decline in the world top competitive performances will finish at that performances.

Meanwhile, imagine Bernard Lagat and some others they stay on the top for so long.

This is the context i advice you to think of.

Not your own individual case that for this context means nothing at all, or just a little thing, and not about Ron Hill that did his best marathon pbs late career for 2 kind of reasons. One, because the marathons he did at that time were wong measured and shorter the legal, and second as he never knew how to train properly, he did rain too much and too much wrong till the 72 olympics, here it is the reason why the best marathons were better in late career, not because after many years of training he doesn´t need so may miles, but because he did too much mileage and too much wrong training the early years.

Finally, i say what i say about Ron Hill, but don´t think - as usual - that i underestimate the man. Ron is one of the runners i most admire, and one of teh last that while be a part-time runner and a nom professional runner, he did very good performances relate to those that today they basically they just train, eat, drink and sleep and rest.

But one thing is to admire the man, the runner, his talent, doted for long distance runs, the man that always get a full time job and did the olympics and many more outstand results, other thing is to say that he did the proper training.

Plenty examples of the typical letsrun idiocy of extremes on this thread. Some on this thread are talking about only 20 mpw. Others 200 mpw. Neither apply to Hall.