Running by time instead of miles...

You're still covering miles. Stop trying to make it seem like you're not. You must love the old Chicken and Egg argument.

You do not cover any miles whilst on a stationary exercise bike in the gym. Or on the eliptical or the rowing machine.

You must be simple to not understand the irrelevance of the distance covered.

There is a reason why in studies they use, for example, '30 minutes steady state exercise 3 times a week'. And not something like '5 miles three times a week'. The time you have been working aerobically for is what matters.

And so, with reference to the original question, when designing a training plan you should look at the time you are exercising for not the miles covered. I feel I am exhausting this subject now.

This is not something I would worry too much about. Personally I don't really see what the difference is in putting in a 4M ez or 35 min ez run on your schedule, but to each his own.

I feel the same way about HR vs Pace, just another way to measure the same thing.

Metric Miler wrote:

You do not cover any miles whilst on a stationary exercise bike in the gym. Or on the eliptical or the rowing machine.

You must be simple to not understand the irrelevance of the distance covered.

There is a reason why in studies they use, for example, '30 minutes steady state exercise 3 times a week'. And not something like '5 miles three times a week'. The time you have been working aerobically for is what matters.

And so, with reference to the original question, when designing a training plan you should look at the time you are exercising for not the miles covered. I feel I am exhausting this subject now.

I didn't realize you weren't actually a competitive runner. If you were a serious runner you would realize that you have to play the miles game in races.

You got a lot of mileage out of your argument though.

Now go and change your name to a time instead of a distance.

Miles of trials, not time wrote:

you have to play the miles game in races.

If you train to race, then this doesn't really matter.

You should address Miler's point that any peer-reviewed academic study on this matter would use time/effort as a metric and not miles. Yes, they can be more or less equivalent, but that doesn't mean training by time is not clearly better.

It's like measuring by gauge vs absolute pressure. Either can get you where you want, but absolute is less confusing, especially when trying to coordinate information among several people (like what's frequently done on this message board when people solicit advice on their training).