Wow, just came across this thread for the first time. Some really great stuff in here. I've definitely got more belief in high volume training, as a high mileage guy myself working towards the marathon. Would love to find out how Nike Free Me did in his late 20's and now in his early/mid 30's aswell, but I guess we will never know...
Your mega-mileage approach is well documented on these boards, and may be something I one day try myself. I was curious - you mentioned running 70mpw as a junior, progressing to high mileage later.
Just wanted to ask:
What were your PRs before the mileage rose (i.e.: PRs at 70mpw?)
What were your PRs after your years of 130 - 150mpw?
That was some time ago. I had run 38:00 for six miles and 18:04 or something for three as a college sophomore. I was generally in the 35-45 range then and that May did my first marathon in 4:34:30. That summer I got up to about 50, then 60 mpw, finished off the summer with a couple 70 mile weeks and then the mileage went back down during cross country season as that was the era of constant intervals. I did manage to stay around 50-60 and followed that with a 3:29:42 marathon after cross country season, then 3:24:29 the following February, which I followed up with a mile/ 2 mile double where I PRed in the mile the following night. It was 5:03 and I think was the last mile I ran for several years. I also got to 34:30 for six miles and into the mid 17:00s for three so I was basically running the same pace for three and six miles at my best, which was not happening in every race.
At that point I was making a point of staying around 70 and then 80. It was during the summer before my senior year that I started doing 100 or more a week so my time in the 70-80 range was fairly short. I got to 32:29 for six miles as a senior in cross country but only to 17:04 for three miles, so my best three had happened en route. I was student teaching during senior track, ran the Boston Marathon midway through the season and got very, very, sick shortly afterward which pretty much wiped out a lot of the season. I did three steeplechases which were just embarrassingly bad and a high 34:00 for six miles. So I didn't really finish college running with a bang
That summer I started doing 120-150. Track racing was done and cross country mostly was. There weren't many opportunities for those things in those days once you were out of school. So I really just focused on marathons but managed 32:29 for 10 km on the roads and 15:34 for 5,000 on the track in 1975. I got a 9:58 for two miles in an all comers meet and got my marathon to 2:42:35 in December of '75. That was my last PR for over two years and I almost gave up serious running at the start of 1978 but decided instead to do only what I wanted in training which kind of meant that I stopped doing doubles. That got my miles down to 75-90 and I got one last wee burst of PRs in that era, 4:48 for the mile,9:56 for two miles, 15:33 for 5 km, 19:53 for four miles, 32:20 for 10 km, and 2:35:21 for the marathon. So really my best times came off of much less than 120-150 and I have wondered if I'd have been better off just doing that much. But in that earlier stretch of 70-80 I wasn't running anywhere near as fast as I was in the second go round at that level. I think the big factors there were that I was coming down to that mileage so I was running a lot faster with no increased effort, and that "quitting" serious running cleared up a lot of weird mental stuff that I'd attached to my running from 1976 to '78.
What do you mean the "weird mental stuff" that you got attached to your running? High mileage ended up turning you crazy? So quitting was kinda liberating in fact?
I was afraid you'd ask that because it will force me to think of how to make a fairly long story fairly short, Having once been so slow, when I found out that running more mad you faster ( in those days there was not a lot of information about running available) I just decided to do loads of it and see how fast I got. I never really had a goal. I remember once semi fantasizing about running a marathon in under three hours, but usually I just went into each race hoping to run a bit faster than I'd done the last time.
But when I got the marathon to 2:41 in 2 1/2 years, an hour fifty three faster than my first, I started thinking about the Olympic Trials Marathon. Specifically, I thought that if I could drop 1:53 from mid '72 to late '75 it was not unreasonable to think I could drop another 19 minutes between late '75 to 1980. You needed 2:23 and that became my goal. Here's where the story could get longer but the short version is I did not do well with having a specific goal. I started paying attention to race splits thinking I need X time by Y distance rather than just thinking I should finish this one a bit faster than I'd done the last one.
When two years with no improvement passed I gave up "The Quest" but not racing. I went back to racing as hard as I could but even without expecting to be faster than the last time. When that last burst of PRs came around I decided that maybe I still could get a Trials qualifier, that maybe I should stay at the lower mileage or even drop some more. I went back to having goals, paying attention to splits, etc. And again it went badly. I couldn't go any faster. So the weird mental stuff was that I'd changed my mental approach to racing without really knowing it. And I did not figure out what had happened for many years.
I know I'm late to the party, but I am tired of being mediocre and want to really start taking things seriously. I have always been a low mileage guy and am currently running 60 mpw, more than I ever have. How quickly can I build to 100 mpw? Daniels calls for 4 weeks of running at each new mileage peak to allow the body to adjust. Can I increase mileage more aggressively or will I just have to be patient?
If it matters, I'm 21 years old and have never had a major injury. Thanks for any responses.
If you're running 140 miles a week you better be sub 14 and sub 29.
Most people who move to that kind of mileage do so because they are not even close to those times. High mileage will get people far, but there is a narrow crossover between those who are talented enough to run 14/29 but need 140 mpw to reach those goals. Ie if you're getting close on 100 mpw, you probably stay there and don't risk injury - you move up when you're nowhere near or when you're no longer improving.
If you're running 140 miles a week you better be sub 14 and sub 29.
Most people who move to that kind of mileage do so because they are not even close to those times. High mileage will get people far, but there is a narrow crossover between those who are talented enough to run 14/29 but need 140 mpw to reach those goals. Ie if you're getting close on 100 mpw, you probably stay there and don't risk injury - you move up when you're nowhere near or when you're no longer improving.
You and I travel in different circles. My peers move up to become competitive at the next higher levels. Mostly, they achieve at those levels.
Most people who move to that kind of mileage do so because they are not even close to those times. High mileage will get people far, but there is a narrow crossover between those who are talented enough to run 14/29 but need 140 mpw to reach those goals. Ie if you're getting close on 100 mpw, you probably stay there and don't risk injury - you move up when you're nowhere near or when you're no longer improving.
You and I travel in different circles. My peers move up to become competitive at the next higher levels. Mostly, they achieve at those levels.
More to the point, it should be total time on the feet, not volume of miles. So, a person running two hours per day might only be at 100 mpw initially but move to 140-150 quite naturally as they get fitter. And it shouldn’t increase injury risk. It’s all about adaptation and adding increased stress over time. See one Mark Nenow…
aight ya'll who hoppin on this train for the next 4 years.
tokyo 2020 here we come
Said everyone and then covid hit
I don't know about anyone else, but my mileage went way up because of covid. Had a couple low weeks when I was staying inside and just running on the treadmill, but then it was deemed safe to go outside and I started WFHing, and I ran more than ever before. Turns out not having a commute, and not having to do things like put on pants, makes it a lot easier to run a lot more. I averaged 130mpw for the summer, felt great when I dropped down to 90-100 for the winter, and then we were forced to come back into the office and since then I've felt a lot worse running half as much.
I always felt that 140 miles is a bit much for 10k-HM as it gets harder to get in the relevant fast sessions. For muddy XC and marathon it was good. Ran one of my best XC seaaons ever after a good diet of 140-150 mile weeks although I didn't hit much stuff quicker than 5 minute pace.
You and I travel in different circles. My peers move up to become competitive at the next higher levels. Mostly, they achieve at those levels.
More to the point, it should be total time on the feet, not volume of miles. So, a person running two hours per day might only be at 100 mpw initially but move to 140-150 quite naturally as they get fitter. And it shouldn’t increase injury risk. It’s all about adaptation and adding increased stress over time. See one Mark Nenow…
Do the math and that's impossible. 2 hours/day for 100 mpw = 8:24/mi; @ 140 = 6:00/mi. I found I got a lot faster going from 70 to 100 mpw, but my average pace barely budged. To get up to 140 you're going to have to intentionally run a lot more, no way around it.