High mileage, NO speedwork. How much will I lose?

Just run then. Don't worry about others.
Maybe make sure that you cut down on the mileage when you feel it's a little much to avoid injury.

I also sounds like you might be the perfect candidate for ultras.

Fast running doesn't have to be hard running. If you'd like to get back to hard training, start including some easy but fast running. Start with strides, move on to 200s (long strides) and build up to things like 8x400 at 3k/5k pace w/ a few minutes of recovery.

Or just run easy for fun.

I ran a slightly faster than you marathon (my first, 3:17) off fewer miles - around 50 mpw and I run my easy days mostly at 9 minute miles or above.

So I wonder whether you find speed etc difficult and challenging because you are tired from your other runs?

If I ran all my runs at 8 min miles I would be exhausted and wouldn't want to run faster.

Why don't you just do 100 meter repeats at the same slow level then? Or switch to sprinting? Any type of long distance slow work seems like it's going to create the same level of stress for you.

Pretty sure you can maintain your fitness level with just slow 100 meter repeats. If that's what you're going for. You have to be willing to change it up. There's no such thing as long distance running is the only thing that's going to maintain fitness levels.

Just seems like a waste of time to me. Why are you doing 70-100? Quality over quantity.

If you're not going to be pushing yourself then there's no reason to do that many miles per week. You just said you have zero goals. So if you have zero goals then cut down the mileage alot to like 10 miles per week. And then just do 100 meter repeats on some days instead of long psychologically stressful runs.

The long slow runs also seem like they are creating high stress for you so there seems to be a contradiction here with what you said. Are you only doing the high mileage because you feel a need to because that's what you always have done? I did tons of distance running before I switched to sprinting so I know what distance running can do.

There's really no point in doing that many miles. I mean it gets to a point where you could do literally like 1 mile all out or somewhat all out and maintain your so called fitness levels.

Not many people here are willing to quit distance running and switch it up.

But yeah if your focus is only on long distance running and based on everything you said, then in conclusion you're not really going to get faster doing the same long slow distance running. But yet again you stated that wasn't a goal. So for you there seems to be more emphasis on overall fitness. And if overall fitness if what you're going for as your main goal then yeah you need to rethink what you really want to do.

But also in conclusion i'm still confused by your post and what you really want to do. So I don't even know if this is a good answer.

Also why do you think no one gives a crap how well you run? Tons of people do. I used to go to open track meets where I would have random strangers come up to me and tell me what they clocked me hand timed in the 400... Like one guy came up and was like I just got you in 51.36.. And I was like ok cool. I always ask people at the track that I don't know what they ran their interval in and how it compared to their last run.

There's probably a few more people that care about what you ran than you think.

You wont lose a lot. Speed is limited anyways. It is based on aerobic fitness.

She probably just needs more caffeine before the so called tough workouts.. Caffeine always works. So it might just be a lack of caffeine intake before the tough runs. That could be one factor. It's always better to just take more caffeine before a tough workout than to just freak out and not get the workout done at all.

As I read further into this, yeah seems like it. And if she's getting joint and tendon injuries from the long slow distance running then the mileage if anything needs to go way down. But yet again still confused because she just said she could happily spend all day running but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

Seems like the current mileage per week is causing the high anxiety before the so called planned speed work. So really confused now. So there seems to be some correlation between high anxiety and her current MPW. And if current MPW is causing it then it contradicts what she just said with happily running all day.

So the question is, is she really happy with 70-100 MPW ? I don't think she is. Seems to be destroying her mental health if anything at this point. Then the high expectations statement just seems to be adding to it. She has high expectations for herself but is not happy with progress.

But yet again I just had two beers before this thread, so that could be warping out my perception of this.

Sounds like the beers have indeed been warping your perception. My original post is a long read, but I believe I've made it quite clear long slow runs clear my mind and reduce anxiety. I get anxious before hard sessions but can't get to the bottom of why. Maybe it's pressure to hit a certain pace, perfectionism, fear of not completing the workout or something else. Maybe it's just the anticipation of discomfort that I don't get just logging miles at a nose breathing pace.

I was a therapist for many years and I'll tell you that I had many clients wonder why something was difficult for them and you'd really never find out why for sure. They might get answers that satisfied them but "why" is almost always answered with an opinion. Often we could get them to a better place without getting a definitive answer to "Why?"

That said, I always asked for people's opinions so I'd like to know why you feel the need to do harder sessions, Almost universally we do them because we believe they make us race faster especially at shorter distances. Maybe I've missed it, but I haven't seen anything from you that seems like you have really ambitious racing goals, especially for shorter events. I know you mention marathons but aren't talking about wanting to get a Trials qualifier here.

And it's not clear to me exactly what you're asking. Are you looking for some explanation as to why anticipating hard sessions creates anxiety? Are you looking for ways to get around that anxiety so you can do the hard sessions? Are you looking for a way to do some hard runs that maybe won't create so much anxiety? Are you looking for information suggesting you can get pretty decent results without much or any hard running? And I guess maybe the overall question here is where competitive running fits into your scheme. If the main reason you run is to clear your mind and for enjoyment there's no reason to do anything other than what you find does that for you.

I did read the entire first post before posting. Right, so a few questions then. What injuries did you get? You said you were doing 80MPW around this time last year. Are the injuries causing the anxiety now? Were the injuries from the tempo/or speed workouts? And is that causing you to become more stressed out from doing any type of speed workout now? Because that could be one of the reasons why you're stressing out about some things.

Any type of injury related to running is more than likely to cause you to become hesistant towards running fast again which then gives you more overall stress in my opinion.

So you could be just backing off for now so you don't get injured again. If that's the situation then yeah you should time everything and write it all down on a note pad and keep track of everything. I don't think what Aussie person said about not keeping track of everything and turning off your watch is the right solution to this. You WOULD want to write everything down and having something to compare to. That seems to fit your personality more since you are competitive it seems but don't have any competitive experience. I know alot of women like you who don't compete in anything but are competitive within their own self. And always try to push for PRs. So it seems like you want to go for PRs at some point. But I don't know for sure yet.

A PR is sort of like your own personal WR because it might not be a WR overall compared to everyone else but it's a WR within your own set of personal parameters to the point of which you have lived your life to this very point now...

I would suggest keeping track of everything. Write down times, dates, workout rest times, what you ate, body weight, run times, basically everything detailed out on a note pad. Then if you do this, you have something to look forward to and compare to. And you can get some type of happiness out of the fact that you improved on something. You can check what you ran 5 or 7 years ago and compare it to now...etc. And overall I think that would help you with having more fun.

I always keep track of everything that I run and try to see if I can gain an advantage in a certain area compared to what I did in like any given year that I want to compare now to.

This is a very interesting thread.

I think the OP made it clear in the her first post that she does have some ambition to run fast but is limited by anxiety of structured workouts. Maybe not a specific time to hit (e.g. Olympic Trials qualifier) but a respectable performance.

I can certainly relate to what the OP is saying and think she has been given a lot of great advice so far. Aside from obvious things like to keep doing strides, I think a progression run where you have no specific time goals but to finish strong at the end is a great one.

Also, I have seen a couple posts here with the phrase "hard tempo" and think that if you can get yourself out of the mindset that tempo runs should be hard, you may learn to enjoy them. Think of it more like going for a run at a "comfortably hard" pace for a set amount of time, e.g. 20 or 30 minutes. It's all about the training stimulus, don't worry about the pace.

Aside from that, as someone else mentioned, just doing a ton of easy miles works for some runners but will not work well for others.

OP, when I first saw your post I immediately thought of this old but classic thread. It may be of interest to you:

Matt Fitzgerald authored a book in 2010 called "Run, The Mind-Body Method of Running by Feel." One of the primary tenets of the book is that one must enjoy training. Most simply will not have long-term success if they do no find training to be fulfilling. No one is holding you hostage and forcing you to run. You'll move on to something more enjoyable if you don't enjoy running.

It sounds like you've found a method of training (L[ong]S[low]D[istance]) that you enjoy. No need to mess with that.

Perhaps down the road you may decide to pursue a specific time goal that may require different training stimuli. You can always experiment with speed play, intervals, hills, etc if you so choose.

I remember that thread too. I also remembered a woman called Roxi Erickson who had a best marathon in the upper 2:30s and ran in at least one Olympic Marathon Trial. I think maybe this was in the 90s but won't swear to it. I think Joe Henderson wrote about her and maybe someone else did as well.

What I recall from the articles is that her training was almost completely spontaneous. She often never knew what she was going to do on a run as she was starting it. She said something like "I could never imagine going out and planning to do a 30 km run." But she did do such runs. They just developed as the run went on. I don't know much more about her but I imagine on some runs but also unplanned things that developed as the run went on.

I do see that the OP has some interest in racing. I'm less clear about whether she wants to find that she doesn't need to do much in terms of harder planned runs or is looking for a way to do them but with less anxiety.

Thanks for your suggestions! I do think I will try just running by feel. Some faster work might come in the form of unstructured fartleks, hills or fast finish long runs but I think the key for me is to not set off with the intention and rather let it come only if I feel ready as you suggested.

As with the cross training, I have been pushing hard on a turbo trainer for months whilst I've been injured and think this is the main reason I am feeling pretty burned out from any kind of intensity at the moment. As ridiculous as it sounds, it's almost like a form of ptsd and I now dread hard cross training workouts more than running ones, but am pretty happy again to do low intensity cycling for cross training, provided its not too hard. I find high intensity cycling also fatigues my legs a lot and doesn't seem to mix well with my running at the moment.

Thanks! The main reason for my running is enjoyment and mental health at the moment. But, as for the question, I'm not really sure myself, entirely. I would ideally like to prevent the anxiety so I could do a bit of faster work, but again it would probably have to be unstructured or at least something I don't have to spend a lot of time planning with progressions etc. Just for my anxieties to be eased and for me to be happy to go for just a 6 mile tempo run once every 1-2 weeks. At the moment I feel my negativity and anxious feelings get right in the way of me even attempting them, even though they're not 'hard' workouts.

I don't really have any desire or goals for shorter events and never really have. I used to be good at the 100m dash in school but never actively trained for it (athletics and track season at my school in the UK only lasted a few weeks.. Because we rarely had the weather outdoors). But I found these races incredibly stressful. I would dread them weeks in advance. One year, my worst fear came true and I lost. I blamed it on the fact everyone else had growth spurts except me so my short arse legs held me back, but that was probably just to make me feel better about losing.

Anyway, when I got into running a few years later, my approach was terrible. I would go out for a max effort 5k 3 times per week (with very little improvement of course). I would caffeinate myself to the max, get super anxious, dread the runs and be close to vomiting by the end. I'm not sure why I did this, I guess I though it was the best way for me to get fitter.

Then I finally decided to slow things down and my mileage progressed quite naturally, without me consciously trying to. I found I really enjoyed the slow longer runs, and tended to feel better as the run went on. I still included two faster runs per week, which I dreaded similarly to the 5ks I used to do before. I have been afraid to let these go. I got rid of one of the sessions but kept the tempo run, which I still ran too hard.

Even now I have made a conscious effort to slow down on my tempo runs /workouts, the anxiety I felt beforehand never went away. I know I can enjoy them, but these feelings stop me even trying. I would love to get rid of this feeling, but if I can't, I was also hoping I could keep a decent level of fitness on almost all easy, low stress high volume running.

Thanks for the thread! Very interesting read. I agree I have been given very good advice by many on this forum and it has helped me a lot! Really appreciate it :)

The big thing to remember here is that this is a sport, it's recreation and supposed to be enjoyable. If it's not why do it? So if anticipating hard sessions is turning the sport into something that creates bad feelings the logical thing is to avoid them. But if I'm reading this correctly, for some reason you're also having a hard time deciding to do that? And the title of the thread seems to suggest that the reason has something to do with losing fitness or not performing well if you decide to race? Was that what motivated you to keep doing those all out 5 kms and vomiting three times a week?

Maybe I'm missing something here. But I don't get what's kept you from just deciding not to do those kinds of runs. And I am sorry if you've explained and I have missed it.

No worries. I'm not sure entirely why I felt like I had to, and I think that's the problem. I wanted to be a better runner, I wanted to be fitter, and back then I hadn't done any reading into the correct way to train so thought I'd get super good by hammering myself a few times per week. I didn't think I was supposed to enjoy it. I did it back then because I always felt good afterwards because of the endorphin rush, but only afterwards. I was studying for my exams at the time which caused me stress which I transferred to sport, but not in a healthy way.

I think I just wanted to be good at something, and thought pain was necessary.

Afterwards I did some reading, tried to improve my relationship with sport and realised it should be a hobby and should be enjoyable. I slowed down mostly, and I have done workouts that I have liked since, but the anxiety from that time in my life remains before I attempt something even moderately hard and I've forgotten how to listen to my body.