The problem with 100 MPW

Snell always struggled with distance work and told me that for most of his career he was doing maybe 70-80 miles a week. But there were weeks where he went higher and sometimes got to 100. He did not get to 100 regularly except for a 10 week stretch before Tokyo when he ran 1,001 miles in that time.

I enjoyed watching a documentary on NZ running which had an interview with John Walker. Walker had spent some time with Snell, in Davis ( I think), and had looked at Snell's old training diaries. There were a bunch of blank pages and Walker asked Snell about it. Snell said something like, "I couldn't be bothered".

I had wondered if Snell was too FT for these big volumes, but I don’t think his sprint times indicated this?

From what I have read from the Olympian to Scientist book, it seemed more of a lack of time problem. At one point, Snell was commuting to work running back and forth.

Running to and from work is a great time saver but doesn't seem to happen much anymore. Time would have been something of an issue with all of Lydiard's guys at times given that they all had jobs. Bill Baillie took up taxi driving because he could set his own hours and run when he wanted. But everyone I know who knew Snell and knew his contemporaries have said he just wasn't all that keen on training and had a hard time getting himself out the door. There are stories of the group running to his house and throwing rocks at his bedroom window until he'd come out for the long run with them.

Back then, it must have been very counterintuitive to believe that such a volume of training was needed to race 800m/1500m. Maybe Snell had doubts?

i believe this completely.

John Walker, this guy had great optimism and passion, and also was branded lazy, taking most of the day lazing about, and forever to get the gumption for the 70 min afternoon run. training partners helped.

Also, this so called laziness can be rooted in a need to recover, not so much to be the best athlete, but healthy human being. so this is not actually lazy but a proper message to take it easy.

Both guys obviously overcame very well

Walker was not lazing about forever. He had a job at a quarry and ran on his lunch hour.

Walker wasn't lazy. All those NZ guys had to work jobs and train with the time they had. I read that Murray Halberg took a job with the parks because he wanted a physical job to help his fitness, even though he had a teaching certificate.

I ran slower at 70 MPW than at 40 MPW. The volume made no obvious difference for me.

I think most of those Kiwis did different things at different times. They didn't really have careers, just jobs. Lydiard made shoes and delivered milk. Halberg did a few things. I know he worked in a brewery for a while. Snell was a draftsman. Barry Magee owned a grocery store.Richard Tayler was a bartender for a while. Paul Ballinger had a chicken farm. John Campbell had been a fisherman and later owned a convenience store and then a motel. I think Jeff Julian was the only one with what we'd call a white collar job. He was a banker.

This is really interesting.

Do you have any papers/books/references on this, especially the durability of heart capacity? I'm not at all contesting Snell's assertion, just would love to read more if in fact it is true.

Thanks.

Edit: This is the information I am hoping you have additional references you could recommend.

Sorry. It was something we talked about. That's as far as we got.

How many miles for how many months/years would you reckon is necessary for this permanent heart enlargement?

Kenny Moore wrote about Bowerman coming close to having Lydiard come to Oregon and coach the distance runners at the school. It didn't pan out as Rothmans hired Lydiard and he could stay in NZ.

I saw the title and my immediate thought was "you have no life outside of your day job and running" Then again, I'm your friendly local hobby runner

I'm going to be a major disappointment to you here. Peter and I were talking about people who were serious about training and racing. We never got into specific numbers. Any answer I'd give you would just be a guess and honestly not one I've thought seriously about.

One example I can think of to use as maybe a reference point is Ron Hill. Ron started running on the high side of 4,000 miles a year beginning in 1963. When he was getting ready for a major marathon effort his miles would get to 120-130 a week. By 1974 he'd dropped his volume by about a thousand miles a year and was still well under 2:20 in a good race, was still a factor in big races. But that's still a lot of miles by most people's standards.

When I dropped from six years at 100-150 to 75-90 I didn't experience any kind of performance drop. In fact I got a wee bit faster for a time. Peter's time at big miles, for him, was about six years ending in 1965. We talked in 2002. He told me his VO2 max was the same then as when he'd been tested sometime during his peak years. In his case this was a giant fall off in mileage. He did some running in those 27 years purely for fitness and then later a bit more as he got into orienteering but never very much. I think he did a fair amount of cycling.

I just don't know of anyone who has looked at this in the way you're asking. It seems like something Jack Daniels might have chimed in on in the days he hung out here but it seems he's long gone. If you really want to get seriously interested in getting further into this you might want to see if you can get in touch with Robert Vaughn. He was a Ph.D student who worked with Peter and did do a bit of coaching once he had his Ph.D. I wouldn't be surprised if he is retired nor stunned if he was dead. But he was with Peter at the University of Texas Medical Center (I think that's what it was called) in Dallas.

Completely coincidentally I just came across a view different than Peter's, maybe. In 1967 Lou Castagnola ran 2:17 at Boston and became the fourth American under 2:20 for the marathon. In 1968 he missed the Olympic team and stopped running. His VO2 max was tested at a pre Olympic training camp and then again in 1971. The figure from '71 was 33% lower than the '68 number. That contradicts what Peter told me, sort of. Reports are that once he stopped running Castagnola actually became totally sedentary.