Anyone have any stories of getting way better with increased mileage? Let's hear it.

Damn something ate my post.

I was a mediocre high school runner, 7th man JV my senior year and could not run track because we were only allowed three runners per race. My best time was 3:55 for a 1320 and in cross about 11 minutes fir 2 miles. Not good enough to think about running in college I continued running some and bicycling while working 22 hours per week.

I started grad school and joined the Reserves right after. At 24 I decided to run seriously at the beginning of August and through a couple things I was up to 80 mile per week and soon started to run with the Pomona College XC team. That upped my pace and a beginning of training traditional 21 run I averaged faster than 6:50/mile. I had about six or seven weeks of 100 miles per weeks and some of my long runs were quick and a lorry of the miles were pretty quick running with the team. On December 1st I ran my first race, a 2:52 marathon.

I continued periods of high mileage over the next several years and ran 2:40 then a couple 2:35s despite my 10 km of 34:40. Then planatar fascia knocked me off and I could not run enough so I raced USCF for several years, winning a lot of uphill time trials and my age group in a biathlon.

I so wish I had the modern shoes because my feet caused me repeated problems and I wore early very heavy orthotics - with current shoes for training and racing.

One thing I observed was that my running buddies all had 10ks faster than I ever ran but they did both less mileage and slower, much slower on long runs where I was running since of the 17-20 mile runs fast, goal pace+ fast (the first 20 miles of a marathon in about 1:53-1:55 so I was ready to get 2:30. If you are doing all of your long runs at 7:30 pace I don't see how you can prepare your body to store enough glycogen.

The function isn't linear so even using a second order term would help (even though it's not the right form, maybe I will fiddle with tire data) and there is an overall downward trend as well. So the coefficients likely would yield closer to 2.5 to 3.0 seconds per 10 miles. But the long term training effect would give you better time than plugging in to the fitted curve that does not include long-term effects. Since calendar time correlates with the mileage and should negatively mile time you are getting too much in the estimated mileage coefficient.

Yes, a 2nd order regression turns back up before he gets to 4:00 but a power function (I'm only playing with Excel's built in functions here) gets him there at around 115mpw. If he can get to 230mpw, the WR is his :)

Playing around like this is fun. I no longer have the capabilities for running some non- linear regression functions that I would like.

The analysis I have wanted to do was the effects of wind on the Long Jump. My data speciation was to us the championship finals and some DL. I would use a fixed effects specification with variables for each jumper, each site, and maybe altitude but the site picks that up also. Then your primary explanatory variable is wind, explaining distance. I might also consider the variability of the wind because it affects the accuracy of the plant on the board.

The R Square/ Goodness of fit metrics might not be that high but with a lot of data you could get reasonable estimates of the wind effects

No one in the history of running has ever improved by adding more mileage, what are you high?

Depending on your age and injury history, more miles may not be the answer. More quality miles may be the answer. You can definitely change something as opposed to a 50% increase in miles. Yes you can bump up slightly, but adding in tempo work, hills, plyos, etc. will help. Just be careful with making a change, you want to make small changes in your program, not drastic ones.

9:40/4:25 ish HS runner. No improvement ages 19-20. Started trying to run 100 mile weeks for 4 months. Besides mileage; lost weight and probably matured physically since HS. First 2 mile race after 4 months sub 9:20. Over next 2 months broke 9:10. Continued to improve after that....IT WORKS!!!

In high school I raced against a kid named Ed Sheehan in cross country. He was an earnest, nice guy. I outkicked him in one race and we chatted amiably afterwords. We probably ran low 16:00s that day on a flat 5k course.

He was a good, if not great high school runner. He went on to run for Harvard. I ran into Ed at a meet a couple years later, maybe in sophomore year. He'd quickly improved that year to be one of the best college runners in New England, meaning under 9:00 for 2-miles. I asked him what made the difference in his improvement?

"90 miles per week" was his answer, plain and simple.

Ed went on to run a 2:13 marathon, which was solidly national class back in the 80s. He also became the track coach at Harvard. Ed tragically passed at age 47 or so, as he had a health issue. He was a determined, quietly impressive guy.

Yes i see this

Yes i see this

Older guy:

25-30 mpw: solid 3:13 marathoner when I was 45.

40-45 mpw: 2:59 marathoner when I was 50.

In high school I ran 4:35 in the mile, 2:00 in the 800, and 16:50 for 5k XC on an average of 20-25 miles a week.

First year in college I worked up to 60 in the cross build before settling around 50. That year I ran 4:20 in the mile, 1:58 in the 800 and low 26 in 8k cross country.

If done correctly, volume is the single most effective way to drop times.

Pretty linear for me:

40 mpw - 15:50 (xc)

50 mpw - 14:55

65 mpw - 14:10 (though much harder workouts)

I ran 30ish mi/wk (topped out at 42 mi/wk) my last semester in college while running XC. I ran the Tufts 10k (or whatever it was called long long ago.) in over 40 minutes. I graduated in December and started running 50 mi/wk in January. By the summer I was running in the 36s then 35s. The Boston club running scene had much better workouts than my college XC had.

I ran X-C in college back in the late 1970's, early 80's at a college near Boston. So I often ran at the Franklin Park course. I never made varsity at my college, I was an 880yd runner. My best time at that course my Jr. year was 27:30ish averaging 35-40 mi/wk. The summer before my Sr. year I started consistently running 55-60 mi/wk. I ended my season running 25:50. Not a HUGE improvement, but significant to me.

My first marathon was 2:52. 32 mpw in 12 weeks.

2nd was 2:35 with 16 weeks at 40 mpw, and the last 10 weeks at 55 mpw.

could never do more than 60 mpw without breaking down.
pBs in 10k and half marathon when I went up to 50’s

was a 400/800m/1500 guy

Female runner. Increased mileage from 45 —> 60 —> 65 as a HS runner and added strength training. Went from 5:30 -> 5:10 -> 4:57 mile from sophomore to senior year. Ran a 20:10 5k road race freshman yr with similar XC times. Ended up around 18 mins for XC 5k senior year.

Ran d1 in college and ended with PRs of 4:45 (mile)/ 9:18(3k)/16:12 at 80-90mpw. No RED-S, minimal injuries.

I ran low mileage for a good 20 years and during that time was very much middle-of-pack across all distances. Covid came and I took the opportunity to reflect on life. Among other things, I came to the realization that at 36 I had never really went all in on any dream.

So on a whim, I relocated from the East Coast to Durango and rented a house with a couple of trail runners (yes, I was the weird old guy there!!). It was supposed to be a 90 day stint but I absolutely fell in love with the town. I ended up staying there for two years, getting a local job, and building up to triple digits by the end of it, with some significant weekly vert to match. It's a magical thing watching your body change; lbs dropping, muscle and tendons sharpening, hardening, dropping big PB's mid-long run. It was incredible.

In early '23, feeling very confident in my fitness, I flew to California and ran the Big Sur marathon. Unfortunately it was unusually gusty that day, but I wasn't going to let a little wind stop me! I ran a massive negative split and in doing so took 32 minutes off my marathon PB, for a final time of 3:34.

The Boulder experience only lasted a few more months before I ended up moving back to the East Coast to try and salvage my relationship with the wife and kids. That ultimately didn't work out so the whole experience is still very bittersweet for me, but I'll take those running memories (along with that PB) to the grave...

Torpedoing your life for a 3:34 is WILD