High Mileage and real improvements

It took about a year and a half for milage to pay off. In high school I only ran maybe 40mpw, but once out of high school within 2 years I was near 70-80 with higher weeks near 100..I did have a few injuries, but I went from 29:30 5mile to 26:30 5mile within 1 1/2-2yrs. I rarely did interval work during this time..I just tried to get in miles. Now 6 years out of high school I can consistantly run 80-100+ miles a week for a base and with some intervals my times have dropped in all distances, but more in the longer stuff like 10k and half marathons. My first half marathon 96' was a 1:29 and within 3 years I ran 1:15 on the same course. I currently have a 1:11:50 half marathon pr and a 32 min 10k on the track. So, yeah with more milage and not being afraid to take chances by upping the milage has improved my running!

60 max, 10 mile pr was 1:05:42. did 100's/90's all spring ran a 1:00:04 ten, and a variety of other times that were significvantly faster than i had previously run. Consequently i got injured, healed run 60 a week of quality miles and now run a 58:56 ten mile. just train, you can get there on either road.

these posts are getting good!

first off, to all those out there who said "but my times were not as fast as yours"--it's fine. sure it'd be great if we could all run 29 and change for 10k, but i'm all for pushing personal limits.

my story: ran 35-40 in h.s.

walked on at college, injured for 2 years. PR's at end of my junior year, with all the workouts, and averaging about 65/week: 15:55 5k, 33:20 10k. 26:26 5mile.

summer before senior year, i tore two tendons in my ankle and partially tore my achilles; latter undiagnosed for two years. i got back to my cusomary 65-70/week, ran 26:50 (in pain) for 5miles.

after being told i would not run again without surgery ad taking 5 weeks off, i told the doctors--who said i had "only tendonitis"--to f themselves, and i progressed as follows: 34, 38, 37, 80, 101. no workouts, just distance on trails. yes, it's fast progression but keep in mind our thread here...

ended up averaging about 87 miles for 12 weeks, one 6mile tempo per week as the only workout. my heel could take nothing but mileage...first race back, i PRed by over a minute: 32:07.

does mileage work? yes. does quality help? sure, i'd have run another 45 sec faster. but mileage alone WILL DO THE TRICK.

as others have noted, it just takes time (i know all the physiology behind this, but won't bore you guys).

enjoy the miles!

20 miles a week-5:04 1600

60 miles a week-4:31 1600 9:23 3200

80-90 miles a week -4:14 1600 9:06 3200 14:31 5000

90-100 miles a week-4:08 1600 8:46 3200 14:19 5000

Actually ran my best year ever at 70-80 miles a week but coming off of a fall at 95-100 a week.

Also ran 1:03:44 for half-marathon after a break followed by 8 weeks of 120-140 a week. Zero quality, no running under 5:50 pace.

wow that half mary pr is awesome

High mileage is key when it comes to dropping times dramatically. I went from 60-75mpw w/ a 10k pr of 34:15 on the track. The following summer i moved to 100mpw and kept this mileage for most of the next year (minus a few pre-race tappers) the next track season my 10k dropped to 31:27. Almost three minutes in one year!!. The plan was something like this. Monday: 4am/10pm, Tu: 12pm, Wed:4am/10pm, Th: 12 pm, Fri:4am/10 pm, Sat: 7am/7pm, Sun:20

None of these runs were done extremely fast between 7&6:30 pace.(save the occasional need for a hard run) The long runs on Sunday were done WITH oxygen,(aerobically). I believe Colorodo also trains this way, i'm sure theirs is a little more fine tuned though. Let's say you're building a pyramid, the bigger your base(volume of mileage) the taller the peak(maximum effort) of the pyramid will be. Trying to run a decent PR with low mileage is like trying to fire a canon out of a canoe.

100 is just a number, i learned that the hard way...dont focus on the number, just train as much as you can without getting injured to improve.

my buddy/training partener used to be a fet freshman. his first race was 23 minutes on a fairly easy course. over the years he slowly built up his miles untill over the summer he was averaging 70mpw hitting 100 as his high. at states thisyear he placed second in the B race. Brian dalpiaz won. At feds he palced 16th. pretty damn inspiring if you ask me.

pretty inspiring for sure

Different people respond different to high/low mileage systems. In college, we had a guy that ran pretty well on 75-80 miles a week (about 25:00 8K XC, 14:40 5K indoors, sub-31 10K outdoors) while doing two hard workouts a week and racing once every week or two (normal college racing). His junior year, after not running real well during cross, convinced the coach to redshirt him and not do the workouts (he did some tempo runs and fartlek on his own), but up his mileage to 90-95 a week. At the end of indoor season, he jumped in a 5K unat and ran 14:18. He felt great and looked incredible. The coach had him start doing workouts again for outdoors, and his performances suffered again.

Another guy on the team the year before was a fifth year senior in a very tough academic program. He had come to college a 3:55 1500 and 15:30 5K guy. His first three years, he only dropped a few seconds in each event while running 70-75 miles a week and diong a couple of hard workouts a week (up from 40-45 in HS). His fourth year, he was in a very intense academic program so that he couldn't be at practice a couple of days a week. Running 45-50 miles a week and running one hard workout (with the team) and one moderate workout (on his own), he dropped down to 3:47 and 15:10. He ran about the same his fifth year on similar mileage.

Other guys on our team ran great on the 65-80 each week with two hard workouts. The point is, you have to learn what works best for your body at what times. High mileage isn't necessarily the answer for everyone and not everyone will improve doing fast track workouts.

What about the age factor? For guys in their thirties and higher, quality comes in different forms and more races are run on strength rather than speed. I ran my fastest 5k (15:10)in years last spring a week before a 2:28 marathon. Simply got faster as race progressed (miles of 5:00, 4:52, 4:48). Distance was in 90's and low 100's building in cycles of three weeks on, one week at 70% of previous week. Speed work all spring was things like 3 x 4 miles at 5:30 pace, hardly conducive to 4:55 racing. Now for guys with real speed and aspirations (i.e. under 13:50) clearly more quality is essential, but I've found that simply by doing lots of miles and longer quality (tempo, hills, fartlek) times of all races improve, as well as reduces the injury factor.

Anyway, thats my ramble.

what about the 'crash' system of training...Is this similar to Carmichael's system? It seems that it could be version of it, more specific to quality rather than extensive quantity.

I post a similar question on the thread 'crash and burn....or crash and fly' on this board. There is a link to Owen Anderson's article on the Chinese 'crash' system of training.

Never sacrifice quality for quanity.

This has been my problem for the last 2 years. I have been stubborn to run at least 50mpw no matter how my legs felt. My legs got more and more tired throughout the year but I was "disciplined" enough to keep my mileage at my weekly goal. This resulted in me having to run these miles slower and slower as intervals got harder and my legs got fatigued. The last three races of the year I bombed even though I finally backed off to 45miles, 15, 15. Know your body. Don't build miles just to build miles. Make sure you keep them at a steady pace. If you have to slow down these miles, you are doing too much. Back off and make sure your base is built right. If your base is fatigued(quanity), you will crack. If your base is strength (quality and quanity), you will have an excellent season and peak correctly.

Since December of last year I've stepped up my milege from 80-105 to 100-140. It's been that way up to this point with only one break during Feb-March. During my lighter times I put up 30:50 and 14:37. So far from the fall I've managed to knock under 15 min. for 2 out of 4 5k's (one that came right after a 135 m.wk.) I'm not sure what my track season holds for me but im sure it will be fast. In the past 5 months i've done 4 REAL workouts consisting of 5x2 miles @ 9:30-9:45---2k intervals crossing at 4:37-4:44 and hitting miles at 4:27. The track isn't my concern right now but after a strong Marathon it will be and that's when i'll know for sure just how much good this has done. In my opinion the work is long and boring but the workouts and races get easier.

I have been gradually increasing mileage over the last several months, pushing the envelope a bit this past summer. I maxed out at 110 and averaged 100 during my peak month or so. I did less speedwork than ever, but did some long marathon pace runs. At age 38, I ran a PR at Chicago (2:34:43) and 6 weeks later ran 2:36:00 on the hilly Atlanta Marathon course. (Pretty good for a guy with practically no natural ability!) My previous PR was 2:35:12 in '99 (Peaked at 85 mi/week), but I have been struggling since then (2:38, 2:39) and not improving. Higher mileage seemed to make the difference. I actually felt the best during the highest mileage weeks.

I am a 4:01.51 indoor miler (1999). I decided to run a marathon three months ago, ran 9 weeks at over 100 miles and ran 2:18:51 in my first attempt. I am a believer in mileage now, and know that my 1500m and 5000m prs will fall this track season from the increase in base training. It takes time to run that much, but it is worth it.

while doing 70s

5k-16:06 8k 28:50

One year later while doing 90s

5k- 14:57 8k 25:50

Of course I have had injury trouble the last two years, but f-it why not go for the gold?

Ran 43:40 for an eight mile race two years ago, off of 40-50 miles a week. Stayed at about 40-50 for a year with a lot of breaks and time off. This summer, went up to 70 and ran 41:52 without any speed. Ran 8:44 with no speed first meet of the season 80 miles a week for the last 10 weeks. Previous PR 8:49 with tons of speed like 10 weeks worth. High mileage helps you just have to progressively get into it.