whats it feel like to run 100 mpw?

If you’re doing it for the checkbox, fine, but if you’re doing it for training effect, one week won’t do squat for you. You need to do it for at least 10-12 weeks for it to have an effect. It’s actually pretty easy to do if you’re properly training for a marathon. I do it all the time and I’m only doubling twice a week. I’m also doing two 1hr MP effort tempos and a long run. The rest of the runs are very easy recovery or easy pace. And that’s the key, knowing how to run an actual recovery run. I see so many idiots call their 6:40mpm runs “recovery” runs - news flash: Eliud Kipchoge runs his recovery runs at that pace. I’m a 2:30 marathoner, 1:11 HM, and my easy recovery runs are between 7:30 to 8:00mpm. My MP tempos are between 5:45 to 6:15mpm. The schedule is:

Monday: 12mi with 60mins of MP tempo

Tuesday: 12mi am Easy/Recovery (90mins), 6mi pm Recovery (45mins)

Wednesday: 10mi Medium pace with 10-12 15 ace strides/sprints

Thursday: 12mi am Easy/Recovery (90mins), 6mi pm Recovery (45mins)

Friday: 12mi with 60mins of MP tempo

Saturday: 14mi Easy/Recovery

Sunday: 23mi Long Run

That’s the Lydiard style weekly schedule for marathon training. 107 miles if you follow that exact schedule. It’s not that hard, my body can take it and I don’t feel trashed. I also don’t feel like an eating machine or in need excessive hydration. You only get into trouble if you aren’t recovering or running your tempos too hard. This is all sub anaerobic threshold training - you’re not dealing with hard intervals at all.

Coffee Bacon wrote:

There is a guy I saw on IG, Kevin Hopp.. I heard him on the rambling runner podcast earlier this year too..regular late 40s Dad/Teacher in San Diego, his running stats are sheer insanity..

He's on his 5th week of 180+ mpw..he's running a marathon everyday this summer, his goal is 70 marathons in 70 days, and he's on like 46 I believe..dude is an absolute riot to follow.

Thanks for mentioning this. I like motivating figures like this guy here.

Good find wrote:

Coffee Bacon wrote:

There is a guy I saw on IG, Kevin Hopp.. I heard him on the rambling runner podcast earlier this year too..regular late 40s Dad/Teacher in San Diego, his running stats are sheer insanity..

He's on his 5th week of 180+ mpw..he's running a marathon everyday this summer, his goal is 70 marathons in 70 days, and he's on like 46 I believe..dude is an absolute riot to follow.

Thanks for mentioning this. I like motivating figures like this guy here.

he still looks like cr...p. dad's body with the spare tire.

120 miles in a week is much harder. From there, adding any more mileage is a slog.

ohia wrote:

ive had a lifelong obsession with getting to 100mpw, just to say i've done it and feel it. presently, around 20mpw with not much effort. the most i've ever done was about 72mpw, 12 yrs ago. it sucked but not terribly.

part of me wants to take a full week of work off, and attempt to put in a 100mpw week. my tactic would probably be to frontload the week with mileage like crazy then hang on for the rest.

what's it feel like and would it be a suicide mission to go from around 40 or 50mpw and drop a 100 mile effort?

The only way to really know is to try. And seriously, for a single week, it's not even hard. You don't even need to take any days off work if you work regular hours (say 40/week). Just make sure you run twice every day, run 40 minutes before work and 40-80 minutes after work (40 Mon, Wed, Fri + 80 Tue, Thu), then split whatever is needed up between Saturday and Sunday.

Assuming you run 8 min/mile, that gets you to 60 miles (12 miles per day while working) by Friday already without any big runs. Leaves 20 miles each for Saturday and Sunday when you have the whole day. Do four 10-milers, two 12-milers and a 16-miler, whatever you feel like. Eat a lot and sleep a lot and it's a walk in the park. The hard thing is doing this over months.

A few threads you might like:

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3650731

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1143599

The 2nd is my favorite thread ever on Letsrun, about running 140 mpw. The 1st is about running 120+, and Malmo shares some of his old training logs which are really insightful.

It’s really not that bad at all. I worked up to 90 miles per week in college my last 1.5-2 years. After two years of 90s I easily worked into the 100s and it was not bad at all. That is the easiest way to do it. Basically ten years of running from 13 to 23 working up year by year so that now 100 is routine even with two workouts, a long run, two gym sessions, plyos, etc.

Eat a lot. Sleep a lot. Eat more. People underestimate how much they really need to eat. Peanut butter, nuts, avocados, other calorie dense foods are your friends. Doubles make it easier.

M/Thr - 8/4 double with strides and plyos

T/Fri - 12-14 miles workout AM /4-5 PM + gym

W/Sa - 10 miles easy

Sunday - 16-18 Long Run AM 4-5 PM

I did Jay Johnson’s SAM on non-gym days. It’s important to be strong enough from a musculoskeletal perspective to handle the mileage. Do NOT neglect the gym work and hills.

ohia wrote:

ive had a lifelong obsession with getting to 100mpw, just to say i've done it and feel it. presently, around 20mpw with not much effort. the most i've ever done was about 72mpw, 12 yrs ago. it sucked but not terribly.

part of me wants to take a full week of work off, and attempt to put in a 100mpw week. my tactic would probably be to frontload the week with mileage like crazy then hang on for the rest.

what's it feel like and would it be a suicide mission to go from around 40 or 50mpw and drop a 100 mile effort?

It would get ugly, but if you were able to suffer through the junk miles, you'd be able to do it. I'd recommend at least getting up to 50-60 miles a week consistently before trying this. If you can't do that for a couple of months, then clearly you don't care THAT much about hitting 100 miles per week. The reason we train is so we can train more. Start training more.

You can't jump to 100 mpw that quickly (from 50 to 100) unless you want to get injured soon afterward (or even before you get there).

Assuming you aren't one of the 1 in 100,000 genetic freaks that can just jump into high mileage, here is how you should do it;

Get comfortable running 70 mpw for a while, then ratchet up 7-8 miles per week to get to 85 mpw. And hold that for a couple weeks, then ratchet up 7-8 per week to get to 100.

You can probably jump quicker from 85 to 100, but your risk of injury goes up exponentially the quicker you make the jump.

As for piling on higher mileage. You have to run slower. Use a GPS watch to beep at you when you pace get's too fast so that you force yourself to slow down. Once you body adapts to the higher mileage, then you can let yourself run faster.

Once your legs adapt to the higher mileage you will feel a sense of "trail hardening" that happens in your legs. You will head out the door and your legs will feel battered and heavy, but then within a mile, you legs will just kick into gear and feel fine. That is the best feeling of high mileage, the sense that you can just hammer away, and even start to run faster, and you body just rises to the challenge.

I've always been more injury prone than the average runner, so I only made it to 100 mpw once, and I built up too quickly so I was injured soon thereafter. (I jumped from 90 to 100 in one week, if I had taken 2 weeks to build up, I probably would have been fine). But the time when I was running that much was an awesome feeling.

Other runners might be much less injury prone than I am, and so be able to get to 100 mpw without facing the same difficulty I had, and you might be one of those runners. But IMO it's always better to play it cautiously and avoid a potential 2-3 months of injury down time, assuming you are trying to train for racing fitness. If you just want to do 100 miles in one week to cross it off a bucket list, and you don't care about being injured afterwards, go nuts.

I recall some new Nike runner whining to Al Sal about how tired he felt due to training so much. Al Sal said "that's what it's like to be a pro runner. You are tired all the time, and when you taper for races, that's when you freshen up."

When I saw this thread, I decided to look at running log from the one time I did it, December 2-8 2013, to remember better how it felt at the time.

Reading back on it, it was more tough mentally than physically. I was a senior in college, a month into a marathon training plan, and building up to 100 in the final weeks/days before my senior piano recital, so I was a little, but not too, stressed in addition to preparing for final exams.

At the beginning of the marathon training (Nov 11) my previous high was 74 miles, attained 3 months before during summer training for my senior XC season. Before that summer it was 50-55. During the cross season I averaged around 55, high of 62 two weeks before conference. When marathon training began (right after conference), I got weekly mileage highs 4 straight weeks: 81, 88, 94, 100. The 100 mile week went like this:

Mon - AM 6 easy, PM 5 easy

Tues - AM 4 easy, PM 11 w/5 tempo

Wed - AM 5 easy, PM 15 easy

Thurs - AM 6 easy, PM 6 easy

Fri - 14 easy

Sat - 10 easy

Sun - 18 w/10@marathon pace.

Again, mentally it was tough, not only during this week but also in the buildup; however, physically I held up well. I made no mention in my log about being hungry or tired, though I am sure I was. I ate somewhat unhealthily at college - just ate at their cafeteria and not always the healthiest stuff - but it worked, I guess.

I followed the 100 week with 92, 93, 87, before falling off a bit leading into tapering. I have only hit 90 once since then, and that was Sept. 2014; hit 80 a handful of times. 2014 was a PR year in all distances I attempted (mile, 5k, 4mile, 10k, 1/2 marathon, marathon; the high mileage base from 2013 apparently had a good long term effect. I was hit by a series of injuries in fall 2015 and have never come back to running until 2 months ago but am struggling with hip problems.

Anyway, if you really want to do 100 miles, you would probably be okay, especially if you build up at least a little bit and are smart about how you do it, following various suggestions people have already given you.

ohia wrote:

ive had a lifelong obsession with getting to 100mpw, just to say i've done it and feel it. presently, around 20mpw with not much effort. the most i've ever done was about 72mpw, 12 yrs ago. it sucked but not terribly.

part of me wants to take a full week of work off, and attempt to put in a 100mpw week. my tactic would probably be to front load the week with mileage like crazy then hang on for the rest.

what's it feel like and would it be a suicide mission to go from around 40 or 50mpw and drop a 100 mile effort?

I went crazy back in 2017 when I had no job or any type of work and ran a 170 mile week, was avg. about 80 to 100 miles a week at that time(Which was way to high) but ever since that week, I've struggled to get back to where I once was, and just now I am starting to get back to peak shape again.... My advice is to never ever try to double your weekly milage on a whim

For those interested that week went like this

Sunday 20 miles morning, 15 after 35 total

Monday 35 miles 70 for the week

Tuesday 10 miles, 8 x 1 mile afternoon 88 miles total

Wednesday 27 miles 115 miles total

thursday 15 miles morning 15 at night 145 miles

friday off

Saturday 25 miles

Never again will I do that to myself

Taking Friday off was your mistake.

Thats a hell of a lot of miles and interesting that the training block took that much out of you.

Threads been full of good reads. Thanks!