There is no proof that running more mileage makes you faster

Everyone gets diminishing returns. The pros can’t afford to leave even small amounts of time on the table. I’d bet Grant Fisher could break 15 in the 5K off 30 mpw.

Conversely, no one cares if the other 99% of runners have a 5K pace 20 seconds faster or slower.

Then don't do it.

Yes he did. You are lying.
From the book "How They Train":

A typical week for Michael went like this:

Monday: 60 min easy (around 6 min/mile)
Tuesday: 60 min fast tempo around 5:06/mi
Wednesday: 60 min easy
Thursday: 60 min easy
Friday: 6-8 x 800m at 2:06-2:08
Saturday: 60 min easy
Sunday: 90min -2 hours easy

At the stated paces, 4x60 min easy = 40 miles
Tuesday tempo = 12 miles
Long run = 15-20 miles
6-8 800m, 1 or 2 miles warm up = 6-8 miles

Total: 73-80 miles

Nothing like you stated, 50-60mi/week

Oh, bless this genius who’s cracked the code: running faster makes you faster! Someone get this guy a Nobel Prize for stating the obvious. Next, he’ll tell us water is wet and the sky is blue. As for the mileage bit—sure, buddy, all those elite marathoners logging 100+ miles a week are just masochists who hate speed. Why train hard when you can just will yourself to a PR? Tell you what, stick to your sprint-around-the-block theory and let us know how that 5K goes. We’ll be over here, you know, actually running.

Look at the old school Aussie greats. All of them did high mileage.

Theorem: Running more miles makes you faster.

Given: Currently running 0 miles.

Proof: When someone is currently running 0 miles, I can say with absolute certainty that running more than 0 miles will make you faster.

But you're not a pro. They can log 100 miles of quality and recover quickly (likely with the help of drugs). For average Joe it's smarter to mix it up instead of hitting arbitrary mileage goals.

I think that will work for those with the actn3 xx mutation- which is 16% of europeans, 30% of Japanese and 1% of Kenyans. We can't develop proper fast twitch fibers (llb), but we got the lla without training, meaning we don't have to spend time developing muscle fibers. So the reasons to do lot of mileage is not there unless training fat burning capabilities, or having a mutation leading to less than average capillary density

1 hour is the sweet spot for developing running economy

0/10 ragebait

This^

Spot on, Great piece of research, even as a retrospective study. But one could also watch a minute long tik tok video about cell biology if reading is too much of a burden and that will help the uninformed understand. Run longer and slower to get faster? Here come those dang scientific facts that hurt my head again! And read up on periodization too, the aerobic system helps the aneorobic system. But Lydiard and Daniels are carnival barkers too, ain’t they?

Personally, I run marathon-like mileage but only race up to 10K. I started late in life and I have average talent so I quickly figured out that I need to run a lot more to yield decent results.

You sound like malmo.

Of course some weeks got a bit longer mileage but never 100+ mpw. And mark very well he did it on singles and still was the very best American road and track runner some years. Great running can obviously be made on relatively low mileage .And I never count warm up and cool down as effective training mileage.

So, now you’re qualifying your claim. Everyone counts warm up and cool down as mileage.

We started at 50-60. Now, we’re up to 80 without counting warm up and cool down.

Next it will be that he did occasionally get up over 100 but that was rare. 😂😂😂

' Everyone counts warm up and cool down as mileage' is not a fact.... 😜😜😜And he raced alot so raceweeks more close to 50-60 mpw.

The first two miles of an easy run is essentially warm up. Do you not count that?

As an aside, this thread nicely illuminates what's so frustrating about arguing against "rekrunner's" claims that there's "no proof" that blood vector doping works to improve performance.

If wanted to do what he does in relation to the "higher volume=improved performance" hypothesis, you'd just have to come up with international comparisons showing that even when runners in all countries started doing higher mileage, not all countries showed the same (or necessarily any) rate of increased performance, which probably wouldn't be hard to adduce. This would "prove" that we don't really know that running more causes improved performance. And when someone points out that basically ALL elite distance runners run high mileage, you would just say that runners and coaches are operating on "faith", not actual proof-- because you and only you are the guardian of what counts as proof.

In short, the hypothesis that, all other things being equal, running more makes you a faster distance runner is just as sound, and is backed by just as much evidence, as the hypothesis that blood vector doping, all other things being equal, increases performance in distance running. At a certain point the evidence the truth of a thing is so overwhelming that "smoking gun" proof is not really necessary in order to believe it.

This whole thread is pretty much a non-starter with too many things unspecified. More than what? The current thinking in training for distance athletes is a combination of more faster mileage, always with adequate recovery. It is the "stimulus-recovery-adaptation" cycle that makes you faster. That is proven.

In training, the proof is proof by trial-and-error, or the proof is in the pudding. Since all athletes are different, and respond differently to different training, and events are different, there is no "one size fits all" fixed training. The same training principles need to be adapted to the individual on a case by case basis, using feedback. Some coaches are better at making observations and giving the right feedback.