140 mile weeks with only 10 mile runs?

armchair coach wrote:

Are you friends with Hadd?

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that. He helped me for a while and treated me like one. He's a great coach and, from what I could tell, an even greater man.

That schedule, while borderline insane, will do it's job nicely: It will make you ridiculously strong, but at some point you'll have to split up the runs to get some speedwork out of it and make good use out of the strength.

The best 140 mile week system I've come up with is: one double digit run (about 13 miles) and one single digit run (about 7 miles) or if you like time based (I do), try one 90 minute run and one 45 minute run per day, with one long (about 2 hours, 30 minutes) Rob De Castella-style.

As a rule: this was my typical day any day that wasn't on the track or long run day.

It got me down to 2:15 in the marathon on fairly modest talent. I only ran division 3 in college and never won a national title. Give it a try.

Crushman wrote:

That schedule, while borderline insane, will do it's job nicely: It will make you ridiculously strong, but at some point you'll have to split up the runs to get some speedwork out of it and make good use out of the strength.

The best 140 mile week system I've come up with is: one double digit run (about 13 miles) and one single digit run (about 7 miles) or if you like time based (I do), try one 90 minute run and one 45 minute run per day, with one long (about 2 hours, 30 minutes) Rob De Castella-style.

As a rule: this was my typical day any day that wasn't on the track or long run day.

It got me down to 2:15 in the marathon on fairly modest talent. I only ran division 3 in college and never won a national title. Give it a try.

Awesome man. That's a great time. How long did you run(1,2,3 years) at ~140 miles a week before you ran your 2:15?

I think one poster kind of touched on this, but let me throw in my (possibly already stated) view on this:

First, there are a hell of a lot more than a few posters (or readers) here who have done 140/wk, at least for stretches of a few weeks.

Second, what really matters is not how you structure your 140/wk, but that you do it, and do it consistently. I've had a few *years* in my running where I hit over 7000 miles. My best races came during those periods, even though, I've run over 200 miles/wk in other, lower mileage years. The key is consistency. If you accept that, the question then becomes, will you be more likely to string many 140s together if you do 14 10 mile runs/wk or if you get to 140 in some other way? Only one way to find out: The same way that all of the great names in the sport have. Try different things. When I was running those high mileage years, I typically did something like 13 and 9 - or tried to. But I also did lots of long runs and races; I mixed it up. I think that, while 10 every single run might be the most efficient way to reach 140 physically, it is probably also the most efficient way to lose it mentally.

On 'junk' miles: There is such a thing, but, for most runners, they are much much slower than they would ever run. Read Bill Rodgers book or Frank's. In them, they describe lots of miles at 7 minute pace. That's 40% slower than MARATHON pace for those guys. Neither thought those miles were a waste. Just by way of comparison, how many 3:00 marathoners do you know who are comfortable running 40% slower than their marathon pace? I don't know any. Personally, I think that's why they're running 3:00 and not faster. I was by no means a great runner, but I became a good one when I slowed down and ran more. You can too.

Maybe some of you guys could talk about how long it took for you to get to 120-140 miles a week. What kind of mileage were you handling before and for how long? Maybe some of you started running a little later in life, yet made the jump in a relatively short amount of time. Please, share your experiences.

Despite both the average runner and the talent runner they may look for improve, the average runner can’t train the same way an elite runner does due to the physical limitations. The average runner can’t resist to the same mileage volume than the talent runner or the same level of intensity relate to each one different talents.

It’s not unusual to take one guy with no special preparation, no training at all, no major talent, and he is able to run a 5:00mile. Therefore it’s easy to make some improve in that kind of average performer and he doesn’t need to do hard training to improve from 5:00 to 4:40.

Every 4:00miler got to have previous hard training. It’s impossible to get one guy with no training at all, or just basic training, put him in one track and he does 4:00mile. It’s Impossible. No way. This guy did hard daily training before he is able to run 4:00.

it’s kind of fool and nonsense to train hard like one professional runner run to run only 4:40 or 32min or 2h20min that are average to poor performances. It’s not interdict, may be it’s good at the level of self satisfaction or personal fulfillment but at the level of training appreciation to run 4:40 as the result of hard training it’s to so something quite irrelevant with no training merit.

To train the 100mile stuff to run a kind of 4:40mile al time PB it’s kind of a joke.

It's a joke to you but not to someone else.

I also find it hilarious that you would call a 2:20 marathon time an average to poor performance when that would qualify you for the US Olympic Trials and would get you free travel and a room at most marathons.

Have you ever run a 2:20:00 marathon, let alone run one 140 mile?

Everything is relative, we shouldn't all quit because we wont run as fast as olympians. If Solinsky ran one of my PR's he would have to have at least one of his legs broken, I'm not gonna quit because of that.

joiwef wrote:

Everything is relative, we shouldn't all quit because we wont run as fast as olympians. If Solinsky ran one of my PR's he would have to have at least one of his legs broken, I'm not gonna quit because of that.

Exactly.

If you are looking for a weekly pattern that you can complete week and in and week out with not many changes, then there is a tried and true one for you that many elite runners have proved out.

Run 13 times per week - doubles 6 days and a long run day

1 long run, usually progression in nature

1 workout each week is dedicated to tempo work

1 workout per week is dedicated to speed work

The rest of the runs are all easy distance runs.

Start at whatever your current fitness level is now and slowly over the course of time (years most likely) continue to progress incrementally and periodically until your week looks something like this:

Mon: am - 10 miles easy

pm - 10 miles easy

Tue: am - 5 miles easy

pm - 2 mile w-u, 10 mile tempo run, 3 mile c-d

Wed: am - 10 miles easy

pm - 10 miles easy

Thu: am - 10 miles easy

pm - 10 miles easy

Fri: am - 5 miles easy

pm - 3 mile w-u, 10 x 1000 w 400j, 3 mile c-d

Sat: am - 10 miles easy

pm - 10 miles easy

Sun: am - 20-25 miles progression

Of course you can and should change around the tempo run pace and distance somewhat or do tempo intervals, and you can an change around the speed workout some, maybe mile repeats one week, 400's the next then 1000's, etc.

The key is to build up slowly over time and be consistent.

Consistency, capacity, frequency and mixture are the key. But each must be done with the other 3 in mind.

What's foolish about trying to run a tile that would get you into the Olympic Trials marathon, or even just to see how fast you can get from doing all you can to get as fast as you can? If you don't want to personally that's your business but you have no right to dismiss others who want to get as good as they can as "foolish."

And how can someone tell without training like an elite runner whether or not they'll end up as one?

I can't find my diaries from those years now, they're around but heaven knows where, so I'll have to do this from memory.

I started consciously working towards 100 mile weeks in mid 1972 but was struggling to hit 50 at the time. I did 50-60 through the second half of the summer and got a couple of 70s in, then dropped during cross country in the fall.

I spent most of 1973 and '74 in the 70-80 range. I spent about a year at 80 and it was hard. Then I just decided to do 100s and not worry that it was hard. It was less hard than the 80s had been. I think in the summer of '74 I hit 115-120 a small number of times but had several 20 plus mile days in the mix along with some fairly short days so later that summer decided to dump the shoter days and hit 20s consistently on nearly all days.

I was teaching then and dropped back to 100-110 mostly during the school year and raced fairly often, would usually have a mini build-up at Christams and early January, then would get back to 130-150 in the summers.

I followed this pattern until the end of 1977.

HRE, did your fitness improve pretty steadily or did you feel like you had some moments where you were moving backwards before you moved forward?

I have the wrong years in that last post. It was 1972 when I started working up from 50 mpw so everything else should be a year earlier than it's listed except that I kept to that system until the end of 1977.

Improvement came pretty consistently but sure, there were stretches in any year when I'd feel sort of flat and wondered if I had maxed out. The longest one of those must have been in 1973 when I just felt tired all the time at 80 miles a week. I think, but again can't look it up, that '73 was the year when improvement was less dramatic than at any time in that era.

HRE Wow. So, basically you went from 50's to 100's + in about a year. Is that about right?

Not quite. Let's just revise the dates because I did screw up the original message. It went pretty much like this:

Summer, 1972, from 50-70 (not many 70s but lots of 60s.)

Fall, 72, probably averaged about 50 during cross country season, but we usually raced twice a week.

Winter 72-73, 70 or so with an 80 here or there and several illness shortened weeks.

Spring 73, 60-80.

Summer 73-late spring '74, 80.

Summer 74 100s with a few 115s-120s and some 130-140s late in the summer which I did carry into the fall for a while.

Late fall '74- summer ''75, 90-110.

Summer '75, 120-150

Fall'75 100-115

Winter '75-'76 100-115 with maybe three weeks at 120 or so.

Summer. '76 120-150

fall '76, like Fall.75 and so on with this until late 1977 or early 1978.

Thanks, HRE. Your posts are always really helpful. Could you also include your PR progression with the mileage progression?

I would consider running by time rather than mileage in order to avoid too much speed. Perhaps two 90 min. runs/day would do the trick? You can always log the actual mileage later but psychologically I believe running by time rather than distance would be easier to accomplish. Many elites run twice a day and do about 3 hours total per day. Distances vary of course. There are plenty of exceptions and the details of their training vary but that seems to be the commonality which they mostly share.

Also, dont forget Murphy's Law. Things seldom go as planned for very long. The most likely problem is that your body tells you to back off and skip a run. Listen to your body, forget your schedule and skip that workout rather than press on and risk lingering fatigue. You can always increase the mileage later.

Overall, I think its a great plan. Keep it simple and dont be afraid to run "slowly" whatever that means to you. Lydiard said that its not the distance that will stop you, its the speed. Good luck!

hard tail wrote:

why not run 20 one mile runs per day

run one mile every 48 minutes

plus 8 hours of sleep

I'm not sure if you're making a joke about the 20 daily but that is what I hit during my peak mileage. 130-140 on singles with 18 being the shortest and 24 longest. You have no idea how short 30k feels after this! Of course I only ran 2:26 and maybe this was why?