Why are some people here trying to justify running 60-80 mpw for a 1:30 half?

If you get worse as the distance goes up, why would you expect to run a good marathon off 10k training?

You probably live in the US. Explains a lot.

So you don't care enough about running to actually do it, but you care enough about it to waste your time posting inane comments on a running forum?

I would got with that. I doubt if I ever ran 80 miles in a week in a 50 year+ running career, and very rarely ran 60 miles, probably a handful of time, and ran 73:xx for a Half Marathon (something I ran for fun - it was about 11 miles beyond my optimal distance).

Don't fret , a bunch of trolls is what we have here . Happy 2025

Confusing defining an "International Athlete" as one who has represented his country, with an "International Standard Athlete." For example, there are almost certainly Kenyans who have run around 27:00 who haven't represented Kenya, but who are certainly of international standard (in fact 'King Ches') would fit that description.

I'd say a master who is in the top 10 in the world in his age group is certainly an athlete of "International Standard."

Incidentally, the Age Graded definition of 'World Class' is an age grading of 90% or better.

Righto. That is what the OP was referring to; World Class or International Class, an Age Grade of 90% or better.

Speaking for myself, with similar times to the poster (debut off 'no' training other than playing soccer etc and max 7km runs ocassionally was 3:32), I was nowhere near talented at school. There were probably 10 guys ahead of me at 1,500m to 5,000m and maybe more if they could have been bothered like me. We were all generally speaking 'fit' from just being active, playing sport after school and so forth, whatever was in season. Less than 2 years later I enter a marathon on a whim with one week notice, figure out "I should probably do 3hr pace !! , from what the winning times were. I actually went 2:52 pace until halfway and slowed down to 2:12 at 30km, further slowing down (hurting) to 3:32.

8 yrs later with lots of training I do 71/2:27. I wasn't elite. If people were bothered enough to train 'properly' (not just junk miles), lose weight, run with good form etc, many will go much faster. Most runners run as if they got a pole stuck up their arse sometime between schoolkid age and when they took up running again. Somehow the sedentary lifestyle erased the good kid running style they had.

So it is not really a scale of talent for the weekend warriors, more likely a scale of motivation and correcting of bad habits.

See my previous post. Pros are all running with good form already, so mileage and/or faster training will make improvements.

Those with poor form hit the so called brick wall. Nothing will make them faster, no amount of additional junk miles that reinforce their poor, uneconomical form will have any effect.

If your goal is to run a lot, then of course keep doing miles, but if it is to improve, then do the obvious basics first-correct your form.

We have a 'game' when watching a marathon from sideline at various distances (Gold Coast lends itself to that). GC marathon (Aus) also has lost of runners going in the 3hr bus because of its flatness. We predict who will be in the bus at the end and we pick purely based on running form/comfortability. Extremely high strike rate, I don't even think any with poor form are there at end. Now , the presumption is that they would have chosen that pace 'bus' based on 10km or HM times, so on training and times they should be holding on. You know what the differnce is.

What is acceptable mileage for first time 1:28 (non-talented) and sub 3 hours? I need to know

Bump

Eh, even though I think the OP has a bit of a nonsense take, for a male under 50 training 45-60 mpw, I think it’s very rare for someone to struggle to break 22/45/1:40/3:30 with actual discipline and correct training, unless the job/family demands are such that it really is hard to sleep adequately and recover. I’m assuming that the people you describe already represent a selection that rules out most of those people who are most likely to really struggle (that is, nearly all people who really could never break 22 for a 5k are not running over 40 mpw, at least as focused training with, say, faster 5k time goals … as opposed to just putting in time on trails and gathering socially).

For the folks in that club, I think if a good coach were to look over a couple years’ worth of someone’s training and overall lifestyle, they’d find some issues to address and ways to make such a runner substantially faster. That’s for the vast majority of runners, though; I realize there are outliers who will just struggle with distance running regardless.

Those people don’t need to kill to reach those goals; they just need to make a few other changes and hold to them consistently over time.

I know dozens of people running 60-80mi a week with PRs around 1:30.

I also know a few running 60-80mi a week and break 1:10.

There is more to training than just running miles.....

Alan

I once ran 60-70mpw to run 1:35 half. It was part of a marathon build-up. I would have run a bit less if I had been focusing on the half.

I know it's slow by the LRC standard. But I was 3rd among 120+ runners in M50-54, and got my AG plaque. So I think I got rewarded for my efforts pretty well.

all I can think is they jog a lot of their miles. I follow a runfluencer and she runs about 90mpw and most her runs are slow. I don't care to go run a 2 hour easy run every other day. I'd rather trickle in speedwork, tempos, and reps, etc. Some people just like to do long easy runs and often I guess but in terms of performance it wont be beneficial.

This simply is not so. It depends on the runner. I tend to get injured if I run many fast miles, but I can do a ton of easy paced miles without trouble. I also get progressively faster the more miles I run consistently. Running fast gets me fitter more quickly, but then I'm forced to stop altogether when some part of me breaks. If I could run half as much but twice as fast and get the same results, that is what I would do.

Ed Whitlock could have run faster if he had followed your advice... /s

Do you all live in a vacuum? 90% of the runners who you see at road races, run everything at the same pace but they don't think they are running easy. Ask a jogger coworker how fast they do their runs. You will likely get something like "5 miles in 44 minutes", rather than a pace. Then ask them how fast they plan to race their upcoming 8K race and they say "trying to break 44 minutes".

I used to be very fast but I'm 55 and haven't raced since I was 46. The last time I ran 80mpw for a full 365-day period was when I was 50 or 51 about 5 years after I last raced. Why? I like running obviously. I also like dog walking, cross country skiing, mountain biking, climbing, and used to like road biking before the cell phone age. The common thing in all is that I enjoy moving through beautiful places (in particular, the woods and mountains) in nature/exploring the outdoors under my own power. I chose where I live for access. I ski straight out my back yard in the winter.

Running isn't all about racing. Some of us like physical activity and where it takes us. As a Gen Xer, I grew up as a free-range kid who spent all my afternoons between the end of school and dinner time outdoors playing and exploring the neighborhood on my bike. I've had the same outdoor habit since then, so that's a lifetime of about 2 hours a day average doing something physical outside. That's what defines good living for me and all I know.