Greg McMillan

This is my first critique, and I´M NOT SLAMMING, against McMillan unlike you seem to think. Why it´s so hard to get this in your head that I´ve nothing against Greg but I just happen to disagree with him on this; I wouldn´t tell people how many miles you have to run.

This "GENERAL BELIEF AND OBSERVATION" is in heads of people like you. Upping the mileage is the simplest way to increase your endurance and therefore somewhat popular, but you can increase your SPECIFIC ENDURANCE ALSO by much less training and with better chances to stay injury free while improving other factors that I´ve mentioned several times.

So there are more than one way to get the same or even better specific speed endurance as with this familiar black and white high mileage training.

I´ve made my point and wasted my time so many times that I will not follow this thread or comment on this thread anymore (Wet Coast, you and your "answers" will come too late therefore). I don´t want to and I don´t have to read these endless false accusations and claims against me anymore.

To all of you; LET´S KEEP OUR MINDS OPEN. And especially to all of you high mileage-ambassadors, think of me when you are unable to run next time because of sickness, injuries, overtraining etc.

So long!

Again O, the fact that you carried on in this whole thread based on a 10 second quote taken from a 90 minute interview without having listened to the interview is insane.

Perhaps if you listened to the interview you'd know that Greg does not believe that it only comes down to high mileage and that is not all black & white. There is specificity in workouts and training loads for each athlete he works with, and there is a gradual build up in mileage, but what defines high mileage for each athlete in a given training cycle varies based on where they are in their development as an elite distance runner.

O:

I'd just like to say that, having spent about 5 weeks in Flagstaff, working fairly closely with Greg this past summer, I'd say the criticism of him not individualising training program to fit the athlete is far from the truth. In fact, to the point where I'd even like to see him generalise a little more to accommodate the individual's "weakensses" more (in regards to just one athlete, mind you).

I'd have to say, that interview was actually one of the best interviews I've heard for a long time (and I'm writing so for my own blog now). At one point, he even supported Lydiard by saying that the same thing happened to him (Lydiard) that people criticised him for being a 100MPW man. "But for the same outcome, he may presecibe one thing to one athlete but completely opposite to another," Greg said. So, whether he actually does so or not, at least he acknowledges it for sure. One of the things I liked about that interview was the fact that Greg said, more than one occasions, that "it all depends". If anything, I thought Robert, for the sake of the audience more than anything I'd assume, tried to squeeze some generalized answer. The truth is; there isn't any.

The debate about whether it's necessary to run 120~140MPW to become a good marathon runner; I'd say, if you can, sure, it's probably better off. I think, and we've discussed this many times this summer, what Greg was trying to say is to create the environment and physical and mental make-ups to be able to handle that much mileage comfortably. I think anybody can run 120~140 miles a week. I even did 125 when I was in college. But that was above my head. If you find someone who can handle that kind of mileage without breaking down, he/she would be that much closer to becoming a great marathon runner. When we (Greg and I...and Paige Higgins) were talking to Yoko Shibui about her training, she told us that she runs about 150 miles a week; and she's not a high mileage gal in Japan. People like Tosa or Takahashi would run more. Yoko is a speedster. The one we all know who didn't follow conventional high mileage approach of Japanese runners and did well would be Mizuki Noguchi. She does a lot of weight training and she does somewhat shorter distances faster. Yet, she had had a lot of injury problems in the past couple of years. I think I know Arthur would have attributed it to too much weight training. Considering her problem is more around hamstrings and groin area, I would probably tend to agree; but it's hard to argue Olympic gold medal, isn't it? At any rate, yet, I think she runs something like 900~1000km (not miles) a month. That's a substantial enough of mileage. In fact, her famous quote is: "Mileage (or kilometers) won't fail you," meaning, if you run a lot, you'll get results; and if you don't you won't. We can criticise her comment all we want but, atain, it's hard to argue results.

Good training, and good coaching, is how to put the athletes under greatest stress without breaking them and still improving; it's not so much of how much is too much. Atsushi Fujita, who had set the Japan's national record of 2:06:40 way back, I believe, in 2001 was probably the hardest training runner among Japanese. I think he ran something like 1200~1500km a month. He broke down. But could he have run 2:04 if he ran 1000km? We'll never know, will we? And if you asked him, he would have said no.

One last thing, though; I know people love to use Steve Jones as an example of "low mileage" marathon success but when I talked to him--he's a HUGE Lydiard fan and he was so upset when Lydiard passed away that he wanted to talk to me. I never considered him as a Lydiard kind of a runner so I asked him about the training. He told me that, when he gave a quote of 90MPW to the reporter, he meant about the average throughout the year. "Sometimes I may run 50MPW, but during the build-up, I may run as much as 140MPW..." It is VERY misleading to just pick up a quote or someone said that someone said...kind of quote. And there a lot of them on-line. It is not fair for Jonsie to say that he didn't train "as hard" just as it is not fair for us to say that Greg doesn't individualize training; just as it is not fair for us to say, O, that you advocate high quialty low mileage because, you're right, you never quoted it; you only seem to say "120~140 is too much and Greg's runners will burn out in 2 years" (was that what you said in the original post?) or something like that. That does not translate "you should run 90MPW all out everyday" but that's what we seem to be doing against Greg too.

PS: And one more thing... I think most of us know Shalene Flanagan runs about as little as 70MPW. There even had been some threads about that's enough for Olympic bronze medal??? Well, someone in the past used her as an exmple for pro-low mileage. I had a chance to talk to her a couple of years ago at NYC marathon (it turned out, her mom and my partner, Lorraine Moller, are close friends and Lorraine used to baby-sit Shalane). She told me that she tried to run more but she always broke down. "If I can run 120MPW without breaking down, I'd be doing that!" Even in that article, she said that she ran about 50 in college and that was all-out. The author of the article took it as negative sign that even 70 is too much. In fact, she had the opposite view. She said she's continuously trying to up the mileage WITHOUT BREAKING DOWN and, from 50 in college, now it's 70. I don't know what kind of training she's doing now now that she's running half marathon and perhaps eyeing on attempting a marathon in the future??? Yes, there had been many exmples of great marathon runners did less than 100. But that alone does not necessarily mean less than 100 is better. Someone used Steve Hoage as an example; I know him only too well and he would not recommend low mileage to anybody. But if you break down trying to more than 100, why try it? Or if you get a good result doing less than 100, why waste it? The goal is certainly not "Who runs most". but "Who can run 26 miles fastest".

Nobby, you're correct in saying that I would not recommend low mileage to anybody aspiring to become a world class marathoner. As you know I trained under Daws/Lydiard influences and Ron was always trying to get me up into the 120 mpw range. For whatever reason, I just couldn't get over 90 w/o feeling unusually, tired, stale, or even injured. Ron finally acknowledged that I couldn't do high mileage. (Actually from my collegiate background, 90 mpw seemed like high mileage!) We did some long runs (25-30m), lots of good hill intervals, and used the track at the right time for long intervals at sub5 minute pace. As you know, I ran my PR of 2:11:54 at Boston in 1975 for second to Bill Rodgers. BTW, I always marvelled at how guys like Bill, Shorter, Fleming, etc could do 120-140mpw consistently. I don't know if they worked full-time as I did, but it was amazing that they could and not break down.

With 30-plus years of hindsight now, I wish I could have upped my mileage. Perhaps, I could have improved my 2:11 PR, but who knows. I did get a very bad sciatic condition, which ended my competive career. "Back in the day",2:11:54 was a very good time. ( Today it might good for the Kenyan "B" team!). I always felt that it was the best I could hope for, but now I wonder IF I could have stayed healthy, upped my mileage, etc, perhaps, I could have run faster.

Today's elites do have the luxury of training full-time, and have access to professional medical services that we didn't have in the '70s. Sometimes, I do think that todays elites do get a little hung up on high mileage at the expense of quality. I talked with a few local sub-elites that were running 120 mpw and were getting frustrated about not improving. They did cut their mileage, threw in some interval work and saw improvement. I think it's very individual and hard to find just that perfect mix of quantity and quality. I know for example that Kardong, Virgin and the afore-mentioned Steve Jones all thrived on relatively low mileage. It begs the question: could even runners at this high level improve on their great performances had they put in higher mileage? Who knows, but they did pretty well on their "low" mileage! Steve Hoag

P.S.: I met Greg McMillan a few years ago and was very impressed with his knowledge of distance running. It's great that someone like Greg is investing his time and energy into helping our runners get better. His tables and charts are useful, also.

Steve:

I was fully aware that I misspelled your last name (;o)) but figured you won't see it because you've stayed away from LR for a while (as did I). Busted! As you know, LR doesn't have "edit" function...

Look forward to the indoor. Do you want to go for a quick jog before or afterwards? Which day was it? 26th or 27th?

MPR wrote:

And as for longevity. Geb has been doing 200k+ per week for over 20 years and is still going strong.

Shorter and Rodgers regulary ran 140 miles per week for year after year and had careers at the top of over a decade long.

Can everyone handle the mileage no, but neither can everyone be the best. So why handicap everyone because some can't do it takes?

If they want to be one of the best long distance (10k-Mar) runners in the world, put them on the path to get there. They may or may not make it but at least they are on the path if they CAN get there.

I'm not going to get into the high/low mileage debate - and I'm not going to comment on Rodgers/Shorter's training because I don't know, but this statement: "Geb has been doing 200k+ per week for over 20 years and is still going strong." is patent rubbish. He might peak at 200, but he's not running 200 week in and week out - I'm sorry if you were not meaning to say that, but that's how it reads.

I don't claim to know Geb's training (and if you were sensible you wouldn't either), but think about it for a minute: if we take 2009, he ran the Dubai Marathon(2:05:29); City-Pier-City half 59:50; Great Manchester Run 10k 27:39; FBK Games Hengelo 1 hour track 20,822m; Berlin Marathon 2:06:08 and the Porto Half Marathon 1:00:04. I don't care if you are Haile, you would be tapering for 27:39 (he's only ever run quicker on the road twice), and for the 59:50 (he's only ever run quicker twice), as well as for the two marathons, and I bet he took time off afterwards. Say, at a stretch (which supposes that he goes from rest to 200), he ran 40 weeks of 200k, 6 taper weeks of 50k, and 6 weeks of rest, that is an average of slightly less than 160k per week for the year (that doesn't take into consideration days when he just didn't feel like training, days when his legs were sore so he cut back, travel days, niggling injury days etc.). If you want to go back to when he was a track runner, he might have hit the 200k during the winter, but racing the European circuit week in week out he wasn't hitting 200 through the summer.

I take your points about higher mileages, and I agree that they are an important aspect of training - but your claims misrepresent the truth.

I really doubt that Haile spends 12 weeks at 50k or completely off. He has been quoted as saying that he runs twice a day everyday except for Christmas, and I believe he's been quoted as saying he does an easy run the day after marathons.

I apologize for my misstatement. My intent was that these guys (including Geb) ran this type of mileage during thier normal training weeks, not on race weeks, planned down weeks, regneration weeks, or other special circumstances (although Rodgers and Shorter didn't vary much from this).

Hey Nobby, the Big Ten Indoor is Feb 27/28. Sunday is the better of the two days with more finals. The 3000m is Sat., and the 5000m is Sunday. I have tix for both. As far as the "quick jog", I hope you realize that "quick" is all relative these days! Anyway, I'll give you a call in the next week or two. steve

I think the original argument was that running over 2 hours did not result in mitochondrial growth and O suggested that running over 2 hours should not be done and that injury would result.

My point would be that we must accept that there may be other valuable adaptations besides mitochondrial growth that occur by running over 2 hours. Science is limited in its ability to understand performance so it's dangerous to say that because one variable (mitochondrial growth) doesn't change that the training isn't best (despite virtually every great runner running long runs of over 2 hours).

Let's not forget that this is the kind of thinking that nearly sunk US distance running in the 80s and early 90s. Scientists started telling coaches and athletes how to train. Big mistake. Scientists can help us understand training but coaches and athletes from the past have proven what works - which I think was Greg's point. It's only recently that coaches have gone back to the training of past champions (which meant running more mileage) that we have seen US distance running come back.

Finally, a long run of over 2 hours is not very much running and most distance runners do this frequently as part of their training. For someone like Gotcher who runs 120-140 miles per week, it is important to remember that he may average 15-20 miles per day but he's not running 2 hours each day. I bet if you asked him, he'd say he ran a lot of 70-80 minute runs in the am and a 30-40 minute run in the pm and only got over 2 hours on his long run.

This post, of course, doesn't address the low mileage vs high mileage debate but I think it does address/challenge the original statement regarding mitochondrial growth and duration of run.

Hey O,

Here is the answers I was referring to. Sure you didn't pose anything in the form of a question however, you do need some help, here it is:

http://www.flotrack.org/articles/view/1696-greg-mcmillan

You're right: mitochondrial growth is not the beginning and end of training adaptations. Either way, however, the mega-mileage crowd loses the argument.

Our most successful US distance runners in recent years -- Lagat, Flanagan and that the Jr level, Webb, Fernandez and Hasay -- all got there doing relatively low volume and higher quality, precisely the sort of training you insist 'sunk' US distance running in the 80's and 90's.

> When Hall runs an additional 12,000 miles and gets slower and slower does that count as sinking?

>How about when Webb shoots blanks after adding volume to the schedule that got him a US record?

> When Ritz gets injured for the umpteenth time trying to do stupidly high volume?

> And our marathoners get spanked by a Kenyan who says too much volume is detrimental and marathoners should get more rest days?

If anything will sink US accomplishments, it will be the insistence the mega-mileage is the panacea.

BTW here is a list of top marks from the 90's compared to top marks from 2009.

90's

800 142+

mile 349+

3000 730++

Steeple 809

5000 1258

10000 2731

Marathon 208++

09

800 143.8

mile 351

3000 733

Steeple 814

5000m 1256

10000m 2722

Marathon 209

I guess you found a wee handful of runners to demonstrate your argument.

And surely you know that the argument to back high mileage will create a list so long, that Wejo will need a new server.

Nice.

Please tell us all the wonderful documentation you have on their training. Funny thing you might find is that they improved when their mileage increased slowly over time. Wonder why that is?

Or sometimes athletes have been known to undergo great volumes of training, then with short-sitedness move onto a coach who loves the track and brings them to a peak - taking all the credit and glory.

Happens all the time.

Awesome quote from Theodore Roosevelt

This thread is all about someone flaunting their umlaut. Running fewer miles gives you the time to do that.

My eyes couldn't even find that umlaut until someone else mentioned it. But you have to give him credit. I wouldn't know how to put an umlaut over a letter.