7:59, 13:48, 28:39, 2:16 on 50-60 mpw

Back many years ago when Doug Padilla was the top 5000 meter runner in the U.S. I had the opportunity to meet him and run in a race were he set an American Indoor record. I was just a high schooler and he acted shocked and almost flabbergasted when I told him I was training 90 miles a week. "Oh, no, that is just way to much!", he said in almost a scolding manner.

Padilla was a fantastically smooth runner with a great finish but he rarely performed well in the big championship meets where there were multiple rounds, and his PR was a modest 13:15. He may have broke 13:20 maybe 2 or 3 times. He always complained about being tired and my opinion about him was that he was lazy and not tough enough and could have been much better if he ran as much as the typical elites did instead of 60 miles a week with workouts like 2 times 800.

In retrospect, Padilla probably accepted that he had problems training above the volume level he stayed at and would have been a lesser runner, rather than better than the great runner that he was.

There are probably just as many runners similar to him that underperform due to to much mileage as there are those who don't perform to their capabilities due to training to low in their mileage volumes.

mplatt wrote:

I could not live with myself if I only ran 50 mile weeks during my prime years. I just had to know...

On the way to "too much training" there is correct training.

I sleep at night.

This is more likely what most runners do. The low mileage runners have found their limits. When they find their limit of mileage, they then match the intensity so they are getting the most out of your potential.

Bob may have run slightly faster with higher mileage, but as shown with the example of his twin brother Dave (same genes....remember..) once you reach a certain point, then stuff you do on top of that brings diminishing returns....or sometimes no returns at all. Higher mileage might have resulted in injury for Bob.

Karel Lismont (in the early to late 1970's) was (and still is) one of the few European distance elites training three times a day (6 days a week).....(Sergiy Lebid/Ukraine, also does "three a days" during his buildup phases for the cross country season, but not all year like Lismont used to do...).

Lismont's training was deceptively simple.....three 10km runs in the morning, noon, and evening......and on that schedule we all know what a consistent and great championship runner he was streching in time from his marathon win in Helskinki (Euro. champs/1971), right up to around 1987 or later when he was still running marathons in the 2:11/2:12....but he was a championship racer, and even finished third one year in the World Cross over 12km, in the years when there was just the one race (undiluted) in which all the best distance runners took part.

Lismont is now in his mid. 50's, owns a cafe in Borgloon (Belgium) and is still as modest and shy as he was in his heydey. He runs three times a week, and has told one that he cannot understand the point in veterans "killing themselves" by running and training competitively past age 40....he claims it is unnatural to push the body at that stage.....

You guys remember Gerry Helme, from the Northwest of England. He was a 60 mile a week runner and ran close to 28 minutes for 10.000 track, and around 2:10 for a marathon.

Another interesting case was Mark Smet, a Belgium male nurse, who only had time for one hour a day.....and became a great runner on that schedule....running a 2:10 marathon and other great races. This was back in the late 70's if my memory is correct......oh to go back to those golden years.

By the way - I am now domiciled in Canada, and regret the European Athletics scene, because in Montreal (Quebec) it is all ice hockey ....and nothing else, really. Also we are having a brutal winter right now with temperatures in the minus 20's-30's. Having said that, if you want to run well, you can achieve goals in inclement climates. Montreal used to have Jacqueline Gareau who ran around 2:30 for the marathon which was top level in the mid 70's. She even won Boston one year.

The real Just the facts ma'am wrote:

You've just proven your level of intellect by not knowing what plagiarism is.

The faux "Just the facts ma'am" did not represent the piece on Ethiopian history as his own; therefore, not plagiarism. Neither is it a copyright infringement. As a matter of protocol he should have given proper attribution to the author.

You have proven your LACK of recognizable intellect by not troubling to look up the word "plagiarism":

"n 1: a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work 2: the act of plagiarizing; taking someone's words or ideas as if they were your own "

His infraction meets the above definition. Remember the phrase, "Think before you speak (or write)?"

I'll toss that out now as a piece of advice for you in the future. It helps in avoiding to make yourself look asinine.

Racer1 wrote:

His infraction meets the above definition. Remember the phrase, "Think before you speak (or write)?"

I'll toss that out now as a piece of advice for you in the future. It helps in avoiding to make yourself look asinine.

You're wrong. The fake Just the facts ma'am did not represent it as his own work.

Take your own advice.

Ghost, very enjoyable posts. Clearly we are from the same era. I used to love getting hold of the UK mags such as AW and Marathon and Distance Runner. Bob Treadwell was a bit of a hero of mine because of his great hill running efforts.

swb

Yes it is me and you are of course right - and wrong. I did run low total mileages compared to many and that was often because I was so tired from what I did. few people raced as much as me. I manged 11 starts one week in summer 1976. My summer weeks often came out in the 20s becasue the quality was so high. Although I did do some serious hours when I was skiing in the winter. A couple of times I was 20 hours moving in the week. I also tried to run a couple of weeks of 140 when I was 17 just to see what would happen. I got to 3 days on the second week and could not walk. I needed 4 days off than ran a PB 800.

Also I spent a lot of time running in N Wales on the mountains. Few athletes have stood on the top of snowden as many times as me. That has a huge effect even if you only run it two or three times in a winter. I spent 2 weeks there several times during my teens. That is real base work and it allows you to do less at other times. Dont forget that most of my career I was orienteering for 100 minutes hard on sundays as well. That seemed to be all the aerobic work I needed some weeks. What I did do was extremes for periods, and then change the emphasis. This is what the cyclists do now a lot.

Regards to all at home.

Just The Facts Ma'am,My apologies, new around here. I should have looked around further. It just seemed an apropos name to use in questioning Racer1's rather Americentrist statements. Racer1Perhaps it's just me, but it ought to seem fairly obvious that such a poor country, which receives several hundred millions in international economic aid annually, has been ravaged by several wars (both civil and external) over the past 50 years, where approximately 15,000,000 children under the age of five are reported to be starving RIGHT NOW IN 2005, might not have rigorously applied school absenteeism law nor a school system which mirrors the American system. You accused me (falsely) of plagiarism. That a pretty bad crime in journalism, but there is a worse one, fabrication. To suggest that Geb went to school 5 days a week for 30 weeks per year is simple fabrication. Let's analyse your claims (you might want to look a little further than the script of "Endurance" for your education. Or perhaps you think Hollywood never exaggerates?). Typical day for young Haile:

Haile Gebrselassie ran every day to school from the age of 7-8 until 16-17 10 kilometers to school and 10 kilometers back. That is 20K per day times 5 school days per week times 30+ school weeks per year times 10 years= 18,600 MILES (NOT including all the running around he did on his farm and the 3 hour treks for water each day).

1) Three hour trek for water. Seeing as how he's carrying enough water for all the farm animals and ~15 people on the way back, which probably slows him down a tad,we'll call it a 6 mile round trip.

2)In your seond crack at the subject you said that he was

and running down farm animals, etc."

I'd like to quantify this but I need more information, was he "running down" cows or goats or chickens or what? Why was he running them down? Would it not have been more efficient to put hobbles on the cows and/or tie the goats up? You'd think that during the several millenia of African subsistence farming, somebody might have come up with a more efficient method of animal husbandry, wouldn't you? I don't know much about farming but I'm fairly sure that if the two sources of water available to my animals in a pretty hot, arid environment were (a) a waterhole ~2-3 miles away or (b) the water that young Haile is reported to have transported every day to the farmhouse, I could count on seeing my animals twice a day at least. Anyway, lets imagine that he "runs down" sufficient animals to cover two miles per day, and I'd imagine also that you could probably classify this as a fartlek workout, don't you think?

Thus far we have an 8 mile day, not too shabby for a seven-year-old, but Haile's just getting warmed up.

3) Runs 10k to school 5 days a week. Thats ~12.5 miles round trip. So far we're up to a 20+ mile day, but seven-year-old Haile's not done yet.

4) I'm assuming that, since you claim Haile to be the sole provider of water for this family of ~15 people, he must plough, seed, tend and harvest the crops also. Is that where the "heavy lifting" comes in?

5) I seem to remember from "Endurance" that Haile claimed that his father beat him regularly, sometimes twice a day, so we need to schedule time for that, perhaps we could call it Sports massage?

So you assert that 30 weeks per year seven-year-old Haile ran 120 mile weeks with a speed work session every day, did a daily weight workout and managed all this whilst being systematically abused by his father?

Now I'm not saying that "Endurance" was a complete fabrication and that really young Haile sat around playing Nintendo and eating cheeseburgers. Clearly he had, to our sensibilities, a tough upbringing, but, given that his upbringing was no tougher than many others in Ethiopia (and almost certainly a lot softer than that of the millions who starved to death) wouldn't you agree that the school system in Ethiopia is unlikely to be a mirror of the American system, thus rendering your calculations worthless?

ghost,

Do you know if any of the guys you've mentioned, e.g. Smet, Lismont, Ford, Simmons, etc., did anything different at the weekends, e.g., races or long runs?

"The Faux Just The Facts Ma'am" has a nice sound to it! ;-)

Didn't Jim Peters, the redoubtable UK runner of the 50's and WR holder, train relatively low mileage but at very high intensity?

Pretty much everyone trained low mileage and once a day back in the day, before Lydiard.

Stupid lets run posters... You automatically assume more miles are better. Although I admit this is generally the case, different bodies are able to handle and perform best at different number of miles. For some people this number is 150mpw for others its a measely 60.

Mileage is the secret potion to success.

Peters did pretty high mileage but generally didn't do really long runs and the runs were often at a good pace.

HRE wrote:

I think we've gotten to the state where people have gotten into an all or nothing frame of mind regarding their training. A recurring theme of many posters here is that if they can't find a supported setup where that can train 100 or more miles a week, they might as well get a job, pack in the running....

thats because those of us that make it to the point where it takes 100+ a week to get where we need to go dont wanna run 50 miles a week and become medicre serious competitors.

go hard or go home is the way to go, whats the point of running hard just to get a sub-par effort out of it?

I agree. But one of the things this thread points out is that you won't necessarily be mediocre. Guys like Jack Foster, Marc Smet, Tony Simmons, etc. are a long way from being mediocre. So if you're in a situation where you can't or don't want to pile on loads of miles, there is some evidence that you can run pretty well anyway.

anybody can pull out shining examples of success stories that did it on: 1)30mpw, 2) 60 mpw, 3)100mpw, 4) 130mpw, 5) good looks and luck....

in other words: QUIT TRYING TO SELL 'MAGIC BULLETS' of training examples on how to be great with 'little effort'.....for the majority of us, "it ain't happening".

For the majority it ain't happening either at 50 mpw or at 150 mpw. I did both and ran better at 150 than at 50. But the increments got smaller as the mileage increased and if I hadn't been able to do the 150ish stuff I would have done 50 or 60 or 70. No one is selling magic bullets. Just interesting stories.

Calm down. People are enjoying reading this sort of stuff.