Marathon Training On Low Volume???

Broadview Joe wrote:

The best recovery from a hard run is never running again.

I'm inclined to agree.

http://www.powerrunning.com/Training/Easy%20Runs%20and%20Recovery.htm

Like almost everything pushed by Gibbens on the powerrunning site, this article has more holes in it than a piece of swiss cheese. The study shows that running doesn't facilitate recovery from a marathon, and that you're better off resting (duh!) It says nothing about the effect of chronic training load on resistance to injury (for example).

BTW, I've read the thread and I don't think you adequately addressed Crank's requests for evidence that there exist low mileage elite marathoners. You neither withdrew or backed away from claims that such runners exist, nor provided evidence. If you do believe they exist, could you provide evidence ? Or if you're not claiming they exist, could you clarify ?

Richard, Jack Daniels has proven along with many others that once you get to I think around 75 miles per week that you won't improve you Vo2 Max. However that doesn't mean that you can't improve performance by increasing mileage. You can by becoming more economical through increased mileage. I think it is true that once you get to a certain number(2-3) of hard workouts per week you don't improve performance. You may actually hurt it. By slowing the rate of recovery. But nothing has been proven to show that you will recover quicker and adapt to stress more effectively by taking days off versus taking days easy. So until you can show this kind of research by multiple scientists and case studies you aren't going to have a leg to stand on here at Letsrun.com.

I have absolutely considered this idea. Logic tells me that if rate of recovery sped up significantly then runners should be able to conduct an increasing frequency of hard workouts per week as their fitness improves.

Or maybe they could do more hard workouts if they increased the number of easy runs. This is in fact what most programs suggest, so why not consider this ?

http://www.powerrunning.com/Training/Running%20and%20Injury.htm

http://www.powerrunning.com/Training/How%20much%20should%20you%20run%20part%203.htm

More shoddy reasoning from Gibbens. Mileage is associated with injury. It's also associated with a whole lot of things -- training hard, frequent racing, frequent speed work, participating in a competitive training group, etc. This is not an intervention study, so it's not much help. The only intervention study mentioned here had runners training harder than is recommended for general aerobic conditioning (85-90% MHR).

Don't believe everything you read via internet lesson #19875758585. I just read tonight where Jeff Galloway pointed out a flaw in a marathoner who run 5:21. She said she "died" at mile 21 and then walked. He pointed out that the error was that she did not walk soon enough!

I think I made my point.

elflord,

Is it possible that the results of the study in question are a matter of magnitude and not a question of either/or? A marathon produces a greater amount of muscle and body damage and hence the effect of a "recovery run" would be more pronounced following the marathon? At shorter distances, the muscle damage is not as great so the effect of "recovery runs" is less - still there, but not as pronounced, i.e. of a lesser magnitude?

The only evidence I have of low mileage elite marathoners is found in the quote and study I cited. I believe a review of what I've written will reveal that I haven't made any other claims of other elite, low mileage marathoners. In fact I have stated that I believe elites all generally run high mileage. The original poster asked if any elites marathoners ever ran 50 mpw and I replied with the only data I am aware of suggesting that some elites have trained at that level for some period of time. I do not know the trainig history of those elites at other times in their careers though another poster suggested one of them ran about 80mpw.

Does that clarify things sufficiently?

Interesting,

interesting but not quite wrote:

But nothing has been proven to show that you will recover quicker and adapt to stress more effectively by taking days off versus taking days easy.

There is one research study I know of that showed taking days off resulted in quicker recovery. I haven't been able to find any studies that show that exercising more speeds recovery. I do know that injury research shows that as weekly mileage increases so do injury rates, implying to me that additional running doesn't speed recovery and instead adds additional load on the body making recovery more difficult. As I noted previously I think more research is needed in this area and that my personal bias is that there is some combination of intensity, duration, and frequency that won't significantly impede recover but that this combination is probably much less than is generally promoted by conventional training.

Regards,

Yes. It further clarifies that you need to rip up any college degrees you might hold, start from scratch, and learn a few things about running before wading into these discussions.

A few points.

One, please quit linking to your own site when asked to provide evidence for something. You're like a fanatical Christian who insists that everything in the Bible is true because it's right there in the Bible, except that the Bible might one day be shown to have traces of redeeming value, whereas you and your site surely will not.

Two, for reasons already explained but blithely ignored by you in standard fingers-in-ears fashion, the racist study you cited by Owen "Whore Today, Gone Tomorrow!" Anderson provided no evidence at all of "low mileage elite marathoners" if we accept 50 miles a week as the standard for what constitutes "low mileage." Zero, none, zip. The one runner we have data for was shown to be at least an 80 miles per week athelete, and the other two we know nothing about. So until you can dig up training logs for these guys favoring your wingnut position you would be wise to avoid the whole subject.

Three, if you are unaware of the ways in which easy running in a well-trained person can hasten rather than delay recovery even after a period of overwork, then you have been exposed as a know-nothing in yet another physiological realm. I suspect you have never trained enough yourself to appreciate the resilience-related changes that occur with increased fitness. I doubt you have experienced the phenomenon of supercompensation and you probably reject the very idea of it despite mounds of proof that it is real. Even a 25:00 5K runner can reach a point at which he or she can race on Saturday, do a steady 18 miler on Sunday, and come back on Monday morning with an easy 40 minutes that helps more than it hurts. You yourself are most likely very slow, overweight, and an infrequent runner, and can therefore not even imagine such a scenario being anything other than painful and destructive.

Actually there is one useful sentence on your site, although it's the one thing you intended to be taken tongue in cheek:

"How can you know if the things I write are true? After all, I could just be some crackpot on the internet."

Exhaust,

Thanks for sharing your opinions.

Excuse me if I want to go in this discussion, but I think that we need to have a correct focus on the problem of mileage for marathon.

1) The specifity of Marathon is a specifity of EXTENSION. While in the world there are every year no more than 30 athletes able running 5k at the same pace of the World record of 10k, there are more than 200 athletes able running HM at the same pace of the WR of Marathon. So, while for shorter distances the main problem is speed endurance, because there are no problems of fuel and the goal is to increase the power of the engine, for Marathon the main problem is TO REDUCE THE CONSUMPTION OF FUEL at Marathon Pace. So, you must build your marathon making a great part of your training, during the last 3 months (that are the SPECIFIC PERIOD), around the speed of the Marathon.

For example, if you want to run 2:20 (about 3:20 p/k), you can go for LONG INTERVALS starting with 7-8 times 2k in 6:30 (that is about 3% faster than Marathon Pace) qualifying the speed of the recover (for example, 1k at 4:00 that becomes 3:50 > 3:40 > 3:30) for a global workout of 21km. After this, for improving your SPECIFIC SPEED ENDURANCE, you must move to LONGER INTERVALS and LONGER DISTANCE, not to FASTER INTERVALS (for example, 6 x 3k in 9:45 rec. 1k in 3:40, for 23km, and then 5 x 4k in 13:00 rec. 1k in 3:40, and then 4 x 5k in 16:20 rec. 1k in 3:40). When you are able to do this, YOU ARE NOT IN BETTER SHAPE FOR YOUR MARATHON IF ABLE RUNNING 4 times in 15:50, BUT WHEN ARE ABLE RUNNING 5 times in 16:25.

Why this ?

Because every time you go for short distance, you use mainly your glicolitical system, moving your muscles in a wrong direction : to use more glycogen.

The endurance of a marathon runner is the ability to run AT THE SAME PACE REDUCING THE CONSUMPTION OF GLYCOGEN. We can test this ability using, for example, a test called Faraggiana - Gigliotti - Fiorella (Gigliotti is the coach of the former Olympic Champion '88 Gelindo Bordin and of the current OCh Stefano Baldini), consisting in 6 x 2000m increasing time every time (for example, in the case of the above athlete for 2:20, 7:00 / 6:55 / 6:50 / 6:45 / 6:40 / 6:35) at even pace, with very short recovery (the time for taking blood) plus a final 1200 faster possible, that allows to control HOW MUCH GLYCOGEN THERE IS YET IN THE TANK.

What do you have to see ? The DECREASE of the level of lactate at the same speed (for ex., for 6:40, starting the test 3 months before, and using one test every 3 weeks, the level of mmol can be 4.5 the first time, then 3.7, then 3.2, then 2.5, then 1.9. This means that, at the same speed, you use LESS GLYCOGEN, so you can last LONGER.

2) For supporting this SPECIFIC SPEED ENDURANCE training, of course a marathon runner needs long run.

We use TWO DIFFERENT TYPES OF LONG RUN :

a) DURATION, that is long run not to fast, for training the structure and the mind to last long time. This training is related to the time (1:45, then 2:00, the 2:15, then 2:30 till, may be, 3:00).

b) DISTANCE, that is long run at specific speed, not slower than the 97% of the supposed Marathon Pace. You can start with a HM at MP, then 25k, 28k, 30k, 33k, 35k, 38k.

A good rule is to alternate ONE WEEK DURATION, ONE WEEK DISTANCE.

All the other type of training has only the goal to connect together these specific workouts, and/or to recovery.

A normal TOP MARATHON RUNNER never runs less than 220 km per week, with some week of 250 and some of 180 when he has some competition that can use like training.

This mileage lasts for 3-4 months. Of course, if you see the volume of a Top Marathon runner during the recovery period, he can run 50 miles a week, but this is no training.

All the best Italian runners of the past and the present (Bordin Olympic Champion, Pizzolato winning twice NY, Poli winning NY, Leone winning NY, Baldini, Di Cecco winning Rome in 2:08 this year), all the best Spanish (Fiz, Anton, Juzdado, Roncero, Rey, Cortes), all the best Kenyans, runs about 220km per week, sometimes 250 (Bordin also 320).

And the ladies run the same distance too. See Paul Radcliffe, without speaking about the Japaneses that run more than 300km a week.

The final conclusion is :

a) It's possible running a Marathon with only 3 sessions per week, if you have no time. If you are talented, you can also run 2:30, but........

b) If you can run every day, going to 80/90 miles per week, you become able running 2:20 and......

c) If you have the opportunity to become a PROFESSIONAL RUNNER, using two sessions a day and running 120/150 miles per week, you can run 2:10.

That's all.

Steve Jones:80-100mpw->2:07

Gert Thys:80-100mpw->2:06

Ian Syster:80-100mpw->2:07

Carlos Lopes:80-100mpw->2:07

Khalid Khannouchi:80-120mpw->2:05

Domingos Castro:90-120mpw->2:07

its not uncommon that a 5k-10k athlete runs his best marathon off just 5k-10k training before switching to "marathon-training"(more volume) and slowing down.

volume isnt everything.

eduardobartos wrote:

Steve Jones:80-100mpw->2:07

Gert Thys:80-100mpw->2:06

Ian Syster:80-100mpw->2:07

Carlos Lopes:80-100mpw->2:07

Khalid Khannouchi:80-120mpw->2:05

Domingos Castro:90-120mpw->2:07

its not uncommon that a 5k-10k athlete runs his best marathon off just 5k-10k training before switching to "marathon-training"(more volume) and slowing down.

volume isnt everything.

Where was it said that volume is the be-all, end-all of marathon training and that faster running isn't required? I don't get you see-no-grey-area, false-dichotomy-spouting posters.

More importantly, none of the marathoners you mentioned - all of whom by your own testimony reached into the "magical" triple-digit mileage zone at the height of their training - would be remotely considered "low mileage runners" in the context of this thread.

Even Jack Foster occassionally ran 90-100m/p/w. I doubt anyone can run sub 2.8 on less than 80m/p/w. Certainly some talented guys will run 2.10-15 on 60-70 of hi- quality running and sub 2.20 on about 50.

Many runners simply won't have the all round capacity to do the bigger mileage so will run to their "potential" at lower than normal mileage.

As I said earlier Treadwell ran 2.19 off 50 then 2.15 off 60-70. Would he have run 2.10 off 90 or 2.8 off 110, hard to say but maybe he just couldn't extend himself to train that much ( psychological, environmental or physical limitations.)

The guys and girls at the very top have a unique combination of abilities and circumstances that got them there.

Thank you Renato.

lord show some mercy...are all posters frustrated nerds?

this is what Mr.Canova wrote

b) If you can run every day, going to 80/90 miles per week, you become able running 2:20 and......

c) If you have the opportunity to become a PROFESSIONAL RUNNER, using two sessions a day and running 120/150 miles per week, you can run 2:10.

get it?

What's next?

You can be a .300 hitter without taking batting practice, but extra time in batting practice leads to more base hits?

ARE YOU SERIOUS!!!!???? If you know anything about genetics, this is not a supposition. Genes cannot change drastically in 20 years. Good god.

Considering that the Human Genome Project was only completed in 2003 (i.e. less than 2 years ago) and the map of any one individual's genome has never been made, any claims as to what can happen in 20 years is supposition. Perhaps you ought to spend time learning about genetics before questioning the knowledge of others.

Two points for you to consider;

(1)The Thoroughbred horse is one of the most highly inbred animals on the planet. The breeding programme has been going on for over 300 years and is designed to produce racing animals, nothing more, nothing less. In all that time, the grandson of an Epsom Derby winner has never won the Epsom Derby.

(2) In humans, roughly every 20 years (i.e. the span of time it takes for a generation to reach breeding maturity) the human genome is completely reordered.

My question remains, do you have anything to back you your suppositions?

P450,

P450 cytochrome oxidase wrote:

Leave it to Richard Gibberish, the World's Dumbest Smart Guy (tm), to equate doing a training run with taking a drug (at best a very rough analogy) and then treat this analogy as hard science.

Applying the concept of dose-response to exercise is not original to me. In fact I was introduced to the idea of applying dose-response to exercise by the writings of an MD more than 10 years ago. Researchers scientists have also used this concept in their research.

However, don't let the facts stop you from calling me names.

Regards,

Richard, any replies to Renato's posts?