High mileage for middle distance running experiment (finished)

AsbelKiprop wrote:

epicTCK wrote:

Jeez dude stop trying to doxx this guy

I mean, the OP is clearly lying. They have already established a pattern of being dishonest. They can continue to be a coward if they want but until they give a name, they are about as trustworthy as a car salesman.

Jesus Christ, people obscure their times to preserve their anonymity. It doesn't matter if the guy went from 4:06 miler to 3:56 miler, or 3:48 to 3:40 for 1500, same ballpark. We've already seen people asking who this is and guessing about his identity in this thread. He doesn't want to say. I would be exactly the same way.

E.H., correct? wrote:

I believe a poster asked if you are Eric Holt. Not trying to doxx but if you are Holt, you did not break four minutes for the first time this season. If you are Holt, you were a 4:00.xx miler four years ago. You implied that you dropped ten seconds due to mega mileage when you were already a sub-4 miler. I don't believe you denied you are Holt.

Definitely not Holt. I know Eric Holt, and while he definitely found some improvement from increasing his training intensity since college, he’s not doing 150 mpw. He also, as you said was a 4:00 miler at Binghamton, so 3:42 -> 3:36 over 4 years isn’t a revolutionary improvement level worth writing a letsrun thread about.

HRE wrote:

Real Dealer wrote:

I just don't understand how some posts based solely on anecdotal information get so much traction, especially when they may not even be true. Then we have threads loaded with great information and much data and they get 1 response and then die. My son significantly dropped his 1500 time this year by dropping his mileage but nobody wants to hear that.

You understand that if you were to write about your son's improvement and mileage drop it would be an anecdote, right, as is a comment about having threads loaded with great information and many data. Narrative is often much more interesting and compelling than data.

I don’t even believe he has a son. Not until he says what his son’s name is and posts evidence of his improvement with results and all GPS data showing his mileage drop over the last 3 years.

Real Dealer wrote:

I just don't understand how some posts based solely on anecdotal information get so much traction, especially when they may not even be true. Then we have threads loaded with great information and much data and they get 1 response and then die. My son significantly dropped his 1500 time this year by dropping his mileage but nobody wants to hear that.

There's a couple reasons why.

Your son sounds young, possibly a teen with limited running experience. Teens in this scenario will improve significantly just by maturation alone, not strictly by training changes.

Secondly, you claim to have negated the OPs experiment. Your son's experiment was based on quite a different setting: young man on steep improvement curve vs mature runner who had plateaued, so you can't really negate the OPs experiment since it's a quite different set of premises.

Lastly, it's been acknowledged that some response to high volume, some to low volume high intensity, the OP is not saying his path is the only way.

lllllajko wrote:

AsbelKiprop wrote:

I mean, the OP is clearly lying. They have already established a pattern of being dishonest. They can continue to be a coward if they want but until they give a name, they are about as trustworthy as a car salesman.

Jesus Christ, people obscure their times to preserve their anonymity. It doesn't matter if the guy went from 4:06 miler to 3:56 miler, or 3:48 to 3:40 for 1500, same ballpark. We've already seen people asking who this is and guessing about his identity in this thread. He doesn't want to say. I would be exactly the same way.

And you are a coward. Pics or shens is what I say.

i care wrote:[/b

I don’t even believe he has a son. Not until he says what his son’s name is and posts evidence of his improvement with results and all GPS data showing his mileage drop over the last 3 years.

And also when he says no one wants to hear about the big improvement that came with lower miles I thought he has to be joking. There are people here who LOVE hearing about low mileage success. Coe became a minor deity not just because of his medals and records but because he reportedly got those things on low mileage.

Dingler wrote:

OP (on a different device) wrote:

General week would be:

Monday: 10, 3, 10

Tuesday: 10, 15x1km

Wednesday: 14, 4, 6

Thursday: 10, 4, 45 minute tempo

Friday: 8

Saturday: 30x400, 8

Sunday: 20, 6

I’m actually surprised how similar this looks to the training of many Kenyan marathoners.

Holy F this is a lot of running - mad respect for putting in this kind of work. OP - I have to ask, how much time are you spending each week running? Are the triples 3 shower days? Do you do anything else outside of work?

Very useful information good writing and nice blog.Thanks for sharing a good article like this.Keep it up.Thanks again https://www.couponupto.com/coupons/hail-protector

westie boy wrote:

Dingler wrote:

I’m actually surprised how similar this looks to the training of many Kenyan marathoners.

Holy F this is a lot of running - mad respect for putting in this kind of work. OP - I have to ask, how much time are you spending each week running? Are the triples 3 shower days? Do you do anything else outside of work?

Working from home helps. After a midday run I would often just go back to my desk and stay in the same running kit until heading out again for my afternoon run, no need to shower if I'm home alone. I also wouldn't sweat too much doing a 4 mile run in March

Also because of lockdown, there wasn't much else to do. But I enjoy running. I don't see missing a social dinner to go for a run as a sacrifice, instead I would see going to dinner as the sacrifice because I would honestly rather go out for a run.

How much time? I guess probably 20 hours plus. I don't really count though.

I respect your effort and performance.

However, i see nothing special in your plan. You have 1 long run (20 km) plus 3 work-outs (45 min tempo, 15x1km and 30x400m). You train like a pro basically.

Where is new stuff? I see a basic plan, besides the triples.

Do you really feel a difference between say 20x400m to 30x400m?

lexel wrote:

I respect your effort and performance.

However, i see nothing special in your plan. You have 1 long run (20 km) plus 3 work-outs (45 min tempo, 15x1km and 30x400m). You train like a pro basically.

Where is new stuff? I see a basic plan, besides the triples.

Do you really feel a difference between say 20x400m to 30x400m?

I'm pretty sure we've determined there is nothing new or special in regards to training. It's about mastering the basics. And this guy's story is about hammering those basics into 140+ mile weeks. Over and over again. That's what makes it special. We can all look at it on paper and think it's not too big. But very few of us could do it.

keepgoing wrote:

lexel wrote:

I respect your effort and performance.

However, i see nothing special in your plan. You have 1 long run (20 km) plus 3 work-outs (45 min tempo, 15x1km and 30x400m). You train like a pro basically.

Where is new stuff? I see a basic plan, besides the triples.

Do you really feel a difference between say 20x400m to 30x400m?

I'm pretty sure we've determined there is nothing new or special in regards to training. It's about mastering the basics. And this guy's story is about hammering those basics into 140+ mile weeks. Over and over again. That's what makes it special. We can all look at it on paper and think it's not too big. But very few of us could do it.

I think you’re underestimating how many people can do it. My team just had about 6 or 7 guys hit 100 mi for the first time this year “just cause”. One of them was a 40-60 mpw guy and the following track season he improved a ton in the mile. Now he runs 60 - 90 mpw. I think people are just too scared to try, but if you really just took the workouts at the right pace (basically sub T effort, but T or 10k pace with rests) and ran easy on your other runs (or steady, but never pushing), a lot more people could do this than you think. I went from 100 as my highest ever to 3 out of 4 weeks at 140 (the last one was 140 in 6 days) and had very small niggles and that was it, I just had to listen to my body and take a day off if I really needed it. So many people say “very few could do this” but really, that’s just because very few try. I’m not saying injury prone people should try this, but if you rarely get hurt or you run too fast in your workouts/easy days, you’d probably be fine slowing things down and running a lot.

OP - the title of the thread is that the experiment is finished. Will you not be training at such a high volume anymore? If you will continue to crank out 120-140+ mile weeks, how much longer will you do this? Do you think it is sustainable long term?

That's cool you got up to that type of mileage. Have you continued up there? Or gone back to the lower 100s?

And I did not mean to imply that very few people could do it from a physical standpoint. I think very few people could do this because they think they can't, or they don't want to put the time in, or they half try it and don't keep going, or any number of other self limitations I haven't thought of. Years of mileage at 140 is rare. I was not running much in my physical prime, and I regret not being able to give some big mileage running years a go. Now I'm my 40s and running good miles, but I know I cannot handle much more. Things are very touch and go compared to how they were in my early 20s. I think that's part of the reason I enjoy reading about these kinds of experiments. Good luck going after yours.

I was watching nick symmonds on YouTube about periodization. He said during his base phase, hed run a ton of miles. Hed get all the way up to 60-70 miles per week

Aagin, exactly why I started this thread. It wasn't to show off that I run more than most, but instead because I don't think I'm that genetically unique that this wouldn't work for some other people, so I want to hear their experiences.

I also didn't say I'm doing any "new stuff", or try to imply other people couldn't also do this if they wanted to. What I did was consistently run 140-150 mpw for a long period, which is the "new" thing that I want to discuss when training for middle distance running.

My question for you is, if you thought there was a purpose in doing 140 miles in 6 days, why didn't you maintain this mileage? Do you think it was overtraining? Did you plan on running that much initially, and for how many weeks? Did you feel any benefit?

The Con wrote:

OP - the title of the thread is that the experiment is finished. Will you not be training at such a high volume anymore? If you will continue to crank out 120-140+ mile weeks, how much longer will you do this? Do you think it is sustainable long term?

I guess the "experiment" phase is over. I seem to be getting good results, so I will continue with it. I might try some 5000s next year though

lexel wrote:

I respect your effort and performance.

However, i see nothing special in your plan. You have 1 long run (20 km) plus 3 work-outs (45 min tempo, 15x1km and 30x400m). You train like a pro basically.

Where is new stuff? I see a basic plan, besides the triples.

Do you really feel a difference between say 20x400m to 30x400m?

No, I don't think there is a big difference between 20 and 30 400s. I think what is different is all the filler mileage inbetween that means I ran more than most 1500 runners normally do by a considerable amount and I improved a lot. Could I do, say, 60x400? Maybe. That's what Zatopek started to do, afterall...

Also, if you're counting 20km as a long run, I actually do 2-3 of them a week. Sundays would always be at least 20 miles.

lexel wrote:

I respect your effort and performance.

However, i see nothing special in your plan. You have 1 long run (20 km) plus 3 work-outs (45 min tempo, 15x1km and 30x400m). You train like a pro basically.

Where is new stuff? I see a basic plan, besides the triples.

Do you really feel a difference between say 20x400m to 30x400m?

I realised one thing from this thread from the OP and that is the better base makes the recovery faster and with faster recovery comes higher improvement rate, given you take advantage of it. One way is to do workouts more frequent, another way is to dig deeper within one workout.

Research have at least shown that the same volume of high intensity distributet as more, less often gives larger adaptations than less, more often. Adaptation follows what is the normal and if you do not move outside the normal enough, adaptation will be limited. This experiment has increased milage a lot, that is the first un-normal, and this has led to an ability to increase the load of the workouts, I guess both since fatigue sets in later in the workout (can do more) and recovery is faster (can cope with 30x and not only 20x)

It could be just this experience is the main reason for the improvement (we will never know since this is impossible to prove). Maybe due to the larger workout volume still recovering, the improvement came along? I personally think it is more than that, but cannot believe the larger workouts are not a big contribution. There are other adaptations from more volume which depend upon what OP had not yet developed and had in his genetic reserve.