Higher milage impact on workouts

Even though i really like running high mileage, It is not really for me either. Thé impact on my workouts are negative... 1 year ago i ran anywhere from 80/95 miles per week (april/August). Before this i was on 50 ish miles per week all year round and could do 3x1 mile@4:55 pace but a good slow 400jog... when i was on high mileage i felt offffffff the pace felt like a sprint. Vo2max wise, it’s fine but the pace felt fast.

Old is as old does wrote:

Despite what some people write on these boards. Not everyone benefits from high mileage. Some would also argue that 75 isn’t that high.

Body composition needs to be taken into account.

In my experience, I have always run my best at 60-70 miles a week. At 5’11, 155 lbs (lean), miles take there toll a little more than someone who weighs in @130-135 lbs.

My point is you need to find what works best for you. 10 weeks it enough time for the body to adapt. So either you are running every run too hard or the mileage it just beating you up too much.

Indeed ... mileage should support the work you're doing ... not define it

The mileage count should be a consequence of the pace you run and how long you run for. Not a target in itself

If you do it right, you naturally feel ready to go for higher mileage. A few years go I set a goal at start of year to run 7-8hrs per week. I knew 7 was easy to cope with, but if I did more than 8 too often I started to feel beat up. Come the following autumn, I got the endurance training right and suddenly found the 8 was barely tiring me and was going well over 9 hours some weeks.

It is quite normal for workouts to be slower as you initially increase training load. Are you building in "down" weeks? You should think about your recovery and nutrition, these demands scale up with increased training load. Give your body time to adapt. If you are smart about this, you will reap the benefits in the Fall (or next season).

Every runner starts out as a low mileage runner. We start the sport maybe running 4-5x a week for 3-5 miles each time for a total weekly mileage of around 20 miles.

When you are running 20 miles a week, you can smash your "easy" days because they might be only 20-30 minutes in length.

As you increase your mileage, you just can't smash your easy days because you are running much more and fatiguing more. You need to slow down the pace on your easy days to account for total fatigue.

Running 7:30 miles on easy days and smashing intervals and increasing mileage is a recipe for injury and burnout. (Unless you are Kipchoge, which you aren't)

Run your easy days based on feel. The day after a hard workout, you might need 9:00 min miles to stay easy. That's OK. It'll come around.

This article is a classic. see bullet #2.

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2006/09/wejo-speaks-why-i-sucked-in-college/

10 mpw at that low a mileage shouldn’t impact your workouts. If you’re running slower, chances are it’s because you are doing something wrong with recovery. Either try to get more sleep, or eat a more well rounded diet. Don’t listen to these guys talking about high mileage not working(which 75 isn’t high mileage btw). If high mileage didn’t work the East Africans wouldn’t do it.

RFF wrote:

How much impact could be expected on the workouts when increasing mileage?

When I was doing 65 mpw , I could do 5x 1 mile in 5:47 pace.

I have now been on 75 mpw for 5 weeks and now struggle to keep 6:02 in the same workout.

Any advice or input.

I reckon 90% of the recreational runners out there are over-trained and have no clue about it. If that mileage doesn't cut it for you reduce it and see if the quality of your sessions improve. If it doesnt reduce it even more. Also, as few have remarked, focus on your recovery days and run them as slow as you need. Putting any pace target on a recovery day is completely asinine.

Now when thinking about it , I need more fuel into my body.

Just saw that I lost about 10lb the last weeks.

Impala31 wrote:

cbenson4 wrote:

High mileage is built during off-season periods. In-season, you should cut it by a fair chunk, 25-40%. For example, I got up to 110 mpw one summer, but during XC I was around 70-75, and 60-65 later in the season. Quality workouts, especially race pace and VO2max intervals, are hard to recover from. At some point, running more while trying to do that can be detrimental.

Bob Kennedy also practiced this. He would build to 100+ mpw in the off-season (even getting as high as 140 one winter) and run 60-70 mpw in-season.

It also depends on how often you are racing. The more often, the more conservative you should be.

that is true for middle distances, not marathon. At least not with those %.

I mean, you should only be racing a marathon twice a year. In other events there are 16-24-week blocks of racing. I assume OP is not a marathoner

OP said that we wanted to do a good marathon in fall.

So yeah he is training for that and increasing mileage IS MANDATORY in his case. The question is not either to do it or not but how to do it.

Even if you run only marathon 2 times a year you won't race much when training for marathon and races are 10k-HM so it doesn not change much

You need to keep at least 80-90% of base mileage (with more intensity) until last two weeks before a target race for those distances.

Impala31 wrote:

OP said that we wanted to do a good marathon in fall.

So yeah he is training for that and increasing mileage IS MANDATORY in his case. The question is not either to do it or not but how to do it.

Even if you run only marathon 2 times a year you won't race much when training for marathon and races are 10k-HM so it doesn not change much

You need to keep at least 80-90% of base mileage (with more intensity) until last two weeks before a target race for those distances.

My bad for not reading

highhoppingworm wrote:

I can relate to this. Bounced from 50-65 miles up to 75-85 miles over the last 8 weeks. My experience has been that I had a couple of bad workout weeks but turned the corner after 3 weeks or so. The following helped me:

1) Take a nap/make sure you are getting enough sleep

2) Maybe 2 quality days a week (one inside a long run)

3) REALLY slow down your easy days. Seriously. Going from running 7-7:30 pace on easy days to running 7:45-7:55 pace on easy days has done wonders

^this - but don't worry about pace on easy days, seeing some 8:XXs in there shouldn't be worrisome . I really think SJD is right in saying that you should take the easy days really slow so you that can run fast on the hard days.

Old is as old does wrote:

Despite what some people write on these boards. Not everyone benefits from high mileage. Some would also argue that 75 isn’t that high.

Body composition needs to be taken into account.

In my experience, I have always run my best at 60-70 miles a week. At 5’11, 155 lbs (lean), miles take there toll a little more than someone who weighs in @130-135 lbs.

My point is you need to find what works best for you. 10 weeks it enough time for the body to adapt. So either you are running every run too hard or the mileage it just beating you up too much.

This is an important post. Some people don't handle mileage well, especially bigger runners. In addition, you have increased in the range of 20%. You would not go to the gym and jump your bench press 20% and expect to do the same number of reps would you? Try 10% for 6 weeks, then another 10% for 6 weeks (with rest weeks described below). The body will adapt more easily.

Another important post is about recovery weeks. A good plan is to increase mileage for 2-3 weeks, then go back to your previous mileage for a week with lower intensity. Body adaption happens when resting. Hard workout day, recovery day. Hard weeks, easy week. If you run in the exhaustion zone all the time, you never adapt.

RFF wrote:

How much impact could be expected on the workouts when increasing mileage?

When I was doing 65 mpw , I could do 5x 1 mile in 5:47 pace.

I have now been on 75 mpw for 5 weeks and now struggle to keep 6:02 in the same workout.

Any advice or input.

Thats only 10miles more, should not be that big of an impact.

Just take your EASY days easy. also remember to get 2 easy-moderate days between workouts to allow for a decent recovery.

and I hope the extra 10miles is divided between your easy days and long run??

Looks like I might get an opporturnity to run a small local marathon beginning of September.

What do you think of my chances for sub 3. I will have 6-7 weeks to train and 2 weeks for tapering.

This is my last 5 days and planned next 2 days

Sunday: Long run 18,5 miles (2:18) Last 12 from 7:09 with finishing 3 at 6:40

Monday: off

Tuesday: 9 easy

Wednesday: Treadmill 5 miles at 6:15 (Hard) Directly followed by 3 miles 6:52

Thursday 6 easy

Friday: 12 miles progressive(1:23:50) first 3 average 7:30 last 9 6:35 (Hard but not exhausted)

Planned

Saturady 6 easy

Sunday 18 easy

Any chances of sub 3 and how to go on from here ?

Gotta get adjusted to the new mileage before adding more intensity

This is what I ended up doing this week.

Sunday: Long run 18,5 miles (2:18) Last 12 from 7:09 with finishing 3 at 6:40

Monday: off

Tuesday: 9 easy

Wednesday: Treadmill 5 miles at 6:15 (Hard) Directly followed by 3 miles 6:52

Thursday 6 easy

Friday: 12 miles progressive(1:23:50) first 3 average 7:30 last 9 6:35 (Hard but not exhausted)

Saturday: 6 easy

Sunday: Long run on treadmill due to bad weather. 2 w/u 10 @6:37 1 easy 3 @ 6:45 2 cool down.

Based on this sunday- sunday , what do you think of going for a sub 3 beginning Sep ??

Legs feels fine after sunday, So maybe I should just keep the mileage arong 65-70 for the coming weeks. Did my last week look ok for have a chance on sub 3 in a couple of weeks?

Hi

Posting here again to get some feedback for my training.

I have found a nice balance now for 75-80 mpw. I just do two workouts per week

On Thursday and either 6x 2K , 4x 3K or 3x 4K

On Sunday hard long run 18-22 miles. Between 6:55 to 6:26 for 90% of the distance.

Rest of the days is easy/steady runs.

It seem like my body recover good between the sessions and so far no plateau.

Do you think I will continue to improve by this training ?

Only focus on half and full marathon.

3weeks ago I felt good when starting my long run so half way in decided to see how far I could run in 3 hours.

Marathon distance covered in 2:55:55

3 hours 26,8

Not fully exhausted after this and could continue normal training week after.

What could a taper and race situation do on that time?

RFF wrote:

Hi

Looked at my training log again.

I have bumped up my mileage from 62 mpw to 75 mpw.

Have now been on 75mpw for 10 weeks.

Still can`t see any improvements. Workouts are hard and not close to what I could do in a 62 mile week.

Doing my easy runs at around 8:00 per mile

Any advice ? Is it really that big of a jump to go from 62 to 75?

HM PB : 1:23:xx

What kind of improvement do you want to see after 10 weeks?? Come on, this is relatively small time for your cardiovascular system. You increased from avg 8h/w to avg 9h/w, so added 10 extra hours for 10 weeks, correct? - this is f@cking nothing for the heart. Man, 60 hours of running +-10h will give you only +1 f@cking milliliter (ml) to your heart stroke volume, peanuts... so that is why you cannot see improvement after 10 weeks, after 60 weeks you will notice something...