How much does mileage improve performance?

Mileage is King wrote:

Well..... wrote:

Bingo.

There is SOME performance advantage in mileage, but it's very overrated (show us studies on it, if it has such a strong effect). There are also other factors as well, eg age, what your history of running is, how near some maximal for your genetics you are etc. Also be careful it doesn't tip into injury world, where those inactive periods are frequent setbacks.

NO NO NO! COMPLETELY FALSE AND WRONG!!

Bekele, Kipchoge, Geb, Farah, El G, Rupp, Salazar... Are they on 60 miles per week with a mix of quality??

NO!

To be your best you need to run a lot! And fast too!

The only reason this is even a discussion is lazy people are looking for shortcuts.

Do whatever mental gymnastics you want to justify your 40-60 miles per week. The champions will be grinding.

The good thing is to know that it`s proved that it`s not a question of how many miles you run in the week to reach individual top capacity, it`s more a question of how you run your miles! ;)

Thanks for the responses. I'll develop my original question to say the pace of all runs stays the same for runner X.

So he ran 30mpw at ~7 min miles including some track sessions. PRs were 2:00, 4:20, 16:00.

Now he keeps the sessions the same but doubles his mileage to run 60mpw at the same ~7min pace. Does this for one year.

What are his new best times?

Basically I want to try and understand the benefit of simply increased volume.

not a scientist wrote:

Thanks for the responses. I'll develop my original question to say the pace of all runs stays the same for runner X.

So he ran 30mpw at ~7 min miles including some track sessions. PRs were 2:00, 4:20, 16:00.

Now he keeps the sessions the same but doubles his mileage to run 60mpw at the same ~7min pace. Does this for one year.

What are his new best times?

Basically I want to try and understand the benefit of simply increased volume.

Basically you(and you are not alone ;) ) must try to understand that increased mileage is not a guarantee for improvement.

Mileage cannot be discussed in a vacuum. Like many things, this is a reverse U curve: gains then plateau then setback.

Increasing mileage will more than likely improve your performance if

- you have a relatively low mileage (still to be defined)

- you have ability to recover (adequate sleep and diet, time to nap ...)

So if you are running 30 miles, chances are that you will be better with 50 (but some - few - people may be at risk even here - with a highly stressing job, low sleep, etc.)

If you are running 100, it is doubtful than 120 will bring a big advantage

If you are running 150, then 200 will likely crash you down

Elites can succeed with high mileage because all their life is organized around running and recovering

We can take pleasure in seeing the matter from another point of view.

The runner in the example could easily improve still staying at 30 mpw but

REDUCE the pace at easy runs to about 7:25. Then the improvement will come

without increased risk of injury or overdoing.

-The Wizard -

If this runner does same amount of quality work he did before increasing mileage. So basically just adding 20 easy miles per week he will improve in 95%. Other 5% are people who cant handle that additional mileage and will be fatigued or injured.

not a scientist wrote:

Thanks for the responses. I'll develop my original question to say the pace of all runs stays the same for runner X.

So he ran 30mpw at ~7 min miles including some track sessions. PRs were 2:00, 4:20, 16:00.

Now he keeps the sessions the same but doubles his mileage to run 60mpw at the same ~7min pace. Does this for one year.

What are his new best times?

Basically I want to try and understand the benefit of simply increased volume.

So the added mileage is only easy miles?

I woud say that woud bring little improvment in the 800 unless the runner had a huge lack of endurance. Decent improvment at mile and great improvment at 5K

like 1:58/4:12/15:15

If the added mileage is a mix of easy and quality like he was doing before but now doing it twice a week (assuming there is enough recorvery between workouts) that would give something like :

1:54/4'08/15'15

It depends on your talent. If you are naturally fast but have no endurance, then mileage will unlock doors. The most important thing is consistency.

I was going to post the same paper as Brazillian Guy, it's nice to see someone going to the same well for ideas.

For a minute I want to take a step back from Does mileage do this? Does mileage cause that? This is one of those topics that's almost become political in running. Are you Quality or Quantity? Just about everyone has an opinion and for most of us it's the thing we did as runners that we lean toward. I was definitly in the quality camp, but since becoming a coach I've had successful athletes running around 90-105 miles a week and successful athletes under 30. By now I don't think I have much a horse in the race on that debate.

Runners improve when we are challenged. Runners get injured when we are too heavily challenged. Runners stop improving when we aren't challenged enough.

Mileage is no different. A kid with reasonable talent in high school can run 40 miles a week and be pretty damn good. But it doesn't make sense to then say, "let's stay at 40 miles a week in college and when he goes pro or if he moves up to the marathon." Spending years and years at 40 miles a week doesn't make sense from a development standpoint. After some amount of time that kid will be used to it. 40 won't challenge him or her. Runners improve when we are challenged.

That doesn't necessitate a climb up to 80 miles a week. Hell, 45 miles might be plenty for him to adapt to as a next step. Capillary beds expand, the heart increases in size, mitochondria are a little more strained and increase in density. That small jump can also add some fatigue going into each workout, that's another thing to adapt to.

We need to stop the vilification of higher or lower mileage. Add a variety of challenges to an athlete over enough time for them to not be overwhelmed and you'll get a pretty decent runner; at least a better one than you had before.

Getting back to the thread: How does mileage improve performance? Mileage is our surrogate for volume. When we run more, our bodies adapt so that the stress that we cause it can be met with appropriate fitness to handle it. Mileage (in this case aerobic running) causes adaptations of the muscle (improved strength, mitochondria, glycogen storage, coordination), heart (increase in size/stroke volume), blood vessels (increase the density and number of capillary beds to deliver blood/oxygen and remove waste from muscle), and blood itself (improved oxygen transport and enzymes for aerobic respiration). Not to say that's an exhaustive list.

At the end of the day, the upper echelon of our sport can be a war of attrition. Sometimes the reason a Pro "makes it" is because they were one of the guys/girls out there that had some talent but also had the ability to run a lot. It's hard to beat someone who runs twice as much as you it they're also pretty talented.

You can find people running relatively little. You can find people that run a whole lot. But don't take anyone too seriously who says it has to be one way or the other. Every runner is different, but every runner needs to be challenged to get better.

Yes running more miles will help... and it’s impossible not to run more miles if you get better. If you run only 4 hours per week at 7.30 pace average you hit 30 mpw if you are in better shape or run more “quality” miles that average could easily by 6 min pace now you are running 40 miles on only 4 hours... if you are running 5 min pace you are at almost 50 mpw in 4 hours! It is not reasonable to say you are training enough on 4 hours per week in anything so if you are a decent running you need to run “high” mileage just to get in training minutes.

If the question is will I be faster running 30 miles or 60 miles all at 10 min pace then it probably doesn’t matter as much but for actually training you need to put in training minutes.

A legit athlete could easily hit 30 miles in less than 3 hours of running per week... they need to increase mileage.

However you turn and twist on the question of high or low mileage it`s proved you can become a world class runner and reach your highest possible capacity on relatively low mileage. The only challenge that has to be to get better can be summarized in three words " exact individual paces ".

The body is a fantastic "programmable" tool, that when it comes to running results will improve with enough effort and enough recovery. The recovery part of proper training is of highest priority. It`s during the recovery the process takes place that takes the runner to a new higher level.This , with the importance of adequate rest, is often forgotten by many. - J.S -

"Can"" doesn't mean "will."

I don't prescribe one blanket statement of, "we use low mileage," or any other generic idea. I'd be wary of any coach that does. Donovan Brazier has run 3:35 with a long run of 8 miles. No one disagrees that it "can" be done.

There's more than one road that leads to Rome., anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something...