Running 4 miles a day every day

Bruce Tulloh ran a 13:12 3 mile on 30mpw. Now he wasn't exactly running 4 miles/day but if you can get pretty darn fast on low volume if your are absurdly talented.

If you aren't running on a treadmill, then your run will be at various places by default. The farthest distance between the various places where you start and end your run could only be up to 4 miles. If the various places have hills, then you could get faster than if the various places are flat.

I think that you could get very fast while running 4 miles per day, but it would probably take longer than if you ran more miles per week or if you included longruns and tempo runs that were more than 4 miles.

You could improve more by running 28 miles per week with some of the runs being longer than by running a limit of 4 miles each day.

somewhere between 14 and 25 minutes.

I think you could narrow that quite a bit to 16 - 23.

Unless the person has trained seriously at higher mileage before, I doubt they will have the know-how to train well enough to get under 16. I also assume that part of this thought exercise is that they can never run more than 4 miles in one day. I guess they could get sneaky if they're really dedicated and put in an 8 mile workout near midnight.

4 miles everyday should certainly be enough to get under 23 even if they don't know what they're doing. Whether they run easy everyday or tempo every day, I think they'd be under 23. I'm tempted to narrow that downward even further.

I think average male runners would be about 22 minutes or so. Decent age groupers that have some talent or training history, maybe about 18 or so, maybe 19 for guys in their 40’s or high schoolers. I dunno.

Nutsack McGee wrote:

You could improve more by running 28 miles per week with some of the runs being longer than by running a limit of 4 miles each day.

Or you could do some 4 mile runs in the mountains. This for example:

907land wrote:

Nutsack McGee wrote:

You could improve more by running 28 miles per week with some of the runs being longer than by running a limit of 4 miles each day.

Or you could do some 4 mile runs in the mountains. This for example:

https://www.strava.com/segments/4197390

Brilliant! If you did the last 4 miles of the Pike’s Peak ascent regularly you could probably substitute it as a long run. Mix that with some easy flat running, traditional hill work, and track intervals with no warmup or cooldown, and you could get somewhere!*

*That somewhere may be your Physical Therapist’s office.

I followed a streakman at Strava that ran 5 k a day for a full year, he ran at the same tempo every day, and did not progress much. He had a time trial during the end just below 25 minutes (the guy was about 40).

SprintTriathlon wrote:

I followed a streakman at Strava that ran 5 k a day for a full year, he ran at the same tempo every day, and did not progress much. He had a time trial during the end just below 25 minutes (the guy was about 40).

Not surprising. At the end he only trained to run at that same pace and his heart became like a diesel engine that can't turn fast and since his legs are no gearbox he can't go fast.

It would be possible to run faster with 4 miles a day, but the necessity would be to go hard for a few days, including workouts

Nutsack McGee wrote:

I think you could narrow that quite a bit to 16 - 23.

Unless the person has trained seriously at higher mileage before, I doubt they will have the know-how to train well enough to get under 16. I also assume that part of this thought exercise is that they can never run more than 4 miles in one day. I guess they could get sneaky if they're really dedicated and put in an 8 mile workout near midnight.

4 miles everyday should certainly be enough to get under 23 even if they don't know what they're doing. Whether they run easy everyday or tempo every day, I think they'd be under 23. I'm tempted to narrow that downward even further.

Completely possible to go under 16:00 on 30mpw.

Entirely depends on talent.

My 5k PB is 19:30 on 20mpw.

I'm aiming to go up to 30mpw and hopeful that it'll get me to 18:30 or so.

ex-runner wrote:

Nutsack McGee wrote:

I think you could narrow that quite a bit to 16 - 23.

Unless the person has trained seriously at higher mileage before, I doubt they will have the know-how to train well enough to get under 16. I also assume that part of this thought exercise is that they can never run more than 4 miles in one day. I guess they could get sneaky if they're really dedicated and put in an 8 mile workout near midnight.

4 miles everyday should certainly be enough to get under 23 even if they don't know what they're doing. Whether they run easy everyday or tempo every day, I think they'd be under 23. I'm tempted to narrow that downward even further.

Completely possible to go under 16:00 on 30mpw.

Entirely depends on talent.

Sure, but the question isn’t about 30 mpw. The question is also not about a well structured 28 mpw. The question asks specifically about 4 mile per day.

Nutsack McGee wrote:

I think you could narrow that quite a bit to 16 - 23.

Unless the person has trained seriously at higher mileage before, I doubt they will have the know-how to train well enough to get under 16. I also assume that part of this thought exercise is that they can never run more than 4 miles in one day. I guess they could get sneaky if they're really dedicated and put in an 8 mile workout near midnight.

4 miles everyday should certainly be enough to get under 23 even if they don't know what they're doing. Whether they run easy everyday or tempo every day, I think they'd be under 23. I'm tempted to narrow that downward even further.

People show up freshmen year of XC and run 19 mins off basically zero training. And the question is how fast you can run off 4 miles/day. There is no requirement that the person train inefficiently. 4 miles/day is plenty to get a person in really good shape. You would do things like ride a bike for 10 mins, do drills, and then do 4 miles of 30/30s. Or 6x800, or 12x400. You would be down well below 14 if you were a talented runner.

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

I find that pretty hard to believe, but I'm not saying that it's absolutely impossible.

Let's say that "well below 14," means that the person could run a 13:50. I feel like that time requires tremendous talent to achieve with any training program, much less a 4 mile per day limitation. It seems to me like it would take someone with elite-level talent to do it on 28 mpw.

The original question is, "How fast could one get @ 5k by running 4 miles every day at various places?" I would say that the "one" referenced in the question should probably imply a more average runner. Otherwise the question could have been stated as, "What is the fastest 5k time that could be achieved by an elite runner if they only ran 4 miles per day?"

There’s certainly going to be a range, but I showed up and ran 18:04 on a tough course in the first time trial of my inaugural season. I ran three days per week for about 12 miles total the summer before, because I had an 8-5 construction job, so I was spent.

I ran under 16 that season. It’s not impossible to do a lot with a little. However, once the peak hits, it requires a higher level of consistent training to keep improving. Eventually, everyone will plateau just doing four miles per day, every day of the week.

I would say most could break 20 if they did the 28 miles consistently.

Nutsack McGee wrote:

ex-runner wrote:

Completely possible to go under 16:00 on 30mpw.

Entirely depends on talent.

Sure, but the question isn’t about 30 mpw. The question is also not about a well structured 28 mpw. The question asks specifically about 4 mile per day.

Completely possible to go under 16 on 28mpw by running 4 miles a day.

I was running about 20-22 miles a week at a fairly fast pace back in the early 90's and ran a 16:20 in a 5K road race. That was about six years after running in the low 14's for track 5K's during college.

bump