Running high mileage is significantly easier than people think

Not to be confused with Greg wrote:

Uncle Pervy wrote:

I am FIVE minutes/mile slower than my glory days on daily runs. Perhaps that's part of the problem. 45:00 used to be 8 miles.

With daily 8 milers in 45 minutes, I would expect you to be under 48 for 10 miles. Am I in the ballpark?

I wish. Not even close. But I was running my fastest in the late 80s early 90s when low mileage hammering was the "scientific" thing to do.

Easy runs were 6-7:00 pace. 7:00 was jogging. Tons of 400s in 67. 3xM in 5:00. Never broke 53:00 for 10M. No mileage - Peak was a summer in 80s. Probably yearly average at 50. And I ran at a D1 school.

Uncle Pervy wrote:

Not to be confused with Greg wrote:

With daily 8 milers in 45 minutes, I would expect you to be under 48 for 10 miles. Am I in the ballpark?

I wish. Not even close. But I was running my fastest in the late 80s early 90s when low mileage hammering was the "scientific" thing to do.

Easy runs were 6-7:00 pace. 7:00 was jogging. Tons of 400s in 67. 3xM in 5:00. Never broke 53:00 for 10M. No mileage - Peak was a summer in 80s. Probably yearly average at 50. And I ran at a D1 school.

Ahh, thanks for clarifying.

Back in the 70s and 80s we were nearly all running high mileage, professionals and amateurs alike. At least the serious runners did. That was what was "in," and what worked. Hell, it still works today. Furthermore, most of us also held down legitimate 40 hours per week (5 days per week, 8 hours per day) careers simultaneously. We had a different mindset back in 1970-1980s, something this generation is significantly lacking. How did we do it? Here is my breakdown for weekday runs.

1. Every day of the week, we would wake up at 5:00 am, a time-tested practice that some millennial, but more so Gen Z, athletes absolutely resent; they tend to sleep in late and stay up later which significantly hampers energy/vitality. They also lack self-discipline. Good luck holding down 100+ mpw and a full-time career while not being disciplined with your schedule. You want to wake up at the same time every day so that you wake up always fresh every day, relative to how you would feel otherwise on a poor sleep routine. If you sleep in on weekends, and wake up early on weekdays, you will forever be in a constant state of fatigue, relative again.

2. My buddies and I would meet up at 5:30 am to run 10 miles, rain or shine, snow or hail, did not matter. We were in New England at the time, and the winters were not particularly pleasant, but it built us stronger. It would take 15 minutes to brush my teeth, use the restroom, and put on my running clothes. The park was 0.5 miles from where I lived, so I used that commute as a warm up and cool down. We would consistently log 10 miles in about 1:15 to 1:20, but sometimes in the low 1:0x range when we would run 6-8 miles of it at threshold pace or do 400s or 1k repeats.

3. I would be home at 7:00 am. I could shower and eat in 40 minutes (I would make breakfast the night before--I did overnight oats which required about 5 minutes of preparation time the night prior). I would be on the subway near my apartment by 7:50 am to make it to an 8:30 am work start time. For what it is worth, I always kept my neck ties tied, so that I could get dressed in a full suit and tie in about 6 or 7 minutes (fastest was 4:30, I timed it one day because I am a running fanatic). If I had lived closer to work, then it would have been so much easier to have gotten in my morning workouts: simply commute by running to work, and shower there, keep a suit at your desk or locker there, and so on. Anyways, I would bring coffee with me on the subway, and had packed my lunch in a brown-paper bag. Again, if I had the opportunity back then to have run commuted to work, then what I would have done (in case you are in a similar position currently) would be to simply purchase lunch everyday near the office.

4. I would finish work at 4:30 pm. Most of my job was sedentary, so it was perfect for resting my legs and body after the morning run. I would get home at around 6:00 pm or 6:15 pm depending on if I had to stay for a little bit extra at the office.

5. I would then go out for a short, solo 4 or 5 mile run at around 6:30 pm. I would do it first thing, because I was exhausted and hungry by the time I got home and knew if I did not force myself to run immediately once I got home, I would not do the second run. So after my second run, that would give me about from 7:15 pm until 9:00 pm to shower, eat, and relax. Bed at 9 PM always.

For what it is worth, I was single at the time and not actively dating, and had no kids. Also, once I finished work every day, I never had to do additional work at home in the evenings. Thus, this protocol was doable. It certainly took sacrifice and dedication, but if you want it you can have it. Your mindset is your biggest limiting factor. You would be surprised to know how much you can push your body if your mind is strong. Your mind gives out sooner than your body. Also, I was not a loner...my social interactions were great, too, being that I would chat with my running friends during AM runs, and I only went out to the bars to drink heavy with them on Friday nights. Saturdays were easy single runs of just 13 miles, so I could afford being a bit hungover on Saturday while still getting social interaction on Friday night into Saturday early morning. Recover Saturday (I would run Saturdays really easy, about 8:45/mi pace). Long run Sunday. I kept up this practice consistently from 25 to 35 years of age before I had to stop running due to injuries.

Average weekly breakdown was the following:

Weekly Mileage: 106 - 110 mpw.

Monday: 11 miles AM, 4-5 miles PM.

Tuesday: 11 miles AM, 4-5 miles PM.

Wednesday: 11 miles AM, 4-5 miles PM.

Thursday: 11 miles AM, 4-5 miles PM.

Friday: 11 miles AM, 2 miles PM.

Saturday: 13 miles AM, 0 miles PM.

Sunday: 20 miles AM.

When I would bump up to 120 mpw (rarely went higher than 120 besides while on vacations), I would simply run more in the evenings on Monday through Thursday (6 miles), do 4 miles on Friday evening instead of 2, bump Saturday to 15 miles in the AM, and Sunday long runs to 22 miles. I did not do that often because it made me too tired; work productivity would decrease. But on vacations from work, I would often log 150+ miles in that week off.

My PRs were solid with this protocol. 14:12 (5,000), 29:53 (10,000), 1:09:33 (half marathon), 2:24:19 (marathon).

I postulate that the reason American distance running today has not even a fraction of the depth that we had back in the 1970s and 1980s is because too many young adults nowadays are losing discipline. There are too many distractions today with social media. It is those young adults who realize this, get disciplined, and limit or eliminate social media who will go far in running and life. Just my $0.02.

I routinely ran 100 mile weeks and frequently got to 120-150. Any steps I took at 5 AM were from bed to the toilet and back to bed. I could never have functioned at work if I'd gotten up anywhere near that early. Yes. it's one way to do it but not the only way.

HRE wrote:

I routinely ran 100 mile weeks and frequently got to 120-150. Any steps I took at 5 AM were from bed to the toilet and back to bed. I could never have functioned at work if I'd gotten up anywhere near that early. Yes. it's one way to do it but not the only way.

Fair point, and point taken. I do agree with your implicit point in that high mileage (i.e., 100+ mpw) can be done on a 40-hour per week work schedule. It certainly does not require a 5:00 am wake up call. You may have until 6:00 am to sleep. For others they might have a 4 am to 8 pm day, while others may have 2 pm until 6 am. Whatever the schedule, it can be fit in most runners’ circumstances, if one truly wants to have it.

Eventually Mark Nenow came along and did his second run at 11:00 PM, much more my style.

This is a very odd post that seems to needlessly cast entire generations of people into rigid archetypes it also seemingly lacks any underlying data and basically comes across as "when i was young we walked 10 miles in the snow to school".

There are tons of millenials who run high mileage, with jobs, with kids (which you apparently didn't have) and run considerably faster than your HM and marathon PRs.

As far as your depth comment below are the top 30 results from the 1980 olympic trials followed by the 2012 olympic trials (when your dreaded "millenials" would have been at their peak). How do you rationalize your comments with this info? Care to explain?

1980

1. Sandoval, Tony ( NM) 2:10:19

2. Durden, Benji ( GA) 2:10:41

3. Heffner, Kyle ( TX) 2:10:55

4. Tabb, Ron ( TX) 2:12:39

5. Wells, Jeff ( TX) 2:13:16

6. McCarey, Kevin ( OR) 2:13:17

7. Thomas, Randy ( MA) 2:13:40

8. Minty, Gordon ( MI) 2:13:53

9. Richardson, Frank ( IA) 2:14:17

10. Rinde, Dennis ( CA) 2:14:22

11. Saeger, Walt ( OH) 2:14:38

12. Smith, Dave ( CA) 2:14:48

13. Patterson, David ( PA) 2:15:09

14. Hattersley, Chuck ( CO) 2:15:30

15. Foster, Jeff ( PA) 2:15:56

16. Beardsley, Dick ( MN) 2:16:01

17. Dimick, John ( VT) 2:16:08

18. Burke, Kim ( PA) 2:16:10

19. Vitale, John ( CT) 2:16:22

20. Castaneda, Ted ( CO) 2:16:38

21. Pinocci, Mike ( NV) 2:16:46

22. Fanelli, Gary ( PA) 2:16:49

23. Smead, Chuck ( CA) 2:16:58

24. Karthauser, Cliff ( NE) 2:16:58

25. Glad, Bill ( WA) 2:17:23

26. Miley, John ( OK) 2:17:23

27. Kulikowski, Roy ( SC) 2:17:26

28. Robinson, Bruce ( MD) 2:17:30

29. Miley, David ( OK) 2:17:40

30. Callison, Rick ( OH) 2:17:42

2012

1. Keflezighi, Meb (Mammoth Lakes CA) 2:09:08 $ 54,000 + $ 20,000 bonus

2. Hall, Ryan (Mammoth Lakes CA) 2:09:30 $ 43,000 + $ 20,000 bonus

3. Abdirahman, Abdi (Tucson AZ) 2:09:47 $ 32,000 + $ 20,000 bonus

4. Ritzenhein, Dathan (Beaverton OR) 2:09:55 $ 21,000

5. Gotcher, Brett (Flagstaff AZ) 2:11:06 $ 15,500

6. Carlson, Andrew (Chaska MN) 2:11:24 $ 10,000

7. Cabada, Fernando (Boulder CO) 2:11:53 $ 8,000

8. Arciniaga, Nick (Flagstaff AZ) 2:11:56 $ 7,000

9. Carney, James (Boulder CO) 2:12:23 $ 6,000

10. Grabow, Jimmy (Running Springs CA) 2:12:29 $ 4,000

11. Vail, Ryan (Portland OR) 2:12:43

12. Flynn, Ricky (Lynchburg VA) 2:13:41

13. Rizzo, Patrick (Boulder CO) 2:13:42

14. Cox, Josh (Mammoth Lakes CA) 2:13:50

15. Burrell, Ian (Tucson AZ) 2:14:04

16. Quigley, Sean (Braintree MA) 2:14:12

17. Morgan, Mike (Rochester Hills MI) 2:14:22

18. Lehmkuhle, Jason (Minneapolis MN) 2:14:35

19. King, Max (Bend OR) 2:14:36

20. Reneau, Michael (Saint Paul MN) 2:14:37

21. Polley, Drew (Rochester Hills MI) 2:14:58

22. Smyth, Patrick (Mammoth Lakes CA) 2:15:00

23. Bak, Ryan (Bend OR) 2:15:12

24. Tapia, Daniel (Castroville CA) 2:15:28

25. Reyes, Sergio (Los Osos CA) 2:15:41

26. Leon, Craig (Eugene OR) 2:15:42

27. Bechtol, Keith (Palo Alto CA) 2:16:02

28. Chavez, Michael (Fort Collins CO) 2:16:13

29. Cherry, Jesse (Blowing Rock NC) 2:16:31

30. Sayenko, Mikhail (Bellevue WA) 2:16:40

High mileage can be bad for hearth.

If You run too much, hearth will become oversized.

I ran around 75mpw and my performance dropped and HR increased. Later went to lab test, where it measured that my hearth is getting too big.

Now I run 45-65 mpw and my heart parameters are perfect for an endurance athlete.

You misspelled "millennial." You lost credibility.

Anyone can cherry-pick statistical evidence to bolster their arguments. BORING.

What I opined about was just that, just my $0.02 (aka, opinion), as I stated previously.

Yes because a typo on an internet message board should totally cause someone to "lose credibility".

Your opinion is offensive, it castigates and profiles millions of people in a negative light.

The problem with your opinion is that it is uninformed and lacks any sort of data driven defense. If you have it share it. Otherwise you should be ignored.

highhoppingworm wrote:

Yes because a typo on an internet message board should totally cause someone to "lose credibility".

Your opinion is offensive, it castigates and profiles millions of people in a negative light.

The problem with your opinion is that it is uninformed and lacks any sort of data driven defense. If you have it share it. Otherwise you should be ignored.

Yeah, it sure "castigates" and "profiles" people negatively. 99% of my post was about sharing my experience running 100+ mpw while working full time, saying that I did it, my friends did it, and it is doable. One sentence of my opinion stating a general observation that I and others have seen is in no way near "castigat[ion]" or "profil[ing]." Get real. You have a different perspective? Great. We are not all going to agree.

Again, get real, and get training.

If you're in your 20s, it's a piece of cake. The hard part is doing 2 really hard workouts per week in addition to the mileage.

You high milage runners. When I try to do blocks of high milage and a lot of easy, I get so sluggish or lose the kind of the ability to run fast. I do not really get slower or tired, just kind of sluggish. It is no fun. When I get some days of at least threshold workouts and less milage I wake up again. Is this how it is or is it personal or what you do? I have tried to stay sharp by adding some faster work in the easy work, but still the same. This kindof prevents me from really trying a high milage approach. Probably I have never really tried it. I trained a lot in my 20s and had a year of 600h running, but that included on average 2-3 workouts and a rather long run (2.5 hours) during the winter. I cannot do high milage AND so many workouts at the same time now.

Sounds like what we did in the 70s. 100/120 mpw were normal. But we were finishing HS , 1974 and college running lasted a year and onto the roads . Had plenty of time and ran a bazillion miles. Now 65 and a new hip . Found out those miles were being run on an impinged hip . Wore every last bit of cartilage off until walking across the street last month was difficult!!! So yea high mileage is great until it ain’t !!

Lion belt wrote:

Most people who do doubles are unemployed.

It is hard to get to 100mpw with singles.

Or they are just bad with time management.

I ran upwards of 120-140mi a week while working 40 hrs a week.

There are 24 hours in a day. 16 hours after your 8 hour work day. 8 hours after your 8 hours of sleep if you get that much.

Alan

High mileage over a couple of sessions really isn't that hard to get in. People just lack efficiency. I don't do run high mileage anymore, but I go to the gym 5 days per week, do a circuit on a 6th day and then do 30-60 minutes of conditioning 6-7 days per week. That takes far more time than lacing up some trainers and going on a jog a couple of times per day, but is still easily doable.

No transport is required. No warm up is required. Showering + changing takes 10-15 minutes and can be done in half that time.

If you get your admin done at the weekend and throw in meal prep (1 hour on a Sunday and some Tupperware), or cook in higher quantities so you're only cooking 2-3 days during the week (much easier for families), it's easy. If anything it makes you more efficient.

Most people watch over 3 hours of TV (or browse the internet) per day. You can borrow 2 hours of that for running.

Whether or not you want / need to is another discussion.

80s American runner wrote:

Monday: 11 miles AM, 4-5 miles PM.

Tuesday: 11 miles AM, 4-5 miles PM.

Wednesday: 11 miles AM, 4-5 miles PM.

Thursday: 11 miles AM, 4-5 miles PM.

Friday: 11 miles AM, 2 miles PM.

Saturday: 13 miles AM, 0 miles PM.

Sunday: 20 miles AM.

In my recent holiday of around 2 weeks duration, i did an experiment to run 2 times a day, which was a success to me. Have a thread here.

However, for me doing around 1h AM and 1h PM was a good way to do it. So split the load equaly.

You did 11miles AM and 4-5miles PM, thats not an even split.

Why you do it that way, i guess you have your arguments?

lexel wrote:

80s American runner wrote:

Monday: 11 miles AM, 4-5 miles PM.

Tuesday: 11 miles AM, 4-5 miles PM.

Wednesday: 11 miles AM, 4-5 miles PM.

Thursday: 11 miles AM, 4-5 miles PM.

Friday: 11 miles AM, 2 miles PM.

Saturday: 13 miles AM, 0 miles PM.

Sunday: 20 miles AM.

In my recent holiday of around 2 weeks duration, i did an experiment to run 2 times a day, which was a success to me. Have a thread here.

However, for me doing around 1h AM and 1h PM was a good way to do it. So split the load equaly.

You did 11miles AM and 4-5miles PM, thats not an even split.

Why you do it that way, i guess you have your arguments?

Nice to hear it was a success for you. The 1 hour AM, 1 hr PM split is excellent too!!! I preferred to run longer in the morning because that was when I had the most energy. By the time I came home after 6:00 pm from work, I hardly had the energy to do another 5 miles, let alone a full hour. I liked to go longer in the morning and short in the evening, helped with the recovery, too. Whichever way you cut the pie, if you get in at a minimum 15 that day it is a success.

highhoppingworm wrote:

This is a very odd post that seems to needlessly cast entire generations of people into rigid archetypes it also seemingly lacks any underlying data and basically comes across as "when i was young we walked 10 miles in the snow to school".

There are tons of millenials who run high mileage, with jobs, with kids (which you apparently didn't have) and run considerably faster than your HM and marathon PRs.

As far as your depth comment below are the top 30 results from the 1980 olympic trials followed by the 2012 olympic trials (when your dreaded "millenials" would have been at their peak). How do you rationalize your comments with this info? Care to explain?

My understanding (I don't have a source to hand) is that where the times of pros/elites have improved over these decades, the times of recreational and club runners have markedly declined. Diet and lifestyle are factors, but so is weekly mileage.