Billy Mills mileage

I call BS on that one. Either you misunderstood what he said or he was smoking something really good at that POW-Wow!

I agree, maybe you could get by with that milage for an 800 or possibly a 1500 but, a 10k?

8lapper wrote:

I call BS on that one. Either you misunderstood what he said or he was smoking something really good at that POW-Wow!

Believe me, I gave him a big REALLY when he told me that, and he said yes, it was a true. I, too, find this hard to fathom considering the time he ran and the fact he also made the U.S. marathon team for Tokyo. By today’s standards this does sound likle a stretch, but that IS what the man said. No wacky weed involved. I’m sure we‘d both like to see some confirmation on this.

And exactly what additional confirmation would you like to see? A polygraph perhaps? You did ask the man directly. I'd say that's about as good as it gets.

Hahahaha! I love it! Because, letsrun face it, you must run 100MPW in order to be fast. This must be a lie.

I was at the same speech and can confirm that Mr. Miles said that indeed he ran only 25 miles a week and increased it to 35 before the Games. He obviously saved his speed for that remarkable last kick in Tokyo.

I have heard Billy speak on two separate occasions. After he was done giving his speech some teammates and I asked Billy about his mileage. He gave the exact same answer both times. He claimed that he ran 100 mpw, but he considered a week to be 10 days long for training purposes. He said it gave himself sort of a mental boost to think he was doing 100 because he knew the competition was most likely running 100 mpw.

True story. My friends and I still discuss this from time to time and still chuckle about the magical "10 day week".

His re-telling of the Oly 10K is amazing.

The 1964 Olympic 10K was the first Olympic final race that I ever saw. It was a great race!

By the way, 10 miles in ten days is still not nearly 100 miles a week.

I found that I could run a better marathon off 60 to 70 miles a seven day week than I could off 120 miles a week Of fast training.

I saw a training log excerpt from 1965 and he was doing 80 to 90 miles per-week.

Skuj wrote:

Hahahaha! I love it! Because, letsrun face it, you must run 100MPW in order to be fast. This must be a lie.

Hey Splooge, I mean Skuj:

Post your pr doing 25-35 miles a week.....Hahahaha Or at least post how many other world class runners run that milage.............

Hey mike5krnr, splooge here. :)

OK, I admit 25-35 is surely an exageration. But my hahaha is at the continous 100MPWism that pervades these boards.

Me? 14:57 on 45MPW. Not Olympian, obviously. How about you?

Cheers

Skuj

Skuj wrote:

Hey mike5krnr, splooge here. :)

OK, I admit 25-35 is surely an exageration. But my hahaha is at the continous 100MPWism that pervades these boards.

Me? 14:57 on 45MPW. Not Olympian, obviously. How about you?

Cheers

Skuj

30:36 Cross Country 10k in Riverside at the 1979 NCAA Div II finals, 3:53 1500 and 14:51 5k several times in Junior College. 9:02.0 2 mile at West Coast Relays in 1978. I think all of that on only 26 miles a week...............

For what it's worth, Mills came up as a subject a couple of times in the last talk I had with Arthur Lydiard and in his Washington, DC talk. Arthur said when he was in Tokyo, Mills told him that he'd tried to do 100 mpw but couldn't. So he only ran 80. Arthur also said that Mills told him that he'd gotten sick when he came to the interval part of the Lydiard system and really didn't do intervals and, according to Arthur, that was why Mills won. "If he'd done the interval work, he would have been too tired to win the race."

Again, for what it's worth. Seems a good place to tell the story.

Mey mike5krnr, you are my new hero! Faster than me with even less volume! Please detail a typical week!

Cheers

Skuj

I spoke with Mills once about how he developed his amazing kick. He said the key was lots of 300 meter intervals. Before he won the 10k in Tokyo, he ran a time trial 400 in 49 seconds.

See, you can't believe the word of a redman for anything!

I live about a mile from Billy and he told me he did 100 miles a week before Tokyo, only his weeks were 10 days!! He basically ran 10 miles a day. Also, he did run the marathon in a decent time in Tokyo which he couldn't have done on 25-35 a week.

Ah, it took a couple weeks but here we are again with another thread about the runnin' injun.

There was a long interview with Mills in "Track Coach" a few years ago ('Wings of An Eagle') where he did talk about the 100 mile 10 day weeks and say that he tried the Lydiard system but couldn't do the interval phase. He also talked about the Gammoudi comment that he needed more speed, that he did some speed workouts with Igloi's runners, and he credited this work for his gold medal.

Mills also has made the comment that young runners do too much mileage and not enough speed, so he may indeed have been really running 35 mpw, and he went to the Lydiard system for his buildup to Tokyo for the marathon (he finished 10th). This would explain not being able to to the Lydiard interval phase: Too much jump in mileage in too short a period of time.