The High Mileage Test (Inspired by NIKE FREE ME) Training Log

Week 1: 11/30 - 12/6

Monday - 5.11 mi @ 9:47 / 7.83 mi @ 8:41/mi w/ 5 light strides
Tuesday - 6.14 mi @ 8:58 w/ 4 short hill sprints and 2 downhill strides w/ 2 min jog rec. / 11.00 mi Progression Run (55 min) @ 7:30/mi, last mile 5:47. Pace includes cool down.
Wednesday - 5.04 mi @ 9:24 / 11.12 mi @ 8:53/mi
Thursday - 7.04 mi @ 8:35 / 10.50 mi @ 8:01/mi w/ 6 light strides
Friday - 7.60 mi @ 8:24 w/ 6 short hills sprints and 2 downhill strides w/ 2 min jog rec. / 11.60 mi Progression Run (60 min) @ 7:20/mi, last mile 5:53. Pace includes cool down.
Saturday - 7.04 mi @ 8:31 / 10.05 mi @ 8:17
Sunday - 7.15 mi @ 8:27 / 13.01 mi @ 7:33 w/ last 3 mi Progressed (7:05 - 6:45 - 5:56)

Total - 120.16 miles

Overall felt pretty good. I only planned on doing about 100 miles this week, but didn't feel like stopping my runs a lot of the time. The Progression Runs went well, threshold isn't very good right now since I just took a break, I was hovering around 6:15 for a couple miles before finishing a little faster on both. I have a couple sore spots, but no pain at all. I plan to get up to 140 this next week, but if I need to take a day off, I will.

Well we were due for another one of these threads.

Looking forward to reading this thread. Hope you stay healthy so you can continuing posting!

Cool! Good luck.

Some of your paces are WAY TOO SLOW.
Go faster.
If you don't run fast you can't race fast.

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The OP wrote:
Well we were due for another one of these threads.

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adsfdasfasfsafadfa wrote:

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The OP wrote:
Well we were due for another one of these threads.

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Wouldn't you actually like to see one where the someone actually did it for 16 weeks AND ran a race. Course that never happens. Always some excuse along the way....

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yea that's a lot of slogging. Usually people get burnt out or lose motivation before being able to adapt to such a sharp increase in mileage. Far better to do 90 per week for 10 weeks than to run 120+ for three, 70 for a few, and 35 when you're burnt out or injured.

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animaxcg wrote:

Cut the milage back on the doubles (you can keep them around 8 min pace if you want) but someone with your PR's should have no problem running the easy miles around 7 min pace...
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The OP - I agree
coleiolio and HRE - Thanks!

To everyone else - I probably should've mentioned more about where I'm at and my plans and stuff. I hit those 100+ mile weeks all summer and then this fall my coach had me running about an average of 70 mile weeks and then we tapered the last month down to 40s. I then took 2 weeks off and ran every other day for a week and then this was my first full week. I'm not in great shape (yet) because of this. I wouldn't be surprised if I couldn't break 10 for 2 miles right now, but I'm literally only done with my first week of training (went 40 - 30 - 0 - 0 - 30 - 120). Yes, I am going unbearably slow, but that's because I just jumped an insane amount and I'm still going up. I've been running with a heart rate monitor (chest strap) and don't really use it for much other than having an alert set up for a certain heart rate on easy days (set at 75% of my max), I usually average around 68 - 73% of my max on these runs, which seems pretty normal, actually. I also usually hit the first mile of every single run around 9 flat, but by the end, I'm just under 8 and again, this is the first week. As for the progression runs being slow, I don't expect them to be fast yet, I'm still adjusting to the mileage and might be for a while, but that's why I have 2 days of strides and 2 days with max effort hill sprints (I'm building up to 12 - 16 twice a week), that way I have some speed work.

animaxcg - My doubles are long because I'm training for (technically 800) 1500 - 10k, I want to be great all around. I'm not training for a marathon. Trust me, in about 6 years I'll be deep in some halfs and fulls, but I'm a freshman in college and I don't need the stress of 2 and a half to 3 hours long runs for anything I'm racing. I can run 7 minute pace, but I won't recover very well and I'll burn out like BizarroWorld mentions, but at this pace, I find it hard to physically burn out. Mentally, my ego is too big to let this become just another thread where nothing comes of it like asdf says. The doubles will be 7 miles every morning and 8 miles on Tuesdays and Fridays, it just makes hitting 140 (the goal) easier.

asdf - as I just said, my ego is too big to let this turn into one of those threads, I rollout religiously (15 min twice a day at minimum, more if something is tight) and I sleep up to 10 hours a night. Like nike free talked about, it's real glamourous, I know. Also for the Lydiard guys, they ran by feel, which is what I'm doing. If I don't feel good, I'm not gonna go all out just to make it look like I'm doing better training than I am, it's boring, I know, but it's what I'm testing. Also, since you brought up Lydiard, I'd just like to add that his guys ran 100 mpw and then also JOGGED an easy hour in the morning Monday through Friday.

Alright, sorry that was so long, but if you read it, I'm guessing that means you were slightly interested. Bottom line is, I'm testing something out, I'm not saying this is the way to go and honestly, I'm glad you guys say it's not, it makes me think more and I enjoy that. Just another reminder, this is the start, lets see what it does to me.

I had my moment of "glory" on that thread you linked to, so not that you asked, but as a veteran of doing the sort of mileage you're contemplating I'll toss out some observations.

One is that doing a thread here about this is probably going to bring in lots of opinions, compliments, criticisms, suggestions, etc. Some of that will be useful, some won't. It will be important for you to avoid getting too swayed by what you'll read here. Once you've worked out how to go about this you don't want to keep re-inventing it, though you also don't want to be overly rigid.

What I found as I got into the 120-150 a week range was that the most important thing about arranging the miles and runs was getting them in a way that was manageable within the framework of the rest of your life. You probably will need to do some tinkering to get that right and as time goes on you may need to adjust things. I found the best way to do that was to have getting the volume I wanted as the primary goal and fitting everything around that, (time of day, length of each run, etc. all were made to fit into getting the miles.)Maybe a better way of saying this was that as much as possible I made the running schedule fit my life rather than trying to make my life fit the running schedule I also tried to get to the end of my weeks a little "ahead" of schedule, e.g, if I wanted 140 mile week I'd try to average 22-23 for the first six days. That left a day that was shorter and easier than the others, i.e. I got a bit of a break.

The other thing that I always made even less than a secondary concern as I was working to big miles was any consideration about pace. I think that prevented injury troubles. Adding a lot of miles is a big stress. Trying to make sure you're running them "fast enough" is another big stress. The people I knew who had injury troubles when they did big miles were always guys who had an idea that they were wasting their time if they ran slower than a particular pace. There's a time for everything but the time for worrying about pace is not the same time as when you're adding a lot of miles.

Someone mentioned that Lydiard's guys had a couple days of runs at about 5:30 pace. That's kind of an oversimplification but essentially correct. However, Arthur also used to talk about time spent getting fit enough to use his system. I think he called it "training to train" and it was pretty much the kind of thing you're proposing, piling on miles and developing basic aerobic fitness which then has you ready for the occasionally faster stuff that came in his system.

And while he hated the association people made between his system and long, slow, distance, training he also took a very positive stand regarding slow distance work. In one of his later books he wrote, "You can never train too slowly. But you can train too fast." He always said that you can get as fit with slow distance runs as you can with faster ones but it will take longer. He said, "What the LSD runner can do in two years we can maybe do in a year."

My own experience was that I probably needed the two years. The first time I tried using Arthur's system I pushed way too hard and was constantly sore so I went back to just building miles atr whatever pace felt good. This actually was also very consistent with Lydiard's ideas about pace. He actually never prescribed any specific ones. Once when the question came up he told me "Enjoy yourself. Eventually I could do lots of miles at a pretty decent clip but that all came from doing big miles and enjoying myself.

I think that's the thing you want to do with your runs. I loved running that much and I loved the improvement that it brought. But, as I think "Nike Free Me" mentioned in that thread, paradoxically, it can be a real drag and grind on a day to day basis so it's important to do it the most appealing and enjoyable way.

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adidas free me wrote:

asdf - as I just said, my ego is too big to let this turn into one of those threads, I rollout religiously (15 min twice a day at minimum, more if something is tight) and I sleep up to 10 hours a night. Like nike free talked about, it's real glamourous, I know. Also for the Lydiard guys, they ran by feel, which is what I'm doing. If I don't feel good, I'm not gonna go all out just to make it look like I'm doing better training than I am, it's boring, I know, but it's what I'm testing. Also, since you brought up Lydiard, I'd just like to add that his guys ran 100 mpw and then also JOGGED an easy hour in the morning Monday through Friday.

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attach your strava so we know you aren't lying about everything

rooting for you dude. Like HRE said, find a system, stick to it, report back to us periodically and then don’t listen to a word we say (well maybe listen to HRE). Long live the experiment

Also, remember that you're doing this to race well, not to have an impressive training log. If you start feeling incredibly bogged down, then consider dropping the volume.

Honestly, if I were you I'd structure things like this:
120 mpw * 7 mins per mile = 14 hours per week.

Structure your training with 14 hours of running a week, whether that's at 6:00 pace or 8:00 pace. As you get more fit, your pace will drop and your mileage will increase. If you need recovery, you'll run slower and your mileage will drop.

If a collegiate athlete needs to run at 8 or 9 minute pace to feel good, there is a problem. Not saying that you can't do some slow cooldowns, but you can't do every run like that. Easy days should be easy, but only if you have the hard days to back them up. Even just 2 workouts a week of tempos and long intervals would help a lot, and not break your body down.

bro who even are you?

HRE - I'll take any advice you give, I've read a lot of your posts and they're always insightful. I usually try to get ahead like you said, but with 140, that seems almost impossible, at least right now, because I'm already running 2 and a half to 3 hours as is. I agree with the pushing the pace thing, I've seen that with myself and others around me. As for the training to train, that makes sense, if I can get used to it this year, then I can get to harder and harder training rather than worrying about miles later. With enjoying it as much as I can, that's another reason my doubles are long, I don't find 4 and 17 fun, but 7 and 14 seems almost easy. Thank you for adding to this, it's nice to get advice from someone like you.

asdf - I'm not choosing to not do hard aerobic days, that was literally my first week. I have a schedule for workouts I plan to do the next few weeks and today was the first real one of 12x600 w/ 200 jog rest just aiming for a good aerobic effort. I averaged 2:02 for 600s, so 5:27 pace (average HR 89% of max for the reps). I also said I usually run between 68 - 73% of max heart rate, not 60%. Also, I'm not saying I won't get injured, I don't have an argument against that, other than taking my easy days easy and running by feel should help. I hope to prove you wrong.

Mr.Andy - I already addressed this, if I get results worth proving, I'll prove it, but no need to right now.

happens - Thanks

Bleh - My goal isn't to get to 120 mpw @ 7:00/mi, It's to see what 120 - 150 mpw (hopefully mostly 140) does to my race times, I'm not forgetting the racing aspect. The end goal is 100% to race fast.

palerunr - no idea

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Bleh wrote:
Also, remember that you're doing this to race well, not to have an impressive training log. If you start feeling incredibly bogged down, then consider dropping the volume.

Honestly, if I were you I'd structure things like this:
120 mpw * 7 mins per mile = 14 hours per week.

Structure your training with 14 hours of running a week, whether that's at 6:00 pace or 8:00 pace. As you get more fit, your pace will drop and your mileage will increase. If you need recovery, you'll run slower and your mileage will drop.

If a collegiate athlete needs to run at 8 or 9 minute pace to feel good, there is a problem. Not saying that you can't do some slow cooldowns, but you can't do every run like that. Easy days should be easy, but only if you have the hard days to back them up. Even just 2 workouts a week of tempos and long intervals would help a lot, and not break your body down.

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good luck bro. I hope you keep providing updates because I'm interested in your journey.