Like a real man.
Like a real man.
My freshman year of college the coach had us running 100+ mpw straight out of high school. I got sick, my times were minutes slower than what I ran in HS, and I ultimately got kicked off the team. Trained myself after that at about 60 mpw and set all of my PR's that still stand decades later.
I found it just a little too much for me. I was tired, and subsequently dropped down to more manageable mileage, averaging just over 80 MPW.
I used to string together 100+ weeks for marathon training on top of a 40+ hr per week job. Most of it was a waste of time because the cumulative fatigue put me into overtraining. 80-90 max is best for me. in fact, workouts and specificity is far more important to volume. I would have run better marathons at 70-80 MPW because my workouts would have been better and I could recover from that volume given the other responsibilities I had in life. You can only do as much as you can recover from.
Sham 69 wrote:
Were you sore? Happy? Intelligent? Confused?
100 mile week takes a different breed of human: a superhuman that is unlimited (Eliud Kipchogay).
Did your shins hurt a lot? What about your quads? Did you have to eat a LOT of food? Did you gain lots of muscle? Did you SWEAT a lot? Did you get blisters? Did you CHAFE? Share your stories please!
Happy
Back in 2011, I had been averaging 40-50 mpw with peaks of about 70 mpw, and wanted to improve my marathon times from about 3:30. I did a 100 mpw in January 2012, and then ran Napa in 3:13, Steamtown in 3:07, and CIM in 3:04 that year. So Happy yes, eventually.
Confused
After completing the 100 mpw I was confused, because my stomach muscles hurt. My Doc said I likely strained my stomach muscles, which had to counteract my arm swing, because I wasn't use to running that much.
Intelligent
Yes. I believed that I cracked the code to running faster, which was to run more. However, I also fould that 20% of my miles need to be at the marathon pace that I wish to run, because mileage isn't everything, but it's the most important thing.
No to the rest of the questions.
Done it about 5 times now, you feel like trash the first time. Exhausted, bloated from all the extra water and food you try to consume and make up for the first time doing it. You aren’t recovered and just feel like running is your life.
Having done it multiple times since, it now feels like an excessive average training week. Doesn’t take as long as it used too, but it gets monotonous. Learned liquid calories are way easier to consume instead of trying to eat healthy vegetables constantly.
I ran everything from 8:30-9:00 my first time. Now I can do it with two/three workouts and easy miles from 7:20-8:40. I don’t split everything straight in half. My story is just that it doesn’t make you faster or special, consistency does
The first time I did it was after running ~90 miles a week for the weeks leading up. It felt fine - just took a little more time out of my week to add another double or two.
I don't think you can say you "have run XX miles per week" until you do it for at least 3-4 weeks. Even a couple weeks at 100 felt fine for me though - it was almost disappointing in a way.
Against better advice, I did my first going into my junior year of high school at XC camp. Definitely needed other guys around to get through the second half of the week. But I ate a lot, which usually resulted in my stomach cramping like no tomorrow. I'd go straight to my bunk bed and nap for an hour or two.
I think sweating is all relative. If it's the middle of August, I was sweating through my shirt if I even wore one. Nothing "hurt" per say but it's like a car getting low on gas. You just feel depleted. That first time seeing triple digits is gratifying but it's different for every runner. Some guys get hurt running that much (like I did) and some thrive on it, like Kipchoge.
For the record, I did run an extra 8 mile run when I got home from camp just to say I did it. Sue me.
most i've ever run is 59. I set a goal for the year to have a 300 mile month, so maybe I'll give it a shot? Or I'll just do something like 70 per week.
Either way it's gonna suck. For my ability, I am pretty close to 2 hours per day of running to hit 100.
My first time was extra special. I was so nervous before I started and during I was anxious that I wasn't doing it right. A wave of euphoria hit me when I finished like nothing I have ever experience. I'll remember that final sunday morning forever. Me and the boys. Sweaty. Panting. Raw. Hard.
I did 100km...once. That's about 62.5 miles. Next best is about 55. I love running but only for about an hour, then it's a drag so I don't do it. Only picked up running as a 35 year old who wanted to train year-round for cycling. I'm never going to be a world beater, and whether I run 245 or 330 for the marathon makes no difference to me.
A little story on the benefits of mileage.
I ran all througout my teenage years. Never went above 40MPW. Never broke 10 minutes in the 3k. Was constantly injured, started to hate running. Took a few years off as it just wasn't fun any more then got back into it around this time last year at the age of 21. Before that, I thought of 60MPW as "Wow! 60 is incredibly high! I can't imagine running that many miles, that's almost 9 per day!" But when the lockdown started, out of boredom, I started to run more and more mileage. 50 MPW, 60 MPW, 70MPW. Bare in mind the best race I've ever run before this was a 3K at a pace of 5:22 per mile. Once I'd hit 3 months of 70MPW, I TT'd a 10k at an average pace of 5:18 per mile, more than triple the distance and 5 seconds per mile faster.
Then after a non-running injury that put me out of action for over 2 months, I started another cycle, this time running even more miles. These past 2 months I averaged 80MPW. The other day I ran a tempo run where I went through the 10k mark on an average pace of 5:13 per mile and then carried on the session with some faster reps.
So, at least from my personal experience, I can tell you that mileage is EVERYTHING. You will NEVER be good running 50 mile weeks. If you're racing anything from 1500 upwards I definitely think you need to be doubling most days, smashing out as many miles as you can without being exhausted for workouts. In order to do this, just slow down on easy days. Every time you hit a new record high for weekly mileage, it always feels tough, but the second time you run that mileage it will be 10x easier. Also, once you've done a 100 mile week, any week where you're doing 80 miles or fewer will feel like you're hardly doing anything. Would definitely recommend it to anyone who has never really upped their mileage (unless you're still a kid, then be careful!)
moooooo wrote:
Felt fine because running 100 miles a week is not hard. People who strive to hit mileage don't know how to train right
elitist douche but the second half is true
I ran a 100 mile month back in 2016. I must have been inspired because of the Olympics.
at sea level it wasn't too bad, but at altitude definitely harder but manageable if you sleep and eat enough
My philosophy is find a way you like to train and go for it. People will always have their opinions but ultimately what makes you happy will get you excited to race.
Was tough and I had no idea how people did it with a full-time job. Was diagnosed with 3 stress fractures a few weeks later - 2 in pelvis and 1 in my sacrum. Wasn’t sure if I’d ever do it again after 12 weeks of no running but have averaged about 87 MPW over the last 12 months and had plenty of 100 mile weeks since. Discovered that doubles help a lot when hitting that kind of milage.
First time: strangely energized, it felt good to have a goal that could be accomplished by sheer willpower. I remember I thought I would be falling asleep all the time but instead I ended up with insomnia. I feel like the first couple weeks above 80 is where my body starts to hate me, but when I've adjusted 80, 90, 100, 110 mpw all feel kind of the same.
Agree that consistent mileage is way more essential than peak mileage, and high quality workouts on lower mileage is better than high mileage by itself. If you can combine the two and stay healthy, that's the real key.
I ran 100 miles in a week exactly once, only because my weekly long runs accidentally fell on a Sunday one week and on a Saturday the next week. It was a long time ago but I don't recall feeling anything special about hitting the magic triple digits. My typical weekly mileage at that time was in the 75-90 mpw range.
Tired. I made the mistake of not beefing up my weekly mileage in the summer between HS and college, only doing around 60 mpw, and the 100 + mpw with the cc team was too much. I made my way through the season but was never fresh enough to do well. I was disillusioned enough that I didn't run track or subsequent CC seasons.
I've always wondered how different things might have turned out had I put more miles in during that simmer, as I know I was capable of doing.