High mileage for middle distance running experiment (finished)

Mo Farah was doing 130 miles per week through most of reign. And he became VERY fast in the 1500 off of this.

E.H., correct? wrote:

You stated you are not Eric Holt. You admit your times listed are not accurate. Why not say who you are? You are not degrading teammates or degrading coaches. You have not degraded Nike or New Balance. I post anonymously because I have grandchildren and children competing in high school and college athletics. I do not my words to hurt them. You are supposedly a young guy in your twenties out of college. Anyway, if you are a 3:56 miler with 48.xx 400m speed, you need to compete as a 3000mSC to 10000m guy if you are able to tolerate high mileage. Mega mileage is still not best for 1500m guys. In international 1500m races, one needs sub-41 last 300m speed to advance. 150 miles a week won't provide that 300m speed.

The idea of this thread was about high mileage training for middle distance running, not about discussing an average sub-elite runner's performance. I didn't intend for it to be specific to my training and progression, and I don't want to known as the runner who goes to Letsrun to post his training and talk himself up. Part of the beauty of this place is that it's anonymous.

So the bottom line is that you got a laugh out of trolling a bunch of slow people getting them excited that they can get faster if they just double their mileage. Americans love contrarian information. 1000 test result in one thing but a snake salesman brings his kid on stage in a wheelchair and gives him a drink and he can then walk!

If most people would run well off 70-100, there will be people who could run well off 40 and those who run well off 120

For every Farrah there is a Coe

Real Dealer wrote:

I don't believe any of it. You are just another slow guy here who loves to tout the fake benefits of super high mileage. There are no real life examples of 1500 runners for who this has worked.

I think if you read through the thread, you'll find that there are actually a lot of very good runners who have run 130+ mpw. On top of the examples listed already, some current runners are:

Cam Levins, 200+ mpw

Lewandowski was running 110-120mpw as an 800 runner (I can't find any details on his training now days for 1500)

The Ingebristsens are often over 120

McSweyn is around the 110-120 mark

150 is a lot, but it's not uncharted territory.

This thread is about making discussion for those who respond to mostly aerobic training

Thanks very much for answering my question and the extensive Q and A. One of the best posts we've had in a long time. Good luck with your experiment and please do report back some time. And just ignore the haters. They're not worth the effort.

OP - Two questions.

1). Why don't you think more runners try this training? Nearly all of the top middle distance guys (1500m-10,000m) are training in the 75-100 miles per week range. They do long tempos, strides, hills, etc. Not quite the volume of the threshold work and not always three workouts a week but you see very similar training across the board of the top elites and sub-elites.

2). Do you think such high mileage is necessary (i.e. does it have to be 140+ or can you see similar results on 100, 110, 120, etc.)

OP, what's your opinion on the Ingebrigtsen way of double workouts? You do very similar workouts, but spaced out. They tend to do an easy tempo pace as reps in the morning twice a week and then in the afternoon, they do basically your Ks workout, but only 10xK a little faster (relatively) and then they also do your 400 workout, but again a little faster (relatively compared to PRs) and only 25 reps. Did you ever consider dropping mileage to do this and have your LT work closer to race pace? Or do you think the extra 30 mpw and fewer workouts is more beneficial?

You also don't seem to talk about any hard intervals or hills in base, but the Ingebrigtsens do a weekly session of around 20x200m hills pretty hard. I'm just curious about your thoughts because your idea seems to be the most amount of LT and grey area training as you can, and it seems that's what they do, but with a little more emphasis on hills (from what you've said at least).

Thanks for starting this thread and sharing!

Thanks for all the info OP. Classic letsrun assholes trying to derail a quality thread.

Although you did not race any other distances, are there any workouts you've repeated pre and post high mileage that you can give some insight to times and rpe? I'm also intrigued by your 48 400 estimation. You could probably try a 400 TT without moving too much else in a week.

How long were you an 80-90mpw runner? How much of your quality work was aerobic/anaerobic focused at that stage? Thinking about how much of a novel stimulus this easy volume is.

How long do you plan to continue this training style? I know Canova has often commented that his marathon groups will run 140+ for no more than two or so years, as they've adapted after that time and need a new stimulus

Interesting thread and good on you. My teammate in college was all-american in CC and a 8:2? steepler and ran 150/week in the summers. 10 in the morning/15 at night w/Sundays off. He was injured, on and off, all 4 years and this frustrated his seasons big time. That would be my biggest fear with this type of experiment, but having said that, I found I felt my freshest and fastest in the 1500 and 800 coming off of higher mileage training (for me that was 60 mpw) and always wondered how much faster I would be if I logged some 80-100 mile weeks. Never found out.

I know who In_Ithaca was. Obviously Nike Free Me was as real as any of us here are, i.e., someone was posting under that name. I suspect they were the same but won't swear to it. Another mid distance guy who did lots of big miles was Brad Schlapak who got to 3:59.9 and won the national cross country championship in 1995. He reportedly did about 120 a week quite slowly. Thanks for digging out the "140..." thread.

OP (on a different device) wrote:

Real Dealer wrote:

I don't believe any of it. You are just another slow guy here who loves to tout the fake benefits of super high mileage. There are no real life examples of 1500 runners for who this has worked.

I think if you read through the thread, you'll find that there are actually a lot of very good runners who have run 130+ mpw. On top of the examples listed already, some current runners are:

Cam Levins, 200+ mpw

Lewandowski was running 110-120mpw as an 800 runner (I can't find any details on his training now days for 1500)

The Ingebristsens are often over 120

McSweyn is around the 110-120 mark

150 is a lot, but it's not uncharted territory.

This thread is about making discussion for those who respond to mostly aerobic training

McSweyn is 90-100, not 110-120. I believe Jakob said that we was around 110 this year and that's been his highest. I know Gjert claimed that they run over 200km per week but I'm not if I believe that to be true. I tend to believe Jabkob more.

I wasn’t a middle distance runner, but all of my mid-d PR’s came during my highest mileage weeks.

What do you think you could have run for 800m or 5000m on the day of your 3:56? It seems like you have very good natural speed so that coupled with your durability seems to have developed your slow twitch and slower intermediate fibers to an exceptional level.

An obvious answer to your question is malmo. Hopefully he will show up and share his thoughts on your training.