Parker Valby says she only run 2-3 days per week

nothing has changed in last year or 2 so no surprise

We are all falling for a sham. No, I do not believe any runner can elliptical their way to the gains she has had this season.

2-3 days a week for her is 30 miles. That’s a lot of miles on those days she’s running. Equivalent to the daily mileage of someone running 70-80 miles.

If one of the title contenders on the men's side said the same thing, no one would believe it. No one. Tell me I am wrong. Nico young, Ky Robinson, Habtom Samuel, Graham Blanks: "I run 3 days a week and use the elliptical" ya right! Sure you do

wtf I actually don’t understand

am I just that untalented

I think she does cross training 6-7 days a week. She is putting in a lot of work, just only 203 days that involves running.

That's equivalent to 80 miles per week? Wow. Her coach is a genius if he found a secret way to run 30 and have it be equivalent to 80.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if her total weekly threshold volume, on average, greatly exceeds that of the typical female collegiate running 70-80 miles/week. I think that’s ‘the training secret’, and it’s brilliant, if so.

There have been a huge amount of discussion about this so i'm not sure why it's a surprise now. She's made it pretty clear that she cross-trains for several hours a day in addition to the 30 miles a week.

She's discussed workouts she's done in the past before, and one that sticks out was a 10x1k workout so i'm sure she does something like that on the days she runs.

It's not like she just goes out for light runs a few times a week and suddenly runs 15:20 as this is being framed. I have no doubt there is an unbelievable amount of work and recovery behind the scenes.

ARC trainer for the win.

Disagree, if you can cross train like an animal and get in enough volume on workout days I think it's possible. It works for 6k and down I'm sure, but I don't see that holding up if she ever moved up to 10k or marathon.

Not the exact same thing, but a less extreme version of this is Nathan Green winning the NCAA 1500 title on 4-5 days of running and around 50mpw. Elliott Giles ran 3:30 this year I believe and was on about 25 mpw. Cross training has become very effective.

didn't Adam Goucher or someone like that not run for a month and then make the olympic team in the 5k? Am I remembering wrong?

Anyway, girls are different than boys. We've been hearing for years stories of teenage girls running championship-level times on 2-3 days of running.

Have you ever gotten on an elliptical, stair master, etc., and just wailed away? Then after a hard minute, you’re thinking, “That’s it, this s***s!”

In my my mind, I picture Valby periodically doing that, but she does it for 20min straight, instead of just 1 min. So when talking about her races, when she says “It’s only 19minutes, you can do this!”, she has repeated experience; maybe even more than once a week.

You are correct that they aren't different. That means she is just so much better than Tuohy. Imagine what happens when she goes pro and slowly incorporates more running.