David Roche, new Leadville 100 course record said he averaged 65-75 mpw in the build up

Milage is not a good metric for trail runners.

Time on feet and vertical are probably better metrics.

Post. The. Link. What is the AJ W podcast?

A couple of things-

1. Roche is one of the top five fastest pure speed guys to ever line up. Meaning sub-4:10 mile speed like a Rob Krar. You can also relate speed with “talent” and ultras simply don’t get a lot of talent.

2. Canova has explained quite well with his Italian 100K athlete (Mario F) that is significantly “easier” to train for ultras than marathon or shorter because you only need to train one fuel source (lipids). The other priority is the mind and tendons for such long training, but bottom line you actually TRAIN LESS for 100km+ than for a Marathon.

Over the years I've seen a lot of variety in terms of the sort of volume ultra runners do. These are mostly examples from long ago. Some did loads. Jim Pearson was consistently at 100 a week and could go over 150. But Cavin Woodward, who once set world records for both 50 and 100 miles in the same race in a normal week did a three mile morning run, a ten mile evening run, and a sixteen on the weekend. Alastair Wood won the London to Brighton race, 53 miles that year I think, there was some slight variance on the course at times, in record time and said afterward that he'd run more miles that day than he normally did in a week. I believe there was a thread here about Nao Kazami, who had the 100 km world record for a while that said he did about 100 km a week normally., might

I saw a quote from Woodward saying that he thought to run well in ultras you needed to get in shape for a good marathon and then there wasn't much more you could do. I think it's worth noting that a lot of ultra runners seem to race a lot more than most other runners do and I suspect there's a training effect that comes of this. Woodward sometimes raced marathons on successive weekends, might have a weekend off, then do an ultra on the next weekend. It might also be worth noting that all the guys I mentioned raced on roads and tracks. I don't know how what they did would play out on mountain trails. One of my sons has gotten into trail ultras, hasn't done badly, and says he thinks the amount of elevation gain he does might be the most important thing.

Roche has run more than 40,000 miles in the last ten years, so he has a massive base that he’s drawing off. He’s probably averaged 80 miles a week over nearly 20 years.

Roche hasn’t been running for 20 years. He was a football player (kind of).

By football I'm hoping you mean soccer, because there is no way that dude is playing real football anywhere.

Wow, well I was wrong about that. I can't believe that is even the same person.

Dude was a 200 lb NCAA football player in college and didn't really start running until he went to Duke law school. Makes you wonder what he would have done if he'd run competitively earlier...

Seeing him now, I would have bet everything I owned he didn't even know what football was

Being serious 4k per year isn't too much for any elite marathoner/ultra guy/gal....it just happens to work best for him!

LOL wtf me too

More here...

It is difficult to believe he could manage a Leadville course record on 65-75 miles/week. The only way this is believable to me is if he has consistently been doing at least that many miles/week for at least the last five years. 100 miles on those extreme trails is no joke and takes serious and specific preparation. Camille Herron claims to not do long runs of more than 22 miles leading up to 100mi/24hr races. This is only believable to me because she has logged 100 mile weeks for the past 10 years and counting. Personally, I need big miles to get good results in ultras even though I've been doing them for a couple of decades now. No doubt talent plays a big role. I was only a 4:30 miler in high school.

Read the link in the list above your post and you will understand.

Is there any drug testing for these Leadville races?

I presume not since cyclists Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis were accepted into and have raced the 100 mile bike race.

Extreme trails? At Leadville? Maybe the altitude is extreme but it's a runners race for sure, to the extent that many trail specialists going to Leadville are told to run more roads in their training.