What % miles increase gives % time improvement?

Everyone is different.

Like I said sounds like a pointless question.

How do people know what realstic target to set themselves?

How do the elite athletes know how to train in order to get x result?

Merry Christmas

Wellpark wrote:

How do the elite athletes know how to train in order to get x result?

Merry Christmas

They don't. They just train to be the best they can be, and see what that is. They don't purposely short-change their training because they aren't willing to do the work.

if you're running 1000 miles a week, i think in that case -98% of mileage = ++++% improvement in time. its all relative.

why would the relationship be linear?

at low miles, increasing miles will give a big benefit. if you already run lots of miles, increasing the miles may be of a much smaller benefit.

the law of diminishing returns sets in.

and, as someone said, everyone if different anyway.

It is a pretty pontless question- there are so many factors besides mileage the affect racing that trying to correlate a percentage increase in mileage to a percentage increase in performance is truly impossible.

However, in a very general sense, the more mileage you run (up to a certain point) the better you will race. No linear relationship there, but there is a relationship.

The increase in mileage needed to gain improvements in fitness is probably exponential.

It is relative to your current, past, and future level of fitness.

If you are currently doing 50 miles per week and bump it to 70 a week, all other things being the same, you should improve. However if you try to jump all the way to 100 miles a week you would probably break down and get hurt/run slower. Now, look at yourself in the past, would you run 50 miles a week in your first running week ever? No, of course not. Now look at yourself in the future, in 10 years if you've steadily increased your mileage to 100 miles a week do yout hink 30-50 would be better? Not likely...but years and years ago it was.

Train to the point that you feel like you aren't getting as much benefit. Then increase. Run 5 miles one day, 3 miles the next, and so on until you can run 5 miles everyday, then 7 miles one day, 5 miles the next, then 7 miles everyday, then up to 10 miles one day, 7 miles the next, then 10 miles everyday, etc, etc, etc, etc,

This goes for all types of training be it mileage, workouts, etc. Do something for a while and it becomes much easier, gradually make it more difficult until you can do it more consistently, then it becomes easier and so on.

I think we have to fight ourselves in order to continue to progress. We get settled. We like what we are doing so we stick with it when instead we should change it.

Alan

Although as others said, everyone is different, I personally found that my greatest improvement came from the jump to about 80 miles a week from about 60 miles. My 5k time went from 17:20-17:30 to 16:30. I am running 100 miles a week now and although it is definitely beneficial, the improvements seem to be more in the area of the ability to hold a fast pace for a little longer - i.e., I think I will see the improvements in the half to full marathon. My 5k-10k time hasn't substantially improved going from 80-100 miles - I shaved off another 19 seconds.

Alan, here's an interesting question for you and other physiologists:

The pyruvate->mitochondria pathway is the main pathway in the first few miles of a marathon, and as the race progresses, more and more fat is oxidized in the mitochondria, with an increasing reliance on glucose->pyruvate and a decreasing reliance on glycogen->pyruvate, right?

With the increasing reliance on blood glucose, there is an increase in hydrogen ions so it hurts more. So do the best distance runners simply push themselves harder through this pain, and how much of this type of running is optimum and when should it be fitted into the schedule?