Brian Sell's 2007 Mileage Numbers

He had 26 days that were scheduled ZERO days within that year. That would have been another 450 miles. That boy has the ultimate work ethic,

he admitted himself that he didn't have the natural speed to do what he has done on pure talent. high mileage has made him the runner he is. i also commend him.

don't forget 20 physical hrs. per week @ HD and a newborn at home...

Excellent Point wrote:

That boy has the ultimate work ethic,

And you don´t think all the other elite marathoner have that, too?

I think that when a high school kid runs 50 miles a week he thinks that he is working hard (even though others are working harder). I think that when a college kid is running 100 miles a week he thinks he is working hard (even though others are working harder). I think that pro runners that run 140 miles a week during a marathon segment think they are working hard (even though there are others working harder). Brian does not fall into that category. He runs 160 miles and assumes that everyone else is working harder. If Brian runs 140 miles he thinks that he is losing conditioning. I am not saying that he is correct. I am just saying that is how Brian thinks.

If he thinks he is losing conditioning when running 140 per week, why did he only average 110 for the year?

BTW, i did 5565 in 1981.

Those mileage amounts are what Brian recorded for 2007. Brian has a tendency to cheat on his mileage on a daily basis. The group will run a 12 mile run and Brian will record it as 11 or an afternoon run of 45 minutes as 6 miles which is probably 7 and half. Brian cheats by a minimum of 10 miles a week. It is just a weird motivating thing for Brian. I would roughly estimate Brian to have run an additional 10-15 miles a week or about 500-700 miles for the year. His total for 2007 was definitly over 6000. He also had scheduled downtime of 30 days during the year (an additional month) and a huge cut back in mileage in February due to sickness.

Brian ran more mileage than this in 2006 as he recorded 6000 of his cheat miles that year (probably closer to 6500). He also had 26 scheduled days off that year.

However, mileage is not the answer. It is simply one variable.

Brian works very hard but assumes that others are either working harder or are more talented. It is true that Brian feels like others are gaining strength on him if he runs less than 140 miles a week. He uses this drive as motivation to make him the athlete that he is. All of these little quirks help to prepare Brian mentally as well as physically.

Thanks

Excellent Point wrote:

I think that when a high school kid runs 50 miles a week he thinks that he is working hard (even though others are working harder). I think that when a college kid is running 100 miles a week he thinks he is working hard (even though others are working harder). I think that pro runners that run 140 miles a week during a marathon segment think they are working hard (even though there are others working harder). Brian does not fall into that category. He runs 160 miles and assumes that everyone else is working harder. If Brian runs 140 miles he thinks that he is losing conditioning. I am not saying that he is correct. I am just saying that is how Brian thinks.

So true. We all think we are working hard. When I was in high school I ran 50 miles a week and thought I was the shit. When I went to college and started running 80 miles a week, I realized how little I was doing in high school. Sell makes us all realize that we could probably do more and we hate that.

I think you're going to see some other high mileage guys emerge. When McDougal moves up to the marathon...I would be surprised if he didn't match Sell's mileage or beat it. Recently he told me that he is easily handling 130 miles a week.

As his coach, when you have 12 miles for him on the schedule and he runs a "true 13 or 14" for that run, what do you do? He isn't following the training plan you set up for him.

I remember reading an interview with you before the trials stating Brian had gone into Boston and Chicago overtrained because he had run more than the schedule. Isn't it your goal as a coach to make sure he actually listens to you. If not, why even have a coach?

It seems you commend him for doing more, but as a coach myself I would be upset that an athlete wasn't listening to me. I put mileage on the schedule for a reason, not because I just spew out random numbers. If an athlete wants to train harder they can talk to me so I at least know what they are doing. From your interview and post here it doesn't seem like you even know how much Brian is doing.

Hanson does Brian do any other work in addition to his running or just all running. With mileage like that I doubt he would have time.

future coach wrote:

As his coach, when you have 12 miles for him on the schedule and he runs a "true 13 or 14" for that run, what do you do? He isn't following the training plan you set up for him.

It seems you commend him for doing more, but as a coach myself I would be upset that an athlete wasn't listening to me.

The best coaching relationships are give-and-take. Good coaches know their athletes, so they know when 10 miles on the schedule means 11 miles in the legs. They also know when it's worth letting an athlete work a little harder than you'd like because it's so good for their confidence.

Tony Soprano wrote:

I think you're going to see some other high mileage guys emerge. When McDougal moves up to the marathon...I would be surprised if he didn't match Sell's mileage or beat it. Recently he told me that he is easily handling 130 miles a week.

Is that all in singles?

Yes, it is.

Tony Soprano wrote:

I think you're going to see some other high mileage guys emerge. When McDougal moves up to the marathon...I would be surprised if he didn't match Sell's mileage or beat it. Recently he told me that he is easily handling 130 miles a week.

Then he will almost run as much as Paula.

"Beat it" - I didn´t know there was such a thing as a mileage contest.

This sounds exactly how Lydiard would handle this athlete. Lydiard told me that he allowed his athletes to hunch on mileage as long as it never showed up in their workouts.

The fact that Biran can run that many miles per week on that consistent of a basis is a huge amount of talent in itself. Also that he qualified for the olympic marathon team in itself proves he has a great quanity of talent. Sure he didnt measure up to his peers in high school or college but the fact that he can sustain the amount of mileage he runs at the rate he does is where i would say 85% of his talent lies. I am not trying to rip him but the whole team atmosphere that surrounds him every day helps a great deal and is a big motivating factor on those real shitty days

The mileage numbers are variable i think because for the most part the mileage runs are based on 7 min miles and if they schedule a 10 miler lets say well its 70 min of running. Well as any real runner knows you arent going to run 7 min miles the whole run. So you end up getting more mileage in when its all said and done.