Elite Women's Mileage

The word "talent" can embody those who can remain injury free.

Want to go on a date and talk about this over a meatball sub or something?

CTC got it right. Talent doesn't only mean that you have great basic speed or a high LT. It can be anything that is great for your running. Dathan Ritz can't handle high-mileage, but Brian Sell can. They're both talented in their own ways. If you ca run 150 mpw year-round without injuring yourself like Sell does, that is TALENT.

There was an interesting study done based on questionnaires given to 04 marathon trials qualifiers, men and women. They found that on average the men all did about the same mileage, some individuals in both groups were much higher or lower but overall mileage was not a good indicator of what there qualifying time would be. But they found there was a big difference between the elite women(they picked a time and said everything under it was elite) and the rest of the fields mileage.

Now I think this study is a little flawed just in that a 2:22 was a heck of a lot closer to the top men in the world then 2:47 is to the top women. In other words if they studied men who ran sub 2:30 or something they would find the same results.

If women ran more would they be better, yes. Is there a bigger injury risk with mileage, yes. You need to work around that. I tried 100 mile weeks in college got hurt, fixed the problem tried them again and got hurt, fixed the problem and its source changed how I did things and approached things differently became more careful and tried again and again. I still get hurt but I learn from each mistake and keep getting back in the game. I honestly believe most anyone can be at least a sub elite runner with enough time and persistence. I run anywhere from 130 to 170 a week now and have less injury problems then I did running 35 miles a week in high school. also I'm a "good" runner now.

Talent is almost always discovered in retrospect. I spent all of jr. high, high school and college hearing from every coach, friend and parent what a shame it was I didn't have any talent because i was such a hard worker and deserved to succeed. Now I have people tell me how lucky I am to be so talented. I love it, I smile and tell them "yes I am!" they'd never believe me anyway.

I read where Deena said that from January to the trials she would have over 200 hours of massage. I think the difference is the recovery from the miles. Most of us just increase mileage. Deena will get massage, ice baths, etc to aid in recovery. This could be one of the differences.

Then, there are our personal limits- your friend has to find HER right mileage to maximize her potential and run her best without injury or accept that injury is part of the game and run the miles and the times, get injured, heal and run again. I like the first option the best- along with doing whatever is needed to recover and stay healthy.

Totally agree. I've found that when I run 80+ miles a week I stay healthy and race well. Looking back at my previous training logs the times that I've been injured I've ran 50-70 during the week... the more I run the less I seem to get injured. Which is funny because like you said I do not have a lot of "talent" in terms of speed, yet I run some of the highest mileage out of anyone of my D1 team.

I found the key to running more miles, and doing so consistently without getting hurt, is to slow down the pace. Once you do this and get to a point you're comfortable with and adapted, THEN you'll naturally find that you can hold a steadier pace at the higher mileage and recover just fine. With any further jumps in mileage, you have to be mindful of this adaptation process, which may take months or years.

You have to eat more and sleep more too when you run more miles. :)