Coe = low mileage, Lindgren = WOW.....same results, how??

Martin seems the only person on this thread who know's what s/he is talking about in terms of Coe's training.

Read the Coe and Martin's book better training for distance runners.....Coe ran around 60-70 miles a week! He adhered to the multi-tier training as espoused by the British Milers Club. Therefore, there was a lot of quality within his training. However, he did no neglect qul;aity long runs and you can see that he often ran quality 10 milers.

Check this link out:

http://cspc14.ph.bham.ac.uk/Athletics/Coaching/seb_coes_800m.htm

Both Peter and Seb agreed to figures of 90+.

Believe it if you like, don't if not.

Then why does Seb's dad and coach not state this fact either!!! Seems rather starnge don't you think.

Shall we take anecdotal evidence from Trackhead or shall we believe the printed word of Peter Coe!!

I'm not disagreeing with you Plato, but the printed word of Coe is often very difficult to unravel in those 2 books he authored/co-authored. Winning Running has great nuggets throughout, but they are more or less jumbled and the whole picture is not spelled out. Better Training is better organized but takes quite some time to sift through all the information.

When printing those figures, warmups, cooldowns, recovery runs were not counted.

Peter Coe was directly asked about this topic and he concluded that it would have been equal to and above 90mpw.

3k warmup, 3k cooldown 6 days aweek, there's 36k right there.

I don't think it's a stretch.

If you want to use a low mileage model in terms of success you should not be looking at Sebastian Coe because with all the miles he didn't count his base phase was around 80-90. The model to look at is jim Spivey. He ran 3:31.01, 3:49.8, 7:37, and 13:15(at age 34!) off of 60-65 mpw maximum. He also won a world championship bronze.

utah Jamz Carl Malone wrote:

If you want to use a low mileage model in terms of success you should not be looking at Sebastian Coe because with all the miles he didn't count his base phase was around 80-90. The model to look at is jim Spivey. He ran 3:31.01, 3:49.8, 7:37, and 13:15(at age 34!) off of 60-65 mpw maximum. He also won a world championship bronze.

True, Carl.

This is where I become and asshole and say, "And think what he could have run..."

Hah, this is where I have to counter and say that Jim said when he tried to increase his mileage, even gradually and properly, his body broke down. Hard to imagine that he was 5th in the 84 olympics in such an all star field and he was running a high of 43 miles a week.

I do wish though that he had taken a stab at the 5k in his prime. But, as he said, "I had to chose between the 5k, which my coach Sam Bell thought was my best event, and the mile, which I liked more and paid better. To me, the choice was obvious." I really think if he had tried the 5k in his prime Bob Kennedy might not be the american record holder in the 5k, but I guess we'll never know. He still had a very long productive career that he can look back on with pride

Doug Padilla was another middle-distance stallion in the Jim Spivey mold. I have heard that he topped out at under 40 miles a week, though others here would know more about this.

My advice would be to go with the Lindgren plan. The Coe program, whether it was 50mpw or 90mpw or whatever, was only a small fraction of Lindgren's 350mpw. Lindgren had all the bases covered at some point in his 30 or so workouts per week; between doing the 60 miles of tempo runs, an occasional 10-mile unofficial world record, an 88-mile long run at a pace to put the best ultradistance runners in history to shame, and various fast intervals, he did everything Coe did and much, much more. You're pretty much guaranteed success with the Lindgren plan, whereas the Coe plan requires you to be lucky and talented.

Coe's plan did pay off a little better in terms of Olympic medals--2 golds and 2 silvers compared to nothing--but Lindgren's plan was much better at preparing him for incredible records in unofficial events, such as the 4mile XC race he ran at a pace much faster than the then-current 5000m track WR, or the aforementioned 10mile unofficial WR in practice, and ultradistance records. If you want to succeed at those boring "establishment" events like the Olympics, or if you want to set world records in boring fashion with those annoying official timers and Accutrack and stuff, sure, go with Coe, but if you want to have incredible performances witnessed by a few random strangers or just yourself, which is of course the more exciting way to go, follow Lindgren's plan. Just be sure that when a stress fracture crops up, rub some dirt on it, take a salt pill, and keep running. And when you're done with your run, set your alarm ahead 2 hours and get some rest before your next run.

A good friend of mine ran with Padilla at Chabot College. He said that Padilla topped out 70mpw.

Nice synopsis of the Lindgren thread.

Well kiss my grits and raise my roof! If TomM says it, it must be true! He also recommends whacking off to pictures of your dog and blowing homeless people in Portland. Do what works for you!

You really expect us to believe that Coe is the onliest guy in the western world who doesn't count warm-up and cool-down!?!?!?!??!

ok trackhead lets count 8 minute milling warm up and cool down...whatever. I think your Wetmore in disguise give me a break!!! I'm not a Coe fan but his training rocked!!!

http://www.sporting-heroes.net/athletics-heroes/displayhero.asp?HeroID=470

I'm definitely not Wetmore. I think that "all-singles" crap is bullshit.

But funny, though.

So trackhead who are you????

Like said before - the mileage of Seb was as low as claimed. It is correct that he did not count warmp ups but even with this added you get NOWHERE close to 90 miles. A variation of 40-60 is more correct.

The source ? First of all I am sitting with the exact photocopy of seven weeks of Sebs training in 84 written by Seb himself. Second, I have asked Seb directly about it. Third I have spoken to his father about it many times when I got workout schedules from him during my earlier years. In those I could see and feel myself the very low mileage -even with warmups added up.

Marius

http://www.mariusbakken.com

well marius, i certainly believe you, but it IS hard to believe. i say this, be cause i have used the coe/martin program as outlined in "training distance runners," and i must say that the only athletes who have thrived on his training are the ones who did the most milage. the ones who showed up without a good aerobic base floundered in this program (i know many are saying, "of course, dumbass..." but it is worth noting that lots of coaches have stories about milers showing up unfit and getting really fast off superfast low-volume training. didn't work for us, though).

i find the coe program works much better with mid-distance, than long distance, but i also had a 10k runner earn all-america honors using that program- however, he never ran less than 80 miles a week, and most weeks were in the 90s! the milers i had, would thrive on this training only with a bare minimum of 60/week. but these were d3 kids, not world class runners. we were able to produce a few all-americans over 800-1500, but i can't imagine how they could have gone much faster without adding volume.

and i think this has probably been discussed, but i have also heard that the number of "units" of work in each energy system was performed by coe exactly as it was written?! how the hell can anyone do that amount of high aerobic/anaerobic running? he must have been the most naturally talented miler ever to walk the planet in order to survive that much hard running.

in our case, the kids ran fast 3 days out of 7 and raced another day...and i can tell you it took them right up to the ragged edge. i adapted the program to keep the amount of work within the RATIOS on coe's table, but i could never imagine them doing that many hard intervals. not many fell off the cliff, but they were at their limit. and honestly, if i had it to do again, i think i would have had them do more basebuilding as it probably would have been better in the long run.