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

I agree with you BCT. Coe was the greatest md runner of all time but nobody has reached their full potential

I've run sub low 29 minute 10,000's coming from 100mw's at altitude in Boulder, and the same time eight years later from 42 mile weeks at sea level on Long Island. It has everything to do with finding a training/life balance, and most importantly believing in what you are doing is right for you.

I don't know what to tell you Marius. I know Irv spoke w/ Peter Coe and Snell spoke with Seb Coe and both Irv/P.Coe and Snell/S.Coe concluded that his base was in the 90mi/wk range.

I think when we look at what Coe did we need to get the idea of miles out of our minds some what. Coe was an amazing weight lifter for his size too. He spent a lot of time doing other training that is not just running (drills, circuit,stage, weights, poly) They would go out sunday morning and carry eachother on there backs for 3 hours. Now that is 0 miles in the log but a hell of a workout. His strength was amazing 12.0 second 100s at then end of 800m and 1500m races.

Just curious, but, trackhead, what do you have against singles? Merely interested in your reasoning and logic, i'm not attacking here.

HA HA HA!! I LOVE you MARIUS!!!! Trackhead?s MISSION in life is to say that Coe ran 90-100 miles a week. He REFUSES to believe that Coe ran no more than the 40-60 range reported for most of his life, despite 100?s of facts that say it is true (quotes from Seb, quotes from his Dad, quotes from Horwill, books on the subject, etc, etc, etc). In fact, I believe that some in old threads trackhead would even QUOTE MARIUS saying that Marius backed him up on his ?Coe-ran-90+ -per-week? hardcore belief. Isn?t that true>

Trackhead, WHAT IS YOUR DEAL ON THIS??? Seriously, even before you asked Snell, you have believed the reported Coe mileage #?s HAD TO BE low. Why can?t you except that he was a LOWER MILEAGE runner compared to most world class milers? WHY??

There is no way you are right here. OF COURSE Snell wants to believe that Coe ran more miles since the reality of low-mileage success flies in the face of his & Saint Lydiard?s theories. I mean, I have to explain that to you?

And even if it is true that somehow one or 2 weeks in Seb?s life, he ran 90 miles after counting every step of his warm-ups, cool-downs, walks to the bathroom, and walks to the car, and that is what is what you heard his Dad saying, that does NOT reflect his normal weekly base miles over his career. And I base that statement on hundreds of quotes from Horwill, Peter Coe, Seb Coe, and now Marius. They were not all misleading us.

So who is right here? It?s not you.

And if you want to talk about lack of aerobic development, as I proved to you before, Snell slowed MORE than Coe did when you compare their best 800 to their best 1500 mile. Do the math.

Give it up man, GIVE IT UP.

Snell slowed more in the 800m than Coe did compared to their 1500m times? I dont think so. Snell's PR for 1500m was 3:37, Coe's was 3:29. A difference of 8 sec. Coe's PR in the 800m was 1:41 Snell's was 1:44. A difference of 3 seconds. Thats pretty close to even diffenence in both events, but i would say Coe was better suited for the 1500m than Snell was. I dont know why everyone associates Snell with the 1500m, if you read his book he seems more concerned with the 800m.

Some other things to remember are that unlike Coe, Snell didnt have a team of physiologists, he did have a JOB, his 1:44 was on a 300m grass track without splits, and look at the shoes he races in. NO ONE today would rather wear Snell's shoes ever Coe's.

This post shows exactly what is wrong with distance running in the United states. Individualized training is the smart way to train, but everyone wants to train like their hero's. People have been successful on high mileage and low mileage. Coe would not have succeeded had he trained like Lindgren and Lindgren would not have succeeded had he trained like Coe. They did what worked for them. But too many people, including college coaches, see what worked for someone successful and they think they have to copy it exactly. More is better is so many people's general philosophy. More is not better for many runners. The biggest problem is everyone is too lazy to figure out what works for them. It doesn't take much imagination and thought to just go out and train a bunch of miles each week. Anyone can do that and 1000's and 1000's do, but the truly intelligent coach and athlete take the time to figure out what works for them, not someone they read about in a book. That is why at the top level schools there are so many athletes that never develop. They have so many great athletes at their school that they do not have to individualize their program and if half of them fail, it doesn't matter because they will still be a successful program. Then the athlete's that don't succeed under their program will just be labeled as lazy, even though had they been trained correctly for them they may have had tremendous success. We all need to get out there and train hard, experiment with what works for us and our teams, keep detailed training logs and take a scientific approach to our training. This may take a few years to figure out for each person, but success doesn't happen overnight. Once you have figured out what works for you, believe in it and don't be strayed from your training plan because of what someone else says. Read everything you can about training and what other people do, but then fit that in to your own training plan. It really is a simple thing, but most people don't want to put the time and effort into developing their own plan and that is really too bad. It is scary to think that with the size of our country how many potentially good runners never succeeded because they never figured out how to train properly or when they did figure it out, someone came along and talked them out of it because it was too much mileage, or too little mileage or not enough speed or too much speed, etc.

You better be careful what you say...people might start doing what you say and then they would be fulfilling their potential using their system instead of failing to fulfill their potential using someone else's.

First of all, Coe did not do workouts six days a week that required a warm up and cool down. Some days, he just did straight distance runs. You can see this in Training Distance Runners by Peter Coe and David Martin. Secondly, even adding your total of 36k on to 60 miles/week, that still only comes out to 82 miles/week. If we add 36k to the middle of the 40-60 range, then its 72 miles/week.

Sorry but I gotta go with Marius on this one. He spoke to Coe and his father DIRECTLY with several copies of training logs. Much more accurate than what Trackhead has. Sorry trackhead, gotta go with Marius on this

Carla, good points, but Trackhead ( & Snell) are gonna believe what they are gonna believe, no matter what others say.

Miles Ryan, you missed my point my man.

The point was this: I was not even necessarily saying who was better. I was just countering a belief that many have offered before. The belief was: Snell ran more miles per week than Coe (true), and thus was aerobically bettered conditioned. Coe had better pure speed (likely true), and was better trained anaerobically (likely true). Therefore, the belief goes, that while Coe reached his potential in the 800, he did not in the 1500, and he did not because of his lower mileage.

I was countering that belief(Coe could/should have run a lot faster in the 1500 than he did, Snell was a better prepared miler), since the times do not prove it out. Like I said, do the math (you apparently did, but did not reach the conclusion I did). As you stated, Snell was about 2.5 seconds slower than Coe at 800, but nearly 8 at 1500. If the relationship between their 800 times had remained the same, it should have been around 5 seconds. As the race got longer, Snell got worse as compared to Coe. So who did not reach their longer distance potential?

And you say Snell was more of an 800 runner? Well, maybe, but that was Coe?s main focus too. And the point is that Snell trained higher mileage than Coe, so he really trained more like a traditional miler than Coe did. But despite that, Coe?s was farther ahead of Snell %-wise at 1500, than he was at 800.

I am simply saying that one can NOT say: Snell reached his aerobic/Mile potential because of longer weekly mileage, while Coe did not because of his lower mileage totals. The #?s do not prove this out.

Snell looked like he should be pursuing rugby rather than athletics. Snell weighed 12 stone while Coe only weighed 9 stone. This alone would tilt the scales toward Coe in having a more normal 800m-1600m conversion. A fellow of Snell's proportions on a grass track in leather spikes!

This weekend I ran a 5k road race. I ran the course at a normal pace for warmup and warmdown. I call this a 15k day. Coe would have called it a 5k day.

People sure are fascinated with the ends of the bell curve. What?s telling is the relative numbers of people who obsess over Coe or Spivey in their pursuit of less. Where are the people looking to rationalize imitating outliers on the other end? Where are those in mindless pursuit of 200 mile weeks, who cannot be swayed from their course, and instead focus on the methods of one or two individuals?

Lindgren did what many of us in HS in the 60s did - just more so. Training information was sparse, so you did whatever you heard others did (whether Clarke, Ryun, whover). But the key was the naïve belief that if you ran more than other people, you?d race better than they did. So summers tended to be something like, ?I?ll run 10 miles every day, because other people won?t be doing that.? And that attitude put you ahead of the majority. And once that level was achieved, the attitude became, ?If I can do this, then others must be able to, also. So I?d better do more.? The best part was the lack of limits. Nobody gave you information about what the effects would be, so you didn?t accept them as limits. (i.e., ?100 mpw is too much for a high schooler.? ?If you run fast too often, you?ll slump.? ?You can?t run all day without taking in food.? ?Too much mileage now may yield results, but you?ll burn out and not be good when you?re 35.?)

So we were stupid, and for many of us, the results were never legendary. But I started doing doubles when I read that Ryun did 10 mile morning runs. Those kinds of choices were never based on weekly mileage totals or heart monitor readings.

Lots of analysis and overthinking has gotten us - where?

This is where I'm at:I'm not trying to convince myself of anything, I know what I know. I know that both Snell and Irv Ray have spoken with Seb and Peter Coe, respectively and that's what was relayed to me. I don't see where deception or misinformation comes into play. Looking at this, it makes sense that Coe did higher volume than he is acredited with because of his amazing performances.He doesn't add warmups/cooldowns, recovery runs were not added, all this adds up. I don't see why it is impossible. BTDR itself recomends base training up to 90mi/wk (whether or not this same method of tabulating volume is in use for this figure, I don't know).And on the matter of aerobic fitness of Peter Snell and Sebastion Coe, they're virtually identical.

I don't care if you believe what I'm saying about Coe's mileage. You know what you know and I know what I know, and it doesn't seem that any impass is going to occur. From my standpoint, it makes sense, both on the words of two experienced individuals, and in the performances that were made.

So, WHO did you talk to, Irv Ray, Tony Benson, Arthur Lydiard, Peter Cerutty, Peter Coe, Sebastion Coe, Tony Revis or Hillary Clinton? At first it sounded like you eavesdropped on a conversation between Snell and Coe's dad. Now, it sounds like you got info from Irv Ray and Tony Benson. What gives?

trackhead you're an idiot. and you're in denial. what about all that time when coe was sick between 84 and 88. yeah no doubt he was doing HUGE mileage then.

No inconsitencies. This came directly from Irv Ray who had spoken with Peter Coe, and directly from Peter Snell who had spoken with Seb Coe. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Trackhead, I accept what you are saying. Peter and Seb Coe would not consider jogging as training and would certainly not consider wasting time adding up such mileage. They just wouldn't bother, it wasn't part of the training program. For them, nothing very much slower than 5 minute miling was considered as training.