How long does it take a fast twitch person to adapt to high mileage?

Michelle, you're exactly like me. And I was never any good at road races, but I had a helluva kick at the end!

Sadly I never got beyond 30 miles per week.

LOL, I know what you mean. No matter how dead I am at the end, I know my speed is always there.

You sound like you no longer race.

How fast are you running in training? Sprinters tend to push distance runs either too fast or too slow. Your heart rate should be between 65 and 75 percent of your max heart rate on nearly every run. Also, take a break from speed and do some tempo running. Run for 15-25 minutes at about 80-85 percent max heart rate. Furthermore, run for time and not distance. Go for a 60 minute run but don't plan it out. Explore a trail or road and stay in that 65 to 75 percent range. The more mileage you run in that range the easier it is to maintain a faster pace over a longer race. It is a basic concept that is hard for a lot of people to understand.

How good of a sprinter were you?

Is your body carrying around extra dead weight?

Michelle P wrote:

LOL, I know what you mean. No matter how dead I am at the end, I know my speed is always there.

You sound like you no longer race.

Actually now I sprint again! I run masters (age 30+) track.

I'm pretty much in the same boat. I've been losing weight, mostly muscle for a while now (down to 155 @ 5'10"). Doing 30-35 mpw, long runs of 10-12 miles. I'm always dead tired at the end of races (mainly 5Ks for now) but I can always muster up a monster kick at the end. My endurance is getting better and I think I'll be a decent distance runner eventually.

Michelle P wrote:

I'm a former sprinter who is discovering road running in her early 30's.

I've read so much here about high mileage and how that is the road to success. My problem is that it seems that I can't handle much more than 30-35 miles per week. Even that is a lot. I'm tired a lot. I feel sluggish when I try to do any speedwork. My race times (I race 5k's) are getting slower.

Follow my advice and you should meet with success:

1) Run no more than 25 miles per week.

2) Run no more than 5 days per week.

3) Run two (not three) quality (interval/tempo, etc.) sessions per week, tops.

4) Run your long run very slowly.

5) Make your quality sessions very high quality.

6) BE CONSISTENT. Work within your limitations but try to string together as many uninterrupted weeks as possible.

7) Lift heavy weights.

Doctor Truth wrote:

Michelle P wrote:

I'm a former sprinter who is discovering road running in her early 30's.

I've read so much here about high mileage and how that is the road to success. My problem is that it seems that I can't handle much more than 30-35 miles per week. Even that is a lot. I'm tired a lot. I feel sluggish when I try to do any speedwork. My race times (I race 5k's) are getting slower.

Follow my advice and you should meet with success:

1) Run no more than 25 miles per week.

2) Run no more than 5 days per week.

3) Run two (not three) quality (interval/tempo, etc.) sessions per week, tops.

4) Run your long run very slowly.

5) Make your quality sessions very high quality.

6) BE CONSISTENT. Work within your limitations but try to string together as many uninterrupted weeks as possible.

7) Lift heavy weights.

I hope you're joking.

Justine wrote:

Michelle P wrote:

LOL, I know what you mean. No matter how dead I am at the end, I know my speed is always there.

You sound like you no longer race.

Actually now I sprint again! I run masters (age 30+) track.

I looked in to that last year, but the closest meets to me are at least 3-4 hours away. There's also only one track to rain on and it's only open during lunch. The schools have it tied up all the other times. So, I'm just stuck wiht road races.

I found I had to run most of my distance days VERY easy. I mean RIDICULOUSLY EASY!! The only exception was once a week allowing myself to run 15 minutes reasonably hard towards the end of a run. Also, no matter what, I would always do a few fairly fast 60m striders 3 X per week. I got up to 60mpw that way and I did improve at 5k/10k.

When it came time to introduce them, my "workouts" on the track or roads were kept SHORT. For example, I did only 3x1k at 5k pace rather than these monster workouts of 8x1k you see on here sometimes. Other days, I would do 6x400m. I have "slow twitch" friends who would laugh at this and do 12-16 x 400. My coach said ignore them. I could do 3 short workouts a week without being dead and I think this frequency was the right stimulus.

60-75% of MHR? isn't that too slow?