Greg McMillan

Ö wrote:

No need to believe me, you can try yourself will you be better runner if you train more than 2 hours a day consistently. Remember regular icing and other kinds of therapies.

uh wohkay wrote:

Unless it's shit, I'm not going to believe anything you just pull out of your ass.

Dude, the vast majority of world-class marathoners train in a manner very similar to what McMillan is talking about. He's not doing anything revolutionary here. Why you have a beef with him for doing something most people at his level do is baffling.

As for your claim about "2 hours a day" of training. Well, again, lots and lots of elite runners over the years have trained more than that with outstanding results. Science is great, but real-world results are even better.

Citizen - POD (maybe of the month)

Hold your horses there while that sinks in -- not everyone can be the best.The old "Highlander" theory: "There can be only one!"Indeed, some have to settle to be just there best.PS: I'm still having trouble getting my mind around that 24 mile run key workout...

MPR wrote:

but neither can everyone be the best.

Or said another way: not everyone can be world class (i.e one of the best).

P.S. The 24 mile key workout - its all about glycogen storage capacity my friend, all about storage capacity.

Burning fat is inefficient during a marthon so you want top be burning primarily glycogen (much more efficient). So you better do 2 things 1) learn to store alot of it and 24 mile long runs will do that for you, and 2) you better learn how to ingest some along the way or you'll end up like Kara G. at the World Championships.

Ö wrote: He obviously isn´t a big believer of individualized coaching

MPR wrote:

Have you ever heard of the Legend of Milo - the only undefeated Gladiator in ancient Rome.

McMillan approach is not much different. Slowly adding more and more until he has some of the strongest runners around.

Unfortunately so many coaches and critics today are trying to take the calf out of Milo's hands and telling him to take the day off. Hopefully McMillan and company don't listen. I know I'm not.

Basic endurance and specific endurance are two different things.

I´m not suggesting to take the day off, I advocate training 2 times a day EVERY DAY. Only rest if your body says so.

Remember Steve Jones. 90mpw, 2.07,13.

Haji wrote:

Not everyone is going to be able to handle the high volume required to run as a professional. That is one of the things that separates the elites from the rest of us.

I agree with what Mcmillan is saying but I personally would not try to get up to 120 mpw. It took me long enough to be able to handle 75.

That's why I don't quit my day job.

Then how did Steve Jones run 2.07,13 with crazy half marathon split since he ran just about 80-90mpw? Or how did Kwalia and Kwambai run super fast on 140KILOMETERS per week training?

A typical weekly schedule by Steve Jones:

Sunday 90 minutes @ 5:45 per mile

Monday 40 minutes easy

Tuesday A.M. 5k @ race pace, such as 12x90secs on dirt trails, as hard as possible

P.M. 6miles

Wednesday 40 minutes easy

Thursday A.M. 5x5minutes @ marathon race pace during 90-minute run

P.M. 40minutes "easy,easy"

Friday 40 minutes easy

A.M. track session of 200-,400-, or 1000meter repeats or 10x2minutes @ 10k race pace

P.M. 6miles

2.07 vs 2.10... See, it´s not that black and white. I still recommend you to keep your day job, though.

I must add that Jones was working full time and still was able to run that fast.

Based on your post I see the problem; you have no belief & no idea what you want out of life, hence you are a loser...

ask me wrote:

Based on your post I see the problem; you have no belief & no idea what you want out of life, hence you are a loser...

Another high mileage believer, I assume?

My life is going well and the training is going well and I´m going to graduate from school soon. I will going to marry my fiance also in a year, so all is going really well. I feel that more likely it´s you who has some kind of problems. Calling someone total stranger as a loser doesn´t make you sound stable.

You demonstrate your basic problem with your last 2 posts. You are banking on the exception versus the rule. For every runner you can show me who was world class on 90-100 miles per week I can show you 10 who ran 100-150 miles per week.

You boast of Jones' 2:07 on 90-100 miles a week against Gotchers 2:10 on 120-130 miles a week. Well then I'd counter with: Geb's 2:03 on 130-150 miles per week and Wanjuri's 2:05 on 120-150 miles per week and Hall's 2:06 on 120-130 miles per week vs your Jones' 2:07 on 90-100 miles per week.

Don't go through life banking that you are the exception and not the rule.

No I just think you have to poke at McMillan, with no real beliefs yourself on the sport of distance running. Number two you never wanted it bad enough, ..most of us don't.

Others will say it is talent or genes, whatever. Those guys up there are doing it their way, stated it on a radio show here on lr.com, ran the race & posted a 2;10.

Be positive ...

The reason I started this thread is to show that there definitely are exceptions, so it´s not true when McMillan or you other guys say that you HAVE TO run this much to be at your best. I´m not saying you can´t run high mileage, if it works for you then do it! If you run average 2 hours a day average you are high mileage runner. But you can´t simplify things as much as Greg does. Steve Jones is a proven fact that you MAYBE don´t HAVE TO run that much.

ask me wrote:

No I just think you have to poke at McMillan, with no real beliefs yourself on the sport of distance running. Number two you never wanted it bad enough, ..most of us don't.

Others will say it is talent or genes, whatever. Those guys up there are doing it their way, stated it on a radio show here on lr.com, ran the race & posted a 2;10.

Be positive ...

Stop writing bullshit. I´ve run several 100miles+ weeks, best was 128miles and I´ve wanted it bad enough. Why it´s so hard to stay on topic? BE POSITIVE YOURSELF.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that Steve Jones might have been able to run faster had he logged more miles for longer....

I understand diminishing returns and that that's highly individualized, but it makes sense that your daily workout time should be close to or equal the distance you're racing. Could you imagine preparing for an 8k xc race by running 15 minutes a day?

Do we have hard evidence that says he couldn't have run 2:05-2:06 if he'd run 25-30% more mileage?

What kind of supplemental work was he doing? I find it difficult to believe you could develop the aerobic base to run that fast only exercising 40 minutes a day for half the week.

Oe, do you have other examples of lower mileage marathoners? (not a rhetorical question)

One-offs don't really offer much, other than an anecdotal counterargument to a system that's known (statistically significant) to be effective....

What I know Jones didn´t do any supplemental work.

Even in the marathon, it´s very much dependent from your lactate threshold how fast you can run and how long your glycogen stores will be sufficient. The level of lactate threshold is not automically lifted if you can bump your mileage from ~80-100mpw to 120+. I don´t have other examples now than Jones, Kwalia or Kwambai as a lower mileage marathoners, but I´m sure they are not the only top guys under 120-140mpw. "Tinman" could maybe tell you more since he has stated that 100mpw is quite enough even for a marathoner.

So Tinman, why don´t you join into this discussion? Do you disagree with McMillan´s claim that you have to run 120-140miles per week to reach optimum results on marathon, without objections?

MPR wrote:

You demonstrate your basic problem with your last 2 posts. You are banking on the exception versus the rule. For every runner you can show me who was world class on 90-100 miles per week I can show you 10 who ran 100-150 miles per week.

You boast of Jones' 2:07 on 90-100 miles a week against Gotchers 2:10 on 120-130 miles a week. Well then I'd counter with: Geb's 2:03 on 130-150 miles per week and Wanjuri's 2:05 on 120-150 miles per week and Hall's 2:06 on 120-130 miles per week vs your Jones' 2:07 on 90-100 miles per week.

Don't go through life banking that you are the exception and not the rule.

Where did you read Wanjiru runs 120-150? I thought he was much lower, based on this interview:

Wanjiru is very hard to lock down. There was the interview on iaaf.com where they claimed he ran approximately 70 mpw, but then in this interview he claims to run 15k before breakfast nearly everyday, and if you run twice a day, with one run of nearly 10 miles, you're going to get up there pretty quick. Maybe not 150 mpw or anything, but he's also got a few 23+ mile (38k) long runs. He's referenced being really tired before tune up half marathons as well, due to the volume of his training.

As for Kwambai and Kibet, I can't remember which one of them it was (I believe it was Kibet), but he had an interview from a few years prior where he referred to training twice a day every day, with a 25 km morning run everyday. So using what Renato was saying about their volume of training THIS cycle, which may have been quite low, without ever taking into account how they got to the point of being able to absorb that high-intensity training, is misguided. If I run 150 mpw for 5 years, go down to 80 mpw for a season and run 2:10, will I be used as the next great example of a low mileage marathoner?

I think Steve Jones is coaching now, correct? Out in Colorado somewhere? Does he assign his athletes low mileage or high?

edumacator raises a solid question. If steve jones is the poster boy for low miles does he in fact assign low mileage to his athletes. My understanding was jones did low mileage because of the time constraints he worked under, often working as much as 60 hours a week. From my one time talking with him I know he is a fan of doing a lot of your running very fast, but we didn't discuss volume. I inferred that he like most good coaches realized that mileage is a very subjective thing and that there is no magic #. For a marathoner it needs to be high, but for Kieth Kelly high might be 65 miles a week, for josh mcdougal high might be 145 a week. But it would be really interesting to see a comparison of how the jones group is training vs the McMillian group. At present Jones has three real solid Marathoners, Jason Hartmann who ran 2:12 this past fall at twin cities, probably worth a 2:11 at houston which is a bit faster. Jorge Torres who ran 2:13:00 at NYC this past fall, which again I would argue is probably worth a 2:11 or so at Houston, and Fernando Cabada who has a 2:12 PR from when he was running with Simmons but under Jones won the USATF champs at Twin Cities in '08 in really tough weather in 2:16 which I, and some others felt, was as good a performance as his PR run in japen.

I think if you do find a blog for one of Jones' guys you will find that what they are doing is quite similar to what McMillian's crew is up to. The thing that I think will jump out the most is how much aerobic quality both do. But I'm just guessing.