Neely Spence mileage just got to 70 mpw

Sport Watch wrote:

http://www.runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=21480

I was reading through the article and noticed that she said that her mileage has just got into the 70's. That means the last few years she must have only been doing 50 to 60 miles per week. Isn't that quite low for someone who runs that fast? I always expected that she was someone that has been running over 80+ a week since highschool. It also says she is going for a USA qualifier this year in the 5k. How will she stack up against the top D1 girls this year?

Neely Spense did about 55 miles a week her senior year, according to an earlier Running Times article. She was, however, doing 100min long runs. I'll bet she was taking a day off, so if you assume 8-min miles, for 6 days, with one day at 100min, you'd be looking 340min of running over the other five days. That's 68 minutes a day the summer before her high school senior year. Sounds pretty reasonable to me--it's a good balance between getting in good aerobic training and staying recovered. You must know how many high school girls blast big miles or hard anaerobic training all-out for a year or so, then burn out. Sounds like a pretty level-headed sprogression to high mileage to me. Suppose she started at 40 miles per week as a freshman in high school. If she increased 5mi/week every year, that'd bring her right up to 70 by now:

Fy-40

So-45

Jr-50

Sr-55

Fy-60

So-65

Jr-70

Sr-75

post-collegiate: 80+

A bit conservative? Perhaps, but if you are getting great results at 55 miles a week, there isn't an urgent need to jack the peak mileage up 10 or 15 miles per year. She got 2nd last year at Nationals, so obviously what she's doing is working.

Kenndy won the NCAA running around 60mpw. I can't remember if he bumped the mileage up before or after the olympics.

Sport Watch wrote:

http://www.runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=21480

I was reading through the article and noticed that she said that her mileage has just got into the 70's. That means the last few years she must have only been doing 50 to 60 miles per week. Isn't that quite low for someone who runs that fast? I always expected that she was someone that has been running over 80+ a week since highschool. It also says she is going for a USA qualifier this year in the 5k. How will she stack up against the top D1 girls this year?

Sarah Porter > Neely Spence.

If by greater you mean double the mileage and half the results then yes Porter > Spence

If Sarah Porter is better than Neely, then why did she get her sh*t stomped at nationals? Neely could have taken a sh*t in the middle of the course and read the newspaper in the last 1k and still had enough in the tank to win it. She's in a different league at this point.

8 minute pace seems pretty predestrian for a runner at her level.

If her mileage is that low then most likey she is focusing on quality. I wouldn't be suprised if she hammers her runs in the low 6 minute rage constistently.

Baskintheheat wrote:

If her mileage is that low then most likey she is focusing on quality. I wouldn't be suprised if she hammers her runs in the low 6 minute rage constistently.

hammering regular runs is not "focusing on quality." quality means race specific running like workouts. you can "focus on quality" by doing 2 or 3 hard workouts a week and running easy on the other days.

I'm a female D1 runner currently in my 4th year at a mid-major school and my progression was:

High school - 50-60

Freshman year - 60-75

Soph - 70-85

Junior - 85-100

Senior - 100+

Running around 100-110 this winter. This is pretty standard progression with the other runners on my team as well. Too often people see a good runner "only" running x miles a week and that seems to justify the fact that no one else should go over that mileage because it worked for so-and-so runner. What you have to realize is that there are many different levels of talent...

Thread Follower wrote:

8 minute pace seems pretty predestrian for a runner at her level.

This was leading up to her senior year, coming off a track season where she ran 4:58 and leading up to a 17-flat 5k later in the fall. That's not absurdly slow for a just-under-5:00 miler / soon-to-be 17-flat 5k runner. Though maybe she was doing 7:00s, I dunno.

In the past 7 months, Mrs. Mzungu has run 3 10k races under 33:00 and 3 1:11 half marathons and does the bulk of her mileage at 7:45 to 8:00 pace. In a typical 100 mile week she'll probably do 70-75 of those miles slower than 7:30. Her workouts are tough, but her easy days are easy.

I hear Neely Spence will be transferring to Cheyney because she misses Ed Buck....