Is that not incredible? What a talent. Are there other elite 800 runners like her? Who is the most successful athlete you've ever heard of that does less than 40 miles per week?
Is that not incredible? What a talent. Are there other elite 800 runners like her? Who is the most successful athlete you've ever heard of that does less than 40 miles per week?
I've known many dudes who could break two off 15-20 MPW. Doesn't seem unreasonable that a super-talented chick could too.
Concerned Citizen wrote:
I've known many dudes who could break two off 15-20 MPW. Doesn't seem unreasonable that a super-talented chick could too.
A dude breaking 2 is not in the same universe as a dudette breaking 2.
Maria Mutola ran something like 30 mpw, much of it in intervals.
Krummenaker's training week (this was BASE TRAINING) before he won world indoors over Kipketer:
2 long interval sessions a week
50-60 min long run
2-3 30 minute recovery runs (not at a slow pace)
time in the pool
Not much over 30 mpw, if that.
Plenty of 400/800 types like Jonathan Johnson on 20mpw or so.
These people are ATHLETES, not joggers with a running habit.
800/1500 aren't long races. Wheating and Lagat get by on 50-60 a week. Chicks tend to do less mileage. 40 a week doesn't seem surprising for a middle distance running chick.
coach d wrote:
Maria Mutola ran something like 30 mpw, much of it in intervals.
Krummenaker's training week (this was BASE TRAINING) before he won world indoors over Kipketer:
2 long interval sessions a week
50-60 min long run
2-3 30 minute recovery runs (not at a slow pace)
time in the pool
Not much over 30 mpw, if that.
Plenty of 400/800 types like Jonathan Johnson on 20mpw or so.
These people are ATHLETES, not joggers with a running habit.
Didn't Krummy run 3:31?
She does a lot of cross-training, bike/elliptical, circuits, drills etc., at least an hour a day before track session. Flotrack has some older vids which detail this.
asfsf wrote:
Is that not incredible? What a talent. Are there other elite 800 runners like her? Who is the most successful athlete you've ever heard of that does less than 40 miles per week?
Are you an idiot? Do you know anything about training for the 800?
Krummenacker's best year was AFTER he had done a lot of miles in 2001 and before. He had accumulated a HUGE base, went and trained under Luiz de Oliveira in 2002, and busted out in a big way. This is not unlike Ritz training for the marathon, reducing mileage, and busting his 5k.
The reason why Krummenacker was so good was BECAUSE of the LOTS of miles he put in BEFORE the switch to a pure speed-based approach.
Notice that after 2002, Krumm was a shadow of himself. Those miles helped him in 2002, but once that base was gone, he was mediocre at best.
Webb, Snell... even Coe all ran miles. Rudisha runs miles. They may not count their warmups and cooldowns (Coe didn't) so it may APPEAR that their mileage is lower then it is, but they all ran miles.
If Vessey spent the fall and winter running 50-60 (7 miles a day, 10-12 on the weekend) and then cut back to 20-30 and all speed in the spring/summer, she would be better served.
I bet Vessey could be a 1:55 girl if she had a bigger aerobic base.
Please note: I'm not a "mileage" guy. I don't think you need to run 60, 70, 80 miles a week to be a good 800 woman. But in the off season, 50-60 is not much when you consider warmups and cooldowns. Do 7 mile easy days and lots of hills and strength work (1000s, 800s, 600s) and lift, and it will do wonders.
When peculiar thing I've noticed is that 400/800 types often refer to any distance run as a "long run." In both high school and college, I knew some moved up 400 types who would say something like "oh, coach is only having me do a 4mi long run today, because I did a 9mi long run yesterday and I'm tired from that. Tomorrow I'll do something hard."
Now, I have no idea what Vessey's training is like, but she might have meant it like that. I'm not one of those "everyone secretly does 100 mile weeks!!!!!!" people, but it's possible she does run slightly more than an offhand comment in a video. Still though, if she runs more than 50 miles in any given week of the year, even her highest off-season conditioning week, I'd be pretty surprised.
CorrectionOnThat wrote:
Krummenacker's best year was AFTER he had done a lot of miles in 2001 and before. He had accumulated a HUGE base, went and trained under Luiz de Oliveira in 2002, and busted out in a big way. This is not unlike Ritz training for the marathon, reducing mileage, and busting his 5k.
What is your source on this bit about the mileage both before and after 2001?
Maggie's milege is about average for an elite female 800m runner. Keep in mind that most 400/800 types don't focus too much on milege and they don't count every step they take such as warm ups and cool downs, etc. When I use to run 400m intervals jogging a lap in between, I did not count my recovery laps. Also, most fast twitch 800m types are not built for distance; I coached a 1:47x 800m runner who could not break 4:15 in the mile.
We can agree that there are many who run more than 60/week and never run anything close to 3:31. Hard to argue mileage
alone was the big secret to Krummenaker's success.
Guess his 144/331, another example of the dismal US running in the 90s?
Since there is basically no woman in the US who can keep up with Vessey in the 800m, without at least something close to her 52 400m speed, I'm thinking 4.5 miles for her long run is just about right. She's actually very well coached.
haha YO wrote:
Are you an idiot? Do you know anything about training for the 800?
No, and yes. Are you done with your little hissy fit now?
dsrunner has the day off wrote:
Since there is basically no woman in the US who can keep up with Vessey in the 800m, without at least something close to her 52 400m speed, I'm thinking 4.5 miles for her long run is just about right. She's actually very well coached.
I completely agree with you. I'm not trying to say that she should run more, I'm just amazing that some athletes in middle distance don't have to run a decent amount of volume. I've heard many stories of olympic 800 champs who run Lydiard miles and I've personally known 4 different sub 1:52 guys who run over 60-70 miles a week during the off season. One of them was a 1:51 guy who went down to 1:49 by just upping from 30-60 over one winter.
This just makes me believe more strongly that 800 runners might be the most versatile and athletic runners in track.
asfsf wrote:
Who is the most successful athlete you've ever heard of that does less than 40 miles per week?
Michael Phelps
Very successful. And definitely ran less than 40mpw.
Well, I've spoken to David and he said before Oliveira, he was as high as "70-80 a week" in the offseason. He ran cross country at GaTech. So anecdotally, its not difficult to assume he was running longer then 10k every day if he was racing 10k cross!
However, I know you all like things in print, so here are couple articles I dug up. Doesn't mention specific mileage, but it gives you a reason to believe me.
GA&M: Talk about the changes you made leading up to last season, when you moved from Atlanta to Tucson.
DK: It was a different training regimen than I had before, a new coach (Luiz de Oliveira), with less emphasis on mileage and more emphasis on quality. We did a lot of drills, and some days we were in the pool and didn’t run at all. It makes for a more exciting method of training. Things are always changing, and that makes it fun. My previous coach prepared me for this, laid the foundation, and now this fits me better. Plus now I have a training partner, Patrick Nduwimana (from Burundi), Running is one of those sports where you need someone to push you.
http://www.letsrun.com/2003/krumadidas.php
"You have to train toward the 1,500, regardless of which is your primary event," he says. "You need to build a mileage base three to four months out from your goal race—you can always add speed later, but it’s nearly impossible to go back and add endurance. And sprinkle in some speed work to keep your fast twitch muscles trained."
Ummmm.... Maggie Vessey is a 400/800 type runner not a 800/1500 type runner.
I'm actually be surprised if she runs 40 miles per week.
He strength is her speed not her endurance.
If you watch her Flotrack vids, you'll notice that she chews gum obnoxiously for probably 12 hours a day. Cross training.
Krum didn't run 144/331 in the 90s.
Michael actually swims upwards of 40 mpw, if that counts for anything.
Didn't jack daniels say he had some beast chick run for him who ran some crazy times off of less than 30 mpw (I'm sure that he coached multiple athletes who had done similar things almost as impressive)? Does anyone know which thread this was, or more details on this? I'm pretty sure it was more along the lines of 5k/10k which I think is certainly applicable to this thread; if you can run a good 5k off low mileage then certainly it could be done @ 800!