High Mileage and real improvements

I took 4 minutes off of my 5k in two years moving from 35 mpw to 70 mpw.

i was looking more for the one year range, and 35-70 is definately not high mileage

lets say 80+

4 miutes can mean anything.

32:00-28:00, 40:00-36:00, 60:00-56:00...

IMO, high mileage alone does not help.

Quality > Quanity, Quality with Quanity overtime > Quanity.

Oh, I agree 80-90+ is what I would begin to consider as high, but I just wasn't ready for it.

Additionally, the biggest gains are going to be made in the 2nd and 3rd year.

my first year of college i went from about 30mpw to about 60mpw. soph and junior years were 70 and 80, respectfully. and senior year max was about 95.

My biggest margin of improvement was during my junior year, when i dropped my mile time by 8 seconds, down to a 4:14.

I agree that it wasn't the mileage alone that got me that time, it was many hard and long workouts too. But i do know that the mileage had given me the base to do these workouts, and to build to greater workouts. It gave me more strength, which contributes to racing probably as much or more than speed.

With a previous high week of 101 and never having done more than 3 consecutive weeks of 85+, I ran 15 straight weeks of 80+ last winter, w/ 4 straight 90+ and a high week of 106. Then I gradually tapered down. Results?

Before: 16:00 (track), 33:09 (track), 1:16:45(1/2-mar.)

After: 16:00 (road w/ hills), 32:17 (track, 5k split 15:58), 1:26:50 for 25k (1/2 mar. split 1:13:30).

And that mileage I did 8-12 months ago is still paying off. Running quite well right now on only 60-70 mpw due to a busier schedule. High mileage rules- planning on doing a similar buildup this coming winter.

i have burnt out in 3 cross country seasons. 70 mile weeks in highschool one year with a previous high average of 50 with a proper build up absolutely destroyed me. by the end of the season i was finished in the first hundred metres and reduced to a crawling pace which was more painful than any other racing i've done. in university so far i've done some great summer mileage accompanied by very good consistent strength training. mileage during the school year diminished, of course, due to ridiculous work load. this summer work lead to great workouts and slightly improved racing, but again, by the end of the season i'm one of the last men on the team. in track season i'm a middle distance runner(8, 15) and the only reason i continue to hit the trails in the fall is so that i have strength for track. i have had much more success on the track compared to the trails off very minimal mileage(<35) in the winter due to weather conditions in my particular location, and have found consistent improvement as the season progresses. i have come to the conclusion that my body just won't accept "high" mileage, but i have responded quite well to high amounts of quality speed work that has broken others. has anybody else experienced this? can anybody please tell me if i'm doing something wrong? should i just accept and keep pluggin' away? i have the mental determination to do mileage, and am quite willing. it just seems to be burning me out.

too bad we can't all be nate brannen.

I went from 36:30 to 33:50 in six months at 70mpw and then eventually down to 32:10 10K, 25:20 8k from many 100 mile weeks over a couple of years

It depends how you run them.

The high mileage - low mileage paradox.

Increase it you get tired and run slower

Decrease it you get less tired and run faster, BUT, you can't make the distance.

Again I say: The high mileage - low mileage paradox.

(Your damned if you do and your damned if you don't)

I shall cry now ...

a long time ago in my high school days

a summer averaging 0m and winter averaging 25m

spring til track (march) 35mpw average ran 10:12 2mile and 4:33 mile 2:00 800m

a summer averaging 75miles and winter the same spring til track 55mpw average - 9:24 2mile and 4:22 mile 2:01 800m, 2:41 1000m

a summer averaging 90miles and winter 70miles spring til track 72mpw - 9:04 2mile and 4:15 mile and 1:58 (dual)

a summer averaging 90miles (june-sept) and a winter (oct-dec) of 0miles(stress fracture) spring til track 57mpw average ran - 4:08 mile 1:54.5 (in practice) 2:37 1000m(practice)

a summer(may-aug) averaging 0miles and a fall (sept-nov) of 80miles

2:36 1000m(practice) Oct. 4:15 mile(practice) in Nov

etc

u can make ur own conculusions. i wish i kept the workouts i was doing when i ran 4:22 because those 10-15*150m uphill sprints every 8 days helped my basic speed. getting ride of them was a mistake, my 400 was slower the next year and it took a long time to make the mile quicker.

The high vs low debate should only be a argued for middle distance runners (800/mile)

If you are running 2mile and up...it is quite obvious that slowly building up to 80+ milesperweek will make you a much better runner..

I find I react in a similar way with the high mileage. As an 800m guy myself, I can get up to relatively high mileage (90mpw) only for a week or two before it really starts to break me down. The best stretch I've been able to pull is an average of about 65mpw for about 8 weeks before I start to feel overtrained. I do feel the high mileage starting to help me, but then all of a sudden my body just stops wanting to run - my resting heartrate goes higher, i feel lethargic, winded during runs, motivation goes down....blah blah blah, typical symptoms of overtraining. I build up to the mileage slowly too, it just seems to be a low upper limit my body can handle for mileage. Speed workouts never bother me, and I can do 2-3 a week for a few months and feel quite good. I believe higher mileage, done consistently can be very helpful for an 800m runner (just ask Snell). Does anyone have other thoughts on higher mileage training for mid-distance runners, and what can be done to avoid the overtraining myself and "frustrated & burnt" get into?

Oh, I'm familiar with the training UofM does, and Brannen is probably running 65-70 a week right now, with good quality, cause he's running xc. He won't be doing so much come track season, so even for him, the mileage probably doesn't go much higher than 75 or so in the offseason. Warhurst doesn't have his middistance guys doing 100mpw, even when they are at Brannen's level.

High mileage appears to work best when done for 12-14 weeks and ALL at an aerobic pace (you'll find yourself hitting upper-end aerobic when you are feeling good), save for some ALACTIC stride/sprints(400 pace) of 150m or less. JK confirms this approach.

My experience? Even at 42 two winters ago, I consistently ran 100-120m weeks with 10x100m hard (300 jog). Results were that I dipped back under 16 for 5k after several years of struggling, and when I started doing tempo work, I cruised 33:30 easily for a workout. Raced 10m at 5:30 pace. Made 6:00 pace for marathon feel easy.

Now, at 44-45, I'll try the high months again. You do have to be patient that surprising times will be down that enduring road.

It's possibly misleading to examine high mileage done during high school because one is also growing so much during that time that much of the improvement might be due simply to physical maturity.

In my experience most gains due to maturation occured between freshmen to sophomore year. More or less everyone improved significantly during those years, but improvement greatly dropped off from soph to junior year, and there was far less (if any) improvement junior to senior year (with respect to lower mileage athletes).

Just my experience.

High school runners would improve even with little to no mileage increase due to maturation. A better example would be to see someone mid 20's to mid 30's who runs 40 or 50 per week on average and then moves to 70 or 80. Also remember it may depend on the individual. Seb Coe ran fast on relatively low mileage. Pre's long run was 12. Those mileage numbers wouldn't have worked for Salazar. It really depends on the athlete and the event.

I had been a 40-55 MPW guy for several years and had a 10K PR of 38:38, which I thought was the very limit of my ability.

I set my sites on runing my first marathon a year before hand and gradually increased the mileage to 90 MPW for 4 months prior to the race. My marathon overall time ended up not so good (3:09) because I went out too fast and didn't know what I was in for in the later miles, but I went through 10K in 37:24 and halfway in 1:21.12, and it was super easy. I'm thinking I could easily run a 10K a minute faster now which would be more than 2 and a half minutes faster than my 10K PR. There is no doubt that the higer mileage did this for me. In my case, I wasn't fast to begin with and am still not fast, so it is the strength gained that allowed for the improvement. Might be different with guys running much faster. I don't know.

Okay, first off, high mileage is relative. And the numbers I'm using won't be considered high by most standards.

In my case, I was running 35-40 miles/week as an 18-year-old and ran 37:xx on a 10K course. I bumped my mileage to 60 miles/week and, 2 months later, ran a 34:27 10K. I increased the mileage to 70 and ran a 33:59.

I held 70-75 for several months, about a year, and ran a 32:20 10K with nothing more than mileage and running a 1/10-mile hill 20 times twice a week. After adding speedwork, I ran a 31:50 for my first track 10000 and added a 30:08 10K on point-to-point course that had a tailwind.

I tried 100-mile weeks, and I ran fairly well with them. However, I mentally wore myself out. In hindsight, the problem was that I was trying to do too much with the 100-mile weeks. I was trying to get the mileage of a marathoner, the speed of a miler, and racing nearly every weekend while trying to balance the demands of being a employee, husband, and father. Overall, just a little too much stress. I would have been smarter to put in the miles to get the base and then drop the mileage for the speed.