Volunteers needed to test my Low Mileage, High Quality training plan!

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I will try this as I have been leaning towards adopting this style of training for some time now in an effort to stay injury free. Though my fitness responds really well to 70+ miles per week, I find it impossible to avoid shin splints and this past year I spent 5 months trying to rid myself of ITBS.

A year ago I was running well under 16. I want to go get there again without the wear and tear. I will let you know.

Also, I plan on a lot of core strength training and mild lifting as cross training.

This seems like a solid plan if you could be more involved in the training process.

Without directly dishing out the workouts or practicing the workouts with the runner there is no motivation to force consistency. Even when giving the workouts daily you would be able to at least track it effectively.

I like the theory. I would volunteer but I'm already well into a traditional base like many of the other people here.

Maybe after spring? Keep us posted.

This is an interesting plan. Is the pacing on each workout all-out? For example, is the 3x1mile supposed to feel like a flat-out race by the end, or are they more like cruise intervals? And when you say "you should be able to go faster" by the fourth week on the 60 minute run, do you mean go faster while staying fairly easy or are you implying that the 60 minute run should be very hard?

dfrank wrote:

I will try this as I have been leaning towards adopting this style of training for some time now in an effort to stay injury free. Though my fitness responds really well to 70+ miles per week, I find it impossible to avoid shin splints and this past year I spent 5 months trying to rid myself of ITBS.

A year ago I was running well under 16. I want to go get there again without the wear and tear. I will let you know.

Also, I plan on a lot of core strength training and mild lifting as cross training.

Thanks for trying this dfrank. Do you have a suggestion for naming it? Can we call it the "DFrank" plan or something?

Do you have a foam roller for your ITBS? Have you used the roller on your soleus muscle to see if that helps your shin splints?

I have found that calf raises and jumping increases my shin problems so when you do that strength training please let me know if it increases your shin problems.

So are you saying that any study I am making on the program would be invalid because it is not tightly controlled?

In Question wrote:

I like the theory. I would volunteer but I'm already well into a traditional base like many of the other people here.

Maybe after spring? Keep us posted.

Thank you for being open to trying it in the spring. What does your particular base period look like right now?

To the OP - I have a question (and this is an 'honest' question, I'm not trying to start a fight). I have seen on Letsrun occasionally sentiments like the following idea from your original post:

"The idea behind it is that there is no need to increase weekly volume and risk injury until you race as fast as possible using the current plan."

Now, let's assume that the 'current plan' is a good one (with decent weekly variation) and that the runner in question stays injury free and he/she trains consistently. If our runner is at an age where he/she wouldn't be expected to slow down from aging (say currently 24 years old, with at least 6 but probably 8-10 years before age-related slowing), wouldn't this runner be expected to get faster every year, at least marginally?

If that's the case, then your plan will meet its stated goal every season; i.e. it cannot fail. Alternatively, if the runner keeps getting at least marginally faster, you will never have your 'signal' to increase milage, even though such an increase might be warranted.

Furthermore, ever-faster results does not suggest that even greater results could not be achieved through an increase (modest or perhaps not) in miles per week. Is this not the case? I'm curious about how you or others who feel this way would respond to these doubts. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Hunted wrote:

This is an interesting plan. Is the pacing on each workout all-out? For example, is the 3x1mile supposed to feel like a flat-out race by the end, or are they more like cruise intervals? And when you say "you should be able to go faster" by the fourth week on the 60 minute run, do you mean go faster while staying fairly easy or are you implying that the 60 minute run should be very hard?

The pacing on the 3 X 1 mile will be based on feel, that is, on the best practice (not race) effort you perceive you can do on that day without sending yourself into a chronic state of fatigue. This depends on the person and the day. On a hot day, it could be run like a cruise interval. On a cool day, it would normally be run at 10K race pace (somewhere between 5K race pace and cruise interval pace). For a 800/1500 guy it could be slower than for a 1500/5k guy. Ideally you go faster each interval and the last one might feel flat out, but also it is not the worst thing if you accidentally paced yourself too fast early and you are just doing the best you can on the last one.

The same applies to the 60 minute run. You run by feel, that is, in this case the kind of effort you perceive you can do on that day without sending yourself into a chronic state of fatigue. There is flexibility in the 60 minute run based on what you believe can help you. At the beginning of the year, I was running the 60 minute run rather slow and the effort was not exactly "hard." Later in the year, I decided to run all of the uphills during the 60 minute run very hard to prepare for my peak race which has a long, steep hill in the first mile. I adapted it to my goals over time. Towards the end of the year, I was running 2 minutes faster per mile on the 60 minute run and it happened somewhat naturally.

Some people will want to do LSD for the 60 minute run and that is okay. After the fourth week, I think they will find that their LSD (long, slow distance) pace will increase without even thinking about it.

On the other hand, the way I like to do it sometimes is to build up confidence over the course of the 6 weeks in the first period. I might do the first week at LSD pace, then intentionally go a little faster each week. I can feel when my muscles are ready to go "hard" the entire way.

Another way of doing the 60 minute run is to put a tempo run in there as part of it. Others recommend, 1-2 mile warm up, 20 minute tempo, follwed by 1-2 mile coold down. I don't. To prevent injury, I recommend not running anynmore after a hard effort, not even slowly. For this reason, I would do the tempo at the end of the 60 minute run. If i was to go this route, I would do a 10 minute tempo the first week, a 20 minute tempo the second week, and then back to a ten minute tempo in the third week to recover from the two-week build up. In the fourth week I would end with a 20 minute tempo, then a 30 minute tempo in week five, followed by a 10 minute tempo in the final week to recover from the two-week build up. This makes it progressively faster over the course of the full 60 minutes in weeks two and five.

The easiest way to go about it is to simply run it as fast as you can each week, not like a race, but just a hard practice effort. I think you will find that you are faster in week four. The goal to keep in mind, however many years in the future it comes to fruition, would be to someday run 10 miles in the 60 minute window, even if today you are only running 6 miles in that same window.

Is this explanation too flexible or complicated? If so, I can make it simpler.

How about we increase our weekly mileage over a prolonged period until we reach a point where increasing mileage doesn't lead to any performance gains and then introduce higher "quality". Better idea.

I like your question and do not see it as starting an argument. You make a good point about young athletes. Perhaps this is best tested on older athletes. Also, you are right, if a young athlete is maintaining a certain training program/level without injury, why not increase the distance? I only agree on the condition that the athlete is running very fast at shorter distances. I would hate to see a 5:00 miler switching to a higher mileage plan before getting under 4:30. Fast first (over shorter distances), endurance second (in priority). Otherwise all we get is a 5:00 miler who can run a 10:20 two mile, rather than a 4:30 miler who can run 9:45 in 3200m.

When I originally heard that Ryan Hall might break the 4:00 mile in high school, I admired him for what I thought was his innate ability. In recent years, when I discovered that he ran 100 mpw on some weeks in high school, while i still admire him, I admired him less because I think you can take a runner of average ability, tell him to run 100 mpw and he will come close to breaking the 4 minute mile. That Ryan Hall did not run any faster in college in the mile says something about taking average talent and slapping on a 100 mpw training formula. He should have grown stronger and fatser in those years according to his age, but his mile race times didn't show any improvement. When I hear that Bob Kennedy accomplished what he did on relatively low mileage, I admire him for his innate ability.

When I hear that Kara Goucher left training with Deena Kastor, because her training "partner was always hurt" (loosely quoted), knowing that Deena puts in 130-140 mpw makes me wonder about the high milage recipe. Watching Geb retire after injury saying "I worked very hard" and "it is not good to complain" and assuming he is high mileage guy also makes me wonder about such a recipe.

All this said, if a person can run 100 mpw and not get injured, then I say do it. This training plan assumes that an uninjured athlete will continue to get faster by sticking to a plan that doesn't make him or her injured as long as it is progressive.

Once (an older athlete) stops hitting better times, then it might be time to adjust the plan. In that case, the long run could be knocked up to 90 miutes or two hours. The workouts that total roughly three miles, can now total about 4 miles. I hesitate to do this until the plan here has been "tapped out" (no more PRs).

This plan is for the athletes who are sick of injury. These athletes run 50 mile weeks and then catch the flu the next week and only run 10 miles in that week. Then they run 45 miles in the next week and then develop shin splints and run 18 miles in the next week. At some point, such an athlete will come to realize that they are not respecting their body. Their body is telling them "stop training like an elite when your body is at a novice stage." If you can train like a novice injury free and eventually race at the next level by using this plan, then why not use it, at least for a few years?

Tinfoil wrote:

How about we increase our weekly mileage over a prolonged period until we reach a point where increasing mileage doesn't lead to any performance gains and then introduce higher "quality". Better idea.

You are speaking in terms of mileage and not time. Why get injured by high mileage early in a career or comeback rather than increasing mileage later since the higher the mileage, the greater the risk of injury as anyone can attest to?

I'm open to a different time limit for the long run than 60 minutes, but not too concerned with number of miles. That will come within the time limit.

0/10 - obvious troll ...

Any suggestions for naming this plan?

Danno67 wrote:

0/10 - obvious troll ...

Are you saying Tinman is a troll or I am? I for certain had no intention of being controversial.

these two paragraphs lead me to believe that you really, really don't have a clue what you're talking about.

What happens after Period 5 ? Start over at 1 again ?

Why? I am not against 100 mpw if someone can do it without getting injured. There are huge gains to be made in racing the 5K if you can move up incrementally to a 40 mile week. After that, there are gains, but they are not as large compared with the risk of injury. What about the two paragraphs do not make sense to you? Attacking my credibility as a person does not help yor argument. Please use reason.