How long does it take to notice an improvement from increasing mileage? I went from about 20 to 50 mpw.
How long does it take to notice an improvement from increasing mileage? I went from about 20 to 50 mpw.
Your question is too broad to get any informed estimates. We don't know anything about you. But I can tell you what I've experienced from recently moving up to 50mpw.
I've been running at least 50 mpw since the last week of november, so about 8 weeks. usually right around 50-55 but I did a fluke 70 miles three weeks ago. I started out with mostly short runs and doubled almost every day, then introduced a weekly long run of 12-15 miles. Then, in the last few weeks I've concentrated my mileage more into fewer runs. This week, for example, I ran all singles:
M: 3
T: 11
W: 6
Th: 11
F: 0
S: 18
Su: 3
The longer runs in singles are harder for me. The 18 mile long run is not typical, but I do a long one like this every now and then to see what I can do. Normally my long run is 12-15.
This kind of mileage is new to me. What have I noticed? Well, it felt pretty good for the first two weeks, then I felt sluggish and tired for a few weeks. Then I felt really good and ran 70, and felt like crap the next week but still managed to run 50. I never did take a down week in the normal sense but instead packed my 50 miles into 4 days and took three days off, one week.
I have not tried racing so I don't know for sure, but I don't feel a lot faster. I still do mile repeats at around 6/mi which is about the same as before. I can say for certain that my easy pace
(the pace I do most running at) has gone down from 8:30 to 8:00 for the same perceived effort, and running at 7:30 doesn't even feel that hard. I ran 18 mi at 7:55 pace yesterday and it wasn't too bad. That would have been pretty hard for me before.
One thing I've been wary of is that supposedly your cardiovascular fitness gets better long before your body gets stronger, so for a while you're able to comfortably run fast enough to hurt yourself. So I feel like I could run faster if I wanted to but I don't, for now. I just want to stay consistent for a while.
I hope that helps!
What are you guys training for? I am in the same shoes as heyman although I have not hit 70mpw. I am 42 now and I figure this is my last go before being all over. I actually started around last week of Nov as well. I've no idea what I am training for but want to start laying the base mileage until the spring.
What I've been doing differently from 20 years ago is I take 1 day off completely but it has been mostly 2 days off because of the weather. I run almost all runs on soft surfaces. I completely got rid of the short recovery runs. Because of the weather in NY, I just do 8.5 to 11 per run when I got out. The longest run so far has been 13.5 once.
Just last week though I could feel my legs feel little stronger as I run up the hills. Though this week I felt general tiredness a bit. I had to do 10 last 3 days in a row to make 50/week.
To the original OP, my experience has been the improvements just come when they come. Usually it gets you by surprise. I think it often follows a period of time when you hold back the training a bit which gives your body to "digest" the work you put in. It will definitely come.
It usually takes me 1.5-3 weeks, but I've never increased by as great a percentage as you did. Next time you might consider increasing someting like 10 miles per week, then backing off every fourth week, especially if you are doing more than you've ever done before.
Phishguy wrote:
How long does it take to notice an improvement from increasing mileage? I went from about 20 to 50 mpw.
There are a LOT of variables that can figure into this, but, 3-4 weeks, once you get past the newness and fatigue of it, should be about right. If nothing else, 6 weeks tops.