41 yr old runs 4:38 mile with "no running" training program

Interesting and most likely some validity for older runners who have extensive high mileage training earlier in life, and a high degree of natural talent.

I was hoping for an off the couch story of a non-runner throwing down a 4:38 mile-- either a story of an incredible natural talent who for whatever the reason, never found out he/she could run like the wind.

I mean taking former collegiate runners who have previously done high mileage and making them do--

1) 60 tempo

2) Strides

3) 2 hour long run

Would do the same thing.

I think you meant to post this on the message boards of

www.letsnotrun.com

He ran 4:29 with running though.

Looking at the rest of the site and his Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/groups/NoRunning) it seems like that's close to the point he's trying to make.

BTW, I guess he was a runner at Northeastern University, but stopped running for 13 years. One of the pages I saw said that he lost 45 pounds and ran a 1:56 800 last summer. Doubt he did that playing football. LOL.

I get your gist on the tempo, strides, and long run, but I'm not sure I agree 100%. I think a two hour run would build more endurance, while playing football would build more speed. Ditto for the 60 tempo building one's lactic threshold versus drills weights and stairs building strength, no?

He still gets an assload of aerobics just not in the form of scheduled distance runs. He also has many thousands of lifetime training miles. There's just no way around that.

yea, but he ran 4:19 doing both. what does that mean tho? no way he was playing football and running 14 miles on sunday lol.

This isn't that surprising. I had an injury a couple years ago and stopped running for a few weeks until I jumped in a race. All I did during the week was the eliptical and I would run a 5k on the weekend with a couple miles warmup. I did this for a couple months and was able to run within 15 seconds/mile of when I quit running. From July 25 to Oct 16 I ran 76 total miles with 46 of that being the races and the rest the warmup.

Most runners can take a few weeks off and if they do some sort of intense cross training can run within a few seconds of their previous times without any training.

Of course this won't last forever as you will slowly lose running fitness.

A few years ago, I ran 5:35 pace for 4 miles. I had an accident and couldn't run for 3.5 years. During the 3rd year of no running, I jumped in that 4 mile race and ran 7 minute pace. Instead of the 15 seconds/mile I lost in a few weeks, I lost 1:25/mile in a few years.

BS he is still running just swapped a couple of running sessions to 'non running'

Sprinting - running

Flag football - more running

Road mile = doodly squat

I'm not too surprised. Just means he has some natural talent, and obviously he's not fat.

The 'no running' movement sounds a lot like the 'barefoot' movement. They call it 'no running' yet they do run. Sorry, but strides and short fast repeats is running (not to mention the amount of running done in playing football for 2 hours).

Kinda like wearing Virbrams FF is NOT going barefoot.

He said he does "no running" in his training, but his program consisted of 45 minutes of 50-200m sprints. How is that not running?

UK the site says he traded 7 days of running for 3 days of football, sprints, etc.

I read a lot of the stuff his fasterthanforty and Facebook websites.

Looks to me like he's trying to prove that activities like football, sprints, and stairs provide multiple benefits (i.e. aerobic conditioning + top-end speed or aerobic conditioning + strength), whereas "running" only provides aerobic conditioning.

I've always thought that the 800 is 60% aerobic. The article says he ran 2:00 with or without aerobic-specific training, but he only ran faster (1:56) when he did sprints and weights. This leaves me with two questions for the Letsrun experts:

1) Is it better to do 3 hard workouts a week or 5 runs + 2 traditional speed workouts? I've always done the latter :/

2) How much pure mileage does a 800/mile runner really need to do? If you can build aerobic capacity while building speed, are 5 mile runs really useful? I'd rather play football (injury risk notwithstanding).

p.s. Obviously sprints and football involve "running". Maybe he should have named this thing "No Jogging".

Mark transfers the aerobic portion to other exercises like vigorous walking.

He'll also use the stair master and elliptical.

You have to read some of his earlier articles on how he ran his 1:56 800 meter this past summer.

Bannister once ran a 4:08 mile on 8 weeks of no running at all.

"Vigorous walking". Sounds like a throwback to Paavo Nurmi.

This article

http://www.fasterthanforty.com/race-recap-another-wr-close-call/

says he went from 2:06 to 2:00 in 2 weeks. I don't know what to make of that one.

This is all suggesting that you can get a lot of your aerobic conditioning from anaerobic workouts. That brings up a good point about the aerobic/anaerobic comment. This makes me think that knowing the aerobic/anaerobic demands of a race is useless unless you know how much of your training is contributing to your aerobic vs anaerobic conditioning.

If 3 days of football, stairs, and strides is enough to replace 7 days of road and speed work, I have to question whether most of us are overvaluing distance training.

In other words, what would happen if he did football, stairs, or strides everyday?

This is not a "no running" program. This is really just what most 800/mile guys did in the days before Lydiard. Lots of strength, lots of sprints, lots of drills, almost no mileage.

I am tired of "run less" guys claiming that they have discovered the fountain of youth. Everytime I hear about one of these guys, it turns out that they developed their particular "run less" program after they already established themselves by running a lot of miles and doing the traditional workouts. The "run less" regimine is effective because it is a new stimulus after years of the same old same old. But that doesn't mean that the same old same old is wrong, unnecessary or bad. It just means that runners need to vary their training and can benefit from a radical departure from their usual routine now and then.

Given a period of high mileage at some point in a runner's development, I think the chief benefits of "junk miles," or "maintenance runs," are proprioceptive, and metabolic.

They help you with efficiency and keep metabolism stimulates-- keep your weight down.

I'd like to see a 10k time to compare with the road mile.

I'm guessing there would be a huge fall off from what Daniels would predict.

In general, though, older runners definitely benefit from more weight work, more hill work, more recovery, and fewer miles.

Precious Roy wrote:

This is not a "no running" program. This is really just what most 800/mile guys did in the days before Lydiard. Lots of strength, lots of sprints, lots of drills, almost no mileage.

I am tired of "run less" guys claiming that they have discovered the fountain of youth. Everytime I hear about one of these guys, it turns out that they developed their particular "run less" program after they already established themselves by running a lot of miles and doing the traditional workouts. The "run less" regimine is effective because it is a new stimulus after years of the same old same old. But that doesn't mean that the same old same old is wrong, unnecessary or bad. It just means that runners need to vary their training and can benefit from a radical departure from their usual routine now and then.