Mileage to get off the plateau?

Yeah. It's a risk rewards thing. In your case, I would definitely be willing to take a risk with more mileage and longer tempos.

For me, doing that definitely produced results.

So now you just have to ask yourself how much risk you want to take.

consistent 90 mile weeks might be smarter for this year than jumping to 100 and would still produce results. 100 would take you farther if you can adapt to this increase in 1 year.

just depends on your goals. if you have baseline things that you want to accomplish this year that you have accomplished in years past, maybe you feel like you have something to lose if you get injured or just run yourself into the ground.

if you really just want to take it to the next level, it might be a good chance to go for 100.

if i were you, i would air on the side of 100 and longer tempos because i think if you have 3 years under your belt at 80 miles per week, you could probably handle something bigger. well i might max out at 95. 15 miles more than your previous avg highs

I don't see any reason you couldn't eclipse 100 mpw. Much of the time when I hear runners discuss concern over bumping mileage from 80 mpw to 95 mpw this hints to the fact that they are probably working a little too hard during their aerobic running already. If you take it a little bit easier on your runs I bet you could easily go past 100 mpw without trouble. With that mileage and all your threshold work my guess is you're a master in that middle zone. Maybe now is a good time to work on upping your mileage will running a little bit more easily and then letting strides be the faster stuff that keeps you feeling spry.

If you don't double, then that's an obvious solution as well. But make sure you get plenty of sleep and eat/hydrate well.

Thanks for the input. My plan was to build up a true "lydiard-style" base.

June - Build up to 85-90 where I am doing 1 long run per week (2hrs) and 2 medium long runs (1.5hrs) with the other days being easy doubles.

First half of July - Progress to 100 miles and throw in 2 progression-type runs per week to replace 2 of the easy days. The medium long days will act as my recovery days. Long run remains unchanged.

Second half of July/August - Do 1 long hill workout + 1 progression run per week as well as turning my long run into a comfortable progression for the last 30mins. Keep medium long runs as recovery days.

Strides will be performed 2x per week and hill sprints once per week. Every 3rd week will have a day off unless my body is screaming for additional ones. I'll try to do weights/core 2x per week to aid in injury prevention.

Thoughts?

what ever happened to that 240 mpw thread? There was some 15 min 5k trying to take over the world going from 75 to 200+ over his last college summmer. I'd like to read that again as I tool my way through another 35 mile week.

Overall, looks like a pretty good plan.

If you're going to try a "true lydiard-style" base, I'd suggest some slight tweaks to your plan:

1. End of June/first half of July - don't progress to 100 mpw and add the faster progression runs at the same time. Sequence them as two distinct steps. Get to your goal mileage quickly with easy running, then once you've got your arms around the mileage for 2 weeks, start gently squeezing the paces down on some of the runs. (I made the mistake of doing them both at the same time this past winter and it took 3x longer to get to my goal mileage than it should have.)

2. Not sure what you intend exactly by "progression-type runs", but Lydiard would probably have you do the faster effort runs at a steady pace, without finishing significantly faster. This will keep your paces honest and prevent you from going too fast. You'll find out quickly what your true max aerobic pace is when you try holding a fast steady effort for 10 miles.

3. Consider ditching the hill sprints until later in the season. I read a thread/forum/interview of some kind with Lydiard, (or followers of Lydiard), and he commented that by adding hill sprints early you lose control of when you peak.

Good luck!