Sebastian Coe ran at least 110 miles/week on average

that was laid to rest a few years ago.

glad you're finally up to speed.

: )

Take it with a pinch of salt! He also talks about the 2 Steve's rattling out 3:32/33 1500s early 84, it didnt happen: Ovett's fastest in Oz was 3:35 and Crammies one race he ran 3:44.

most of them wrote:

that was laid to rest a few years ago.

glad you're finally up to speed.

complete bullshit. ACTUALLY, what this confirms is that off the cuff remarks by Coe are useless to determining what he did in training. Based on this quote, he was running, yes, as the OP states, a MINIMUM of 110 miles a week, week in week out, for 6 straight years. That would be ZERO days off, ZERO taper weeks, ZERO injuries. Now since we have actual logs of his running mileage, and we know he had injuries and illnesses, and tapers, that 35,000 figure would mean that he was often running 150 (!) Miles a week to make up for those down times. Complete and utter bullshit.

I will go with actual training logs that have been printed, the reports from his Dad DURING HIS PEAK YEARS (not decades later), reports from people like Renato Canova who saw him in truing and talked to him about what he was doing, etc. And the conclusion from all of this much more reliable data/reports? He was likely running close to 70 during base periods, and a lot lower during track season.

Don't be trolls about this.

Every contemporary of Coe's I've met has said the same thing: he was running as much as everyone else back then.

Does Rudisha run over 110 mpw?

If I remember correctly, Coe was one of the first athletes that would incorporate the value of his cross training by converting such workouts to a "mileage" equivalent.

Coe must have been running 110m/wk, since Snell ran 130m/wk all year and Cam Levins runs 160+m/wk (and he could easily run sub-1.45 if he bothered to run more 800's). It's really that simple - just run more and you will run fast. Dean K. could easily be a world-class middle-distance guy if he bothered to race such a short distance, but then who would care?

Jeff Wigand wrote:

he was running as much as everyone else back then.

Exactly. That old philosophy of 'Less is More' is and always has been a bunch of bull.

fly a kite wrote:

Coe must have been running 110m/wk, since Snell ran 130m/wk all year and Cam Levins runs 160+m/wk (and he could easily run sub-1.45 if he bothered to run more 800's). It's really that simple - just run more and you will run fast. Dean K. could easily be a world-class middle-distance guy if he bothered to race such a short distance, but then who would care?

Dean K doesnt do middle distance intervals, idiot.

I've got Peter Coe's book. If i'm not too lazy I might look it up later but pretty sure 'average 110' is not true at all. In the winter maybe. Certainly not in the Summer.

Remember too that if he says he was running 110/week, he was probably doing badger miles and not counting his ten mile morning run, so we are probably looking at well over 200 miles per week. To think that anyone could run well, even at the 800 meter and mile distances, off anything less than 140/week, is simply ludicrous. This shows to that high mileage does not affect spring speed, as Coe was able to relay split 45.xx while running over 30 miles per day.

No

Marius has seen Seb's training logs himself and asked peter about this very subject directly.

What his father said was consistent with his training logs, that Seb ran 60-70 miles per week, and only a few weeks were as high as 70. This was during the winter of '80-'81, when seb was doing his highest mileage.

but go ahead and keep believing he was knocking out hundreds of miles per week, in addition to doing tons of quality and heavy weight training sessions in the gym

It's like you have all stop bothered replying to each other and simply state your opposing opinions one by one. Does it feel like cancelling each other out or adding to each other?

I've been thinking about this a bit and only have some disparate ideas about it that may add to the debate, or not. None of them are facts, but hey, even the facts in this situation fail to be conclusive.

Looking at the naturalness of Coe, his natural springy gait, he is reminiscent of an athlete in the speed end of the spectrum more than the endurance end. I would even say he is more athletic than all of the Kenyan's i've seen. Have to say Kipketer was Smoother or Juantorena more powerful but general athleticism would have to go to Coe. So that is a factor what mileage he would have needed at different times of the year. For such an athlete, as opposed to Cram and Ovett who are somewhat more strength based, too much suppression leads to a state where training is almost useless and rest is the only option. In the same situation a Cram or Ovett would be able to grind out more training. In a sense this means Coe would have had a higher quality/lower quantity of training than most.

Peter Snell probably investigated as much as any coach ever has. He researched Lydiard heavily enough to start having correspondence with him. He was meticulous with researching everything. Add those two factors together and it is hard to imagine Seb didn't attempt to do 100miles/week for 10 weeks at some stage. Or at least a close approximation of it.

So taking those two paragraphs together i think generally he did a lower mileage which can be found in most of the training logs, yet at times and seemingly not recorded, he tested more outer limits. He also seems to have done mostly mileage as a young teen and his races were cross country distances, so there was some foundation building there of course.

no

there is nothing to speculate about

marius talked to peter about this subject directly and saw his training logs himself

he never did 100 mile weeks

never

I think that Coe and his dad so heavily sandbagged/underestimated/distorted his training mileage for so long in the pursuit of gamesmanship or some inside joke, that Coe himself could not honestly tell you what he did (he did make an offhand comment years ago about how "we all did" in reference to 100-mile weeks, which only served to muddy the waters further).

Now Spivey, Padilla and Marsh, THERE are some for real low-mileage guys!

clearing the bs up wrote:

no

there is nothing to speculate about

marius talked to peter about this subject directly and saw his training logs himself

he never did 100 mile weeks

never

You sound like my neighbour when i tell him his god is as real as he wants to believe.

Crimea River wrote:

I think that Coe and his dad so heavily sandbagged/underestimated/distorted his training mileage for so long in the pursuit of gamesmanship or some inside joke, that Coe himself could not honestly tell you what he did (he did make an offhand comment years ago about how "we all did" in reference to 100-mile weeks, which only served to muddy the waters further).

You're probably right. The Question could be this - how many miles are remaining from those 35k if all track stuff is removed?