heres the deal yo wrote:
so i was thinking:
what if i was to do a high mileage program, 90-100 miles a week with mostly easier runs (medium-low intensity, say 6:30-7min pace) but then workouts would be very short, intense efforts with a focus on mid-D speed. so like the mileage of a 10k runner, with workouts like an 800 (or maybe a speed-oriented 1500m) runner. how well do you think this would work? what distances would this work best for (1500, 3k, 5k?)
an example day would be like 10 miles easy in the morning and 5 miles easy with 4x400 at 60 second pace or 8x150m hard in the afternoon. would this accomplish anything?
I think periodization would be better for you. Start building to at least 70-80 at 6:30 pace and doing some strides and tempos for about a month. This will get you into aerobic shape.
After that, stay around 60-70 with a lot of intensity...and working every system. Short, hard 4-5 mile tempos would work for you....as well as some workouts that mix long and short intervals. Something like 1600m at 5K pace, 1000m at 3K pace, 400m at mile pace, 200's all out. Find a steep hill and keep running up it until you accumulated 10 minutes of running (not including the recovery).
I am much like you, probably not as fast, but I can tell you that slogging at 7:15 pace at 70mpw basically got me nowhere after two summers. 50+ mpw with high intensity and adequate recovery which included a day off and ONE day of slogging (which was basically my long run at 7:20 pace) did a lot more for me.
Save that 100mpw stuff for the 10K-and-up guys.