Seb Coe's mileage confirmed! - the debate is now over

What's funny is as soon as I posted this I knew the usual high mileage advocates would refuse to accept the DIRECT QUOTE from Peter himself.

Here is the deal

Seb topped out at 70 miles per week. He did not do extra training runs that weren't counted in his logs. He did not do intervals that weren't counted.

You are right he didn't count warm ups or warm downs, but why would he? The point of those is to warm up before workouts. His warm ups weren't very long anyways, and were also easy, so not fast. Why count them then? To give himself an ego boost like the mileage obsessed types around here?

His standard warm down was 2 laps of the track at 6 min/mile pace. So 800m warm down. He warmed up usually by running a few kilometers 3-4.

So add in 10-15 miles per week (and that's being generous) and you get a MAXIMUM of 80-85 miles per week if you count his slow, easy warm ups/warm downs.

And this, like Peter Coe said, was at his career PEAK for ONLY 3-4 weeks. His average before competition began was always MUCH LOWER

not sure about that wrote:

this is spot on

rea Kenny moore's book - coe did hard 14 mile runs - he was basically lydiard like trained.

of....my...god

No

please...stop posting

your thinking is illogical.

If Bekele take a rest day does this mean his weekly mileage is closer to zero?

If Lagat can run 12:53 off of 50-70 miles/week (and years after his best running), why would you insist on believing a 800/1500 runner in his prime could not succeed on that same amount or less?

[quote]someone had to do it wrote:

Here is the deal...

Seb topped out at 70 miles per week. ...

So add in 10-15 miles per week (and that's being generous) and you get a MAXIMUM of 80-85 miles per week if you count his slow, easy warm ups/warm downs. [quote]

Counting miles those is significant. That is why there is confusion. Your estimate represents a 21% swing in mileage. 85 =/= 70.

Circular argument wrote:

Counting miles those is significant. That is why there is confusion. Your estimate represents a 21% swing in mileage. 85 =/= 70.

He topped out at 70 miles per week for 3-4 weeks in a year at the PEAK OF HIS CAREER in 1981.

Why the hell would he count a few kilometers of easy jogging before a workout? Or 2 laps of a track after a workout? Are those going to make him faster? No. They are to warm up. They are not making him faster. They do not matter to his totals. Do you understand that?

And I like how even after I pointed out that 15 miles extra per week was being VERY generous you still took the upper limit of that range, which he only hit for 3-4 weeks at his career peak.

You mileage obsessed types will never give it up, I give you a damn quote from his coach and you still don't quit. There's no convincing you.

Oops, forgot to switch username

And also I wanted to point out what "dsrunner" said is spot on. I don't understand why people have such a hard time believing his totals were very low. His intensity was incredibly high. He ran 5 minutes per mile for much of his road runs. That is hard running, not 6 minutes per mile easy stuff that many others do.

There is no need for high mileage when you run with the kind of intensity.

From the 2005 thread, quoting Seb Coe himself directly, Martin-x wrote the following exchange:

"Coe was asked by a Finnish reporter if he was still active and fit (which, if you look at him, is self-evident: he's quite thin and looks much younger than his 49 years).

He said: "Yes, I run about 30 miles a week or so and lift weights a couple of times a week."

I asked: "How does that compare to when you were racing?"

He said (laughing) "It's quite different. I was doing about 100 miles a week in twice daily sessions back then."

I said: "As much as that?"

He said: "Well, not every week, but during the bread and butter months, I would get up to 100 miles a week. During track season, it would be much lower, of course, but I would say the average was about 70 miles a week."

Well -- that's it. From the horse's mouth, as it were, to the Let's Run board. Seb ran mileage. Lots of it.

I was wrong.

Martin"

There is no factual basis for that information. None at all. I would think most, if not all, of the information below is nothing more than someone's fantasy, pure fiction.

Keepin it Honest wrote:There is no factual basis for that information. None at all. I would think most, if not all, of the information below is nothing more than someone's fantasy, pure fiction.

You can believe what you like. As a long time poster (> 12 years), I knew martin / martin-x at the time as a vocal proponent of the Coe low mileage hypothesis, and a long term regular poster on these boards. In 2005, in his capacity as a journalist for a high rank UK paper (I think it was a paper?) he had the opportunity to lunch with Coe, and reported his conversation as an admission that he had been wrong. Ask anyone who was a long time poster here by 2005 to confirm. That quote is the straight goods first hand. Whether you like it or not

70 miles is still a lot of running at 6 x 5 doubles and a long run around 10 miles on the other day

People also forget that when 800m runner is doing speedwwork even with a warm up /down there is not a lot of miles so some of his regular workouts were less than 5 miles in total. Throw in a rest day every 2 weeks and that is why his mileage was usually less than 70

Also he did most of what normal runners call steady running at 5 min mile pace. Try doing 120 a wk at that speed. He was also doing workouts most days not the 2 x a wk people on here think is enough. Don't forget all that gym work it all adds up to a lot of training

Someone else mentioned him talking about doing a 10 miler he actually said he knew Ovett would be doing another 10 miles in the afternoon.

He did start a change in training which the East Africans copied as did El G. They don't do huge mileage but do workouts most days

Why don't you give us the citation of the reporter's article, instead of basing your arguement on possible conjecture?

Coe was an 800m and miler. In the bread and butter race specific work, 70 miles per week of running should be plenty if you are doing it right. For those race distances, "Quality over Quantity" reigns supreme.

not sure about that wrote:

What does this tell you

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2177946/Sebastian-Coe-exclusive-interview-2012-Olympic-chief-winning-London-bid-Moscow-gold-Games-threats.html

Key points:

(a) It's the Daily Mail. They like sound bites.

(b) He's now one of the most accomplished politicians and promoter around. He's good at sound bites.

It was quite good that Marius asked to go back to the original data.

And BTW, anybody that thinks the big aerobically trained Peter Snell would have torn it up on the modern tartan tracks, is spouting pure conjecture. He may instead have ripped his body apart with injury. The soft surface physio-dynamics are obviously different, so there is an argument to spend more training time in the drills, strength, etc. to train neurological coordination to survive the race intensity on the harder tracks.

Peter didn't count morning runs as he didn't consider that real training because the pace was so slow.

So add 5 x 4-5 miles to that and you get the real story.

He logged alot of weeks at between 80 and 100 if you add his mileage up as most of us do (including morning runs).

I'll ask a different question? Why does it matter? If Coe ran low mileage, why does that matter to me?

What does weekly mileage mean out of context? What was his mileage for the previous 750 weeks? How was the intensity on each day of each week? How did it progress over the years? If you don't have more quotes from Peter or Marius, what does it really mean? 70 miles could be too much while 100 could be too little. Intensity matters. The previous 10 years matter too.

How shall I decide what is right for me? Are we all the same? Am I the same as Lagat? Geb? Should Webb and Rupp do the same mileage?

What's the point?

rekrunner wrote:

I'll ask a different question? Why does it matter? If Coe ran low mileage, why does that matter to me?

it matters because the mileage obsessed types refuse to believe that he didn't run high mileage

What does weekly mileage mean out of context? What was his mileage for the previous 750 weeks?

If you read the quote I have from Peter Coe:

"always very much lower"

How was the intensity on each day of each week?

Very, very high

How did it progress over the years?

More mileage until he reached a career peak in 1981 when he was doing the most and hit 70 miles per week for a few weeks prior to competition

not my real name wrote: Ask anyone who was a long time poster here by 2005 to confirm. That quote is the straight goods first hand. Whether you like it or not

Martin x was a very reliable poster who was a proponent of "less is more" often citing Seb Coe for example.

One day Martin spoke to Seb Coe himself and reported back here what he said. Read the thread from the earlier link.

ho lee wrote:

Seb Coe is so last century. I wanna know what mileage Rudisha is doing.

Seb Coe and Steve Cram's training are very much of interest. Biomechanically there may be a difference between East Africans, North Africans, and white European males, and its very nice to know that at least it is possible for white males to once again break in to the international scene of sub 3:30 1500 meter racing and sub 1:42 800 meter racing.

As for the Seb intensity logs, I think there is a very informative log in better training for distance runners (edition 2?) which shows the 5 weeks proceeding the LA Olympics. Although it doesnt show the entire macrocycle, it nonetheless is somewhat informative.

And in other late breaking news, we've landed on the moon!