Is High Mileage Overrated?

NotAustin18 wrote:

So overall, is high mileage overrated?

No.

high mileage won't make you faster. However, high mileage will give you the ABILITY to be able to go faster. Now that you have a strong base, drop down to 70s and 80s and increase your quality for a few weeks. Make sure you do strides, hill reps, intervals, tempos, etc. Those miles have you in great shape to really get the benefits out of workouts and to recover faster.

Also, take a look at your turnover. My guess is that all of those long slow miles decreased your turn-over and really hurt your speed.

if in a couple of months you're running PRs left and right, you'll know the answer, that high mileage works

60-70 mpw is already high mileage.

You did about 2 months of high mileage and are ready to draw conclusions?

Going from 60 to 140 (peak) and averaging about 100 let's say over 8 weeks is a very solid base. The injury-prone runner should take more time to build-up but you made it out.

To reap the benefits of high mileage, you have to follow it up with quality. In a well-periodized program, you would be hitting your best times in another 8-12 weeks.

Also, training should be viewed as macro-process. You may only improve by 10 seconds in the 5K (that's significant!) over a single microcycle, but cummulative increases in volume/intennsity over a period of several microcycles is where you really start to see transformation.

EPOpian wrote:

high mileage won't make you faster. However, high mileage will give you the ABILITY to be able to go faster. Now that you have a strong base, drop down to 70s and 80s and increase your quality for a few weeks. Make sure you do strides, hill reps, intervals, tempos, etc. Those miles have you in great shape to really get the benefits out of workouts and to recover faster.

Also, take a look at your turnover. My guess is that all of those long slow miles decreased your turn-over and really hurt your speed.

My turn over definitely feels lacking that's for sure. At the end of the 5k I closed the last 0.13(according to garmin) at a 503 pace but I stopped the garmin late so really like 450 pace. For a final sprint that's pretty weak.

I was thinking of doing 60 mpw with intervals, tempos, strides, and 30m sprints or hill sprints(not sure yet). But not doing anything slower than 7:00 pace. After high mileage, 60 mpw should allow me to run very fast on easy days at only 60 mpw.

you had no recovery periods, of course you got fried. and remember, when elites are running 120 miles they are averaging about 6:00 pace. if you are averaging 7:30 pace, the equivalent would be more like 95 miles for you to their 120 miles.

your willpower is commendable, but the execution and planning was far from ideal.

you would get a lot more out of a 5 week period looking more like...

85 - 100 - 110 - 50 - 60 and repeat that. what you are doing is the equivalent of staying up 24 hours a day to study some subject matter and never sleeping; you have to be in harmony with the laws of nature.

domestic pro wrote:

you had no recovery periods, of course you got fried. and remember, when elites are running 120 miles they are averaging about 6:00 pace. if you are averaging 7:30 pace, the equivalent would be more like 95 miles for you to their 120 miles.

your willpower is commendable, but the execution and planning was far from ideal.

you would get a lot more out of a 5 week period looking more like...

85 - 100 - 110 - 50 - 60 and repeat that. what you are doing is the equivalent of staying up 24 hours a day to study some subject matter and never sleeping; you have to be in harmony with the laws of nature.

Fair enough. I just wanted to try it out and see if it worked, and I don't think it did. I can admit I responded impulsively, if I took a moment to step back I would've reminded myself "long term" and maybe tried upping the mileage 5-10 mpw by year. But too late now. I think high mileage is pointless.

So why did you ask anyone else's opinion if you have already come to your conclusion?

Thundercats_GO wrote:

NotAustin18 wrote:

So overall, is high mileage overrated?

No.

I believe its overrataed in the sense that the benefit gained by doing 100 vs 60 is not worth the effort for the average runner.

You did two 20 mile runs and a 17 mile run last week and are wondering why you didn't feel fresh for a 5000m race with no competition?

Really?

Mileage is relative to the ability of the person. The event specifies the volume needs. Obviously a 5k requires less than a marathon.

That said, quality is most important and volume should extend the quality in measure and in varying degrees over the weeks.

My opinion is that if the aerobic threshold is not developed optimally, and focus only on volume this is a wasted effort. The periods for extending volume needs to be in line with one's capacity, recognizing symptoms of staleness and chronic fatigue is of greatest import.

Takes time to extend that capacity, but without a good aerobic capacity at lower volumes, the extension might be a futile journey. Others may find this not to be the case. This has come from experience.

Youre the same kid that posted 2 weeks ago about how awesome high mileage was and how low mileage was dumb now 2 weeks later youve completely changed youre mind? Do you know anything? Why dont you just chill out and instead of flip flopping every few weeks and saying I have to run 140 mpw at exactly 7:30 pace or 60 mpw never slower than 7:00 min pace. I know one training plan that will lead nowhere-- the one that you don't stick with. Training is not exact, it is an art and you will never be successful if you can't chill out and stick with a plan. And why must you work at the extremes? Running somewhere between 60 and 140 mpw running however fast you feel with workouts here and there is much much better. You just need to chill out man. I'm actually getting irritated reading your posts, there is a middle ground.

I think higher mileage is useful for racing longer distances.

If you wish to only race 5k and shorter You should be under 60 miles per week.

You need to train at paces that you will be racing, paces a little slower for tempos and paces for recovery.

It's called specificity training. Also it helps to train with workouts that you enjoy.

I never run longer then 75 min. 10 years racing as a master, ranked top 6 every year in track

After about 12 weeks of high mileage, go to your former mileage and workout scheme for another 12 and you should find you are much faster. High mileage doesn't usually help you run fast while you're doing it. High mileage gives you the strength to run faster at lower mileage than you would have had you only done the lower mileage. That being said, a runner who is only used to 60 mpw should take a several years to get up as high as 140, if ever. The fact that you ran as fast as you did is surprising. What you did is no different than someone running 20x400 at mile race pace every day for three months straight and then saying quality running is useless after they fail to PR.

Despite how everyone here says "Quit being lazy, up your mileage," I've found that high mileage geeks are usually the lazy ones. They're neglecting speedwork and living under the delusion that running a higher number of miles will compensate for that fact. It takes more mental fortitude to bring a stopwatch to the track and do 400M repeats then it does to slog the same 15-mile route you do every day. No pain, no gain.

For one thing, you're not going to "freshen up" from 120 mile weeks and a week with two 20 mile and one 17 mile day with a couple short days. And it can take quite a while for the benefits of big miles to show up.

Big mileage is not overrated. But it also seems pretty clear that you'd rather not do it and that's fine. Just admit it and do what you like. It's not like an extra fifty miles a week is going to be your difference between making and not making an Olympic team.

Exactly

Should go without saying wrote:

After about 12 weeks of high mileage, go to your former mileage and workout scheme for another 12 and you should find you are much faster. High mileage doesn't usually help you run fast while you're doing it. High mileage gives you the strength to run faster at lower mileage than you would have had you only done the lower mileage. That being said, a runner who is only used to 60 mpw should take a several years to get up as high as 140, if ever. The fact that you ran as fast as you did is surprising. What you did is no different than someone running 20x400 at mile race pace every day for three months straight and then saying quality running is useless after they fail to PR.