"Lots and lots of junk miles" are better than "Moderate amounts of quality workouts."

Ho Hum wrote:

How are people responding seriously to this post? I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. Sweat trickles nervously down my forearm. I clench my mechanical pencil. "Timoshenko beam theory" yells my father. I toss my calculator down in disgust. I guess it's true what they say about junk miles.

Because it's a serious debate whereby one side refuses to admit they're wrong. Time and time again, quality is proven to be more important than mindless junk miles.

not as absurd as some here are making this out to be. While not my practice at the time and not for (probablyh the masses) there was a guy in the early 70s who followed the LSD philosopy. RRan long miles (110 per week) at no more than 7:30 - 8:00 pace, and only 1x per day. Long runs up to ~35 or so. And ran pretty well - and very well for that time period - 2:20 marathon, 14:00 3 mile - all improvements over what he had accomplished with interval / speed work.

I know there was a 'movement' to go to LSD but wasn't aware of who was doing it. I do know that Deines was (I think) a case that might prove in the affirmative for it. I never tried it. I think he did pretty well in the Boston

If there is any chance LSD all the time would work then it would be for the marathon...maybe back when marathon wasn't as fast as it is now. Mutai could probably run 2:20 off nothing but 8:00 pace also, there is no way to definitively prove innate talent from training cause though we can suspect. The fact is as records approach human limit you are not going to run a set slow pace LSD and think that would work when someone just as talented as you is doing quality so that means quality trumps quantity. It applies just as well to individual personal records as everyone of us approaches the limit of our genetics where its just marginal improvements.

NotAustin18 wrote:

I've tried the lots and lots of easy miles approach twice, and if anything it made me slower both times. I felt stronger aerobically as though I could run a very good marathon or half marathon, but my speed was borderline non-existent during 870 miles in 8 weeks. When I run 60 mpw I run faster and recover better. Quality miles are better. As Lagat's coach, Dr James Li, says "don't run miles for miles sake."

You're constantly changing your training.

You used to run 140 miles per week

Then went to the 60s

Then you tried training like Frank Shorter

Now you're back to the 60s

The problem if anything is that you're not giving yourself a chance to adapt to the training you're doing.

marty hart wrote:

This is actually quite well done, much more subtle random post by the stream-of-consciousness story guy. I'll give it 8/10.

You don't know what trolling is.

reader of the forums wrote:

The problem if anything is that you're not giving yourself a chance to adapt to the training you're doing.

Same could be said for those who did tons of quality. Get frustrated because they were doing too much anyway. Start doing LSD for a couple weeks and think it was what did it. Almost everyone who runs for a while has felt that you just have to keep going and see how it pans out. In the long run no pun intended you need to keep that quality up to keep improving at your distance and not fall in love with jogging through the meadows for hours.

marty hart wrote:

This is actually quite well done, much more subtle random post by the stream-of-consciousness story guy. I'll give it 8/10.

You're right! Thus his brother throwing his camera on the ground, and him plopping down on the couch. They make no sense. I missed that. Nice catch!