Love high mileage..but when does it pay off?

Do you do workouts or just mileage and races?

And for some runners they are high responders to certain training stimulus. Like Bernard Lagat with tempo runs, or Bill Rodgers with 100+ mile weeks. Maybe you improve on high mileage but aren't a high responder.

Also, if you're only doing mileage and races, you need to add speed work.

Frank Shorter allegedly said it took 2-3 years to "get good", Lydiard said 3-4 or perhaps 5.

If you go to Bob Hodges' website you can see 4 years or so of Bill Rodgers' training logs. (1973 to 1977)

BR hit the US record in '75, with a tailwind, but by then had been doing in excess of 100 MPW since the summer of '72 if memory serves me correctly.

In '76, after recovering from his Montreal injury BR won NYC and began his period of dominance.

Hope that helps.

I do run speed work. A lot of track stuff. High volume short recovery 400m's are my favorite. 70 seconds per quarter with 1 minute recovery type work. The second workout of the week tends to be easier. Sometimes moderate effort steep hill repeats. 20 x 200m hills 80% effort, pretty steep hills. Sunday long run although... now that I think about it... My long runs never really exceed 16-17 miles. Do you think the 20% of total weekly mileage is a good rule of thumb?

Thank you! Yeah that's good stuff. I've heard that from another runner I know who ran during the 70's - 80's. He said, "in order to feel strong off of high mileage it takes around 2 years."

You need to post something more interesting and post at least 50 times a day if you want to make minimum wage. But I think you would do better if you were a barista at Starbucks. But perhaps you don't have the motivation to achieve this lofty position.

What the heck does that mean?

How old are you now? Sounds like you're basically at the same level you were at as a high school senior.

NotAustin18 wrote:

And for some runners they are high responders to certain training stimulus. Like Bernard Lagat with tempo runs

Lagat is a high responder to epo

For the summer while at home, my coach said to run 12 miles a day. It's been a week now and I'm 84 miles away from my house.

I don't think this is working.

Rodgers and Shorter Wannabe wrote:

I do run speed work. A lot of track stuff. High volume short recovery 400m's are my favorite. 70 seconds per quarter with 1 minute recovery type work. The second workout of the week tends to be easier. Sometimes moderate effort steep hill repeats. 20 x 200m hills 80% effort, pretty steep hills. Sunday long run although... now that I think about it... My long runs never really exceed 16-17 miles. Do you think the 20% of total weekly mileage is a good rule of thumb?

No. Your long runs are fine as they are. I'm not sure about the track work, though.

I think you might be surprised with your improvement if you entered a race season now where you dropped your mileage, and did some actual 5k-specific training for a couple months.

That is what Lydiard's guys did - the highest mileage was during base & hill phases. Then, for the anaerobic phase they dropped it down. Many people who bump up to high mileage are never willing to significantly reduce it to get super sharp & fresh to race up to their potential. They are afraid they'll lose all their hard work. Lydiard wasn't afraid and knew it was a key.

Your current workouts and high mileage are definitely not going to produce your fastest 5ks. I wouldn't be surprised if you dropped another 45-60 seconds if you went through a true anaerobic and specfic race prep & taper phases.

Or, you can keep building if you think you're still making progress. But know what phase you're in and don't expect to race your best 5k races. If you plateau, you might find cycling up & down over a few seasons is necessary to avoid stagnation.

Rodgers and Shorter Wannabe wrote:

I do run speed work. A lot of track stuff. High volume short recovery 400m's are my favorite. 70 seconds per quarter with 1 minute recovery type work. The second workout of the week tends to be easier. Sometimes moderate effort steep hill repeats. 20 x 200m hills 80% effort, pretty steep hills. Sunday long run although... now that I think about it... My long runs never really exceed 16-17 miles. Do you think the 20% of total weekly mileage is a good rule of thumb?

Tempos? Fartleks?

Basically, if you're sitting up in triple digits and not racing much, you're in base training. You ought to be getting in some 40-60 minute tempo efforts (if you want to run well at 5K-Half Marathon) and some long fartleks, something like 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1, alternating hards and easy with equal time (so 1 min hard, 1 min easy, 2 min hard, 2 min easy, etc).

And the track work you're doing should be longer stuff. Mile or 2 Mile repeats, 10-12x1K, not really anything much shorter than 800m. These should be done around 10K or 5K pace depending on the workout and done off short recovery (60-90 seconds).

Finally, when you find a race or series of races you want to run well at, drop to around 70-80 miles with some fast turnover stuff and rip a good time.

Yeah mate you're in base... I know that because I tried to race well in base (injured when I should have done it, so my XC season was base instead) and I never ran to my potential in races... Ran a 17:22 5K on the roads in March, and was quite discouraged, given that I had been consistently at 50 miles/week since early January... In the race I felt sluggish and slow, unable to pick up the pace...

In April I ran a 10K after a couple of weeks of track work, and felt much better, quick(er) and coordinated, able to change pace and cruise along at a decent pace (for me) to finish in 36:00...

My first couple of track races felt like the 5K had - I couldn't get going, and always finished feeling there was more left... I opened my season with a 4:23 1500, then a 9:30 3k, then a 2:07 800... All PBs but I wasn't happy with them...

Then after about 5 or 6 weeks of intervals I started to race well, running a 4:19 1500 with a 63 last lap, and most recently a 4:10 with a 64 last lap... For me (I think) the key was having the base squared away, and then piling intervals on top of it, getting used to running fast and working hard, while maintaining my aerobic strength through tempos...

If you want to run fast, you need to train fast, but that's the easy part, and you're lucky enough that you've done the hard part - the long, boring miles - already... Drop the mileage, add another interval session a week, and reap the benefits of those miles you've put in - if you've run 15:30 in base, you could run 14:50 once peaking.

Hope that helped...

At some point you are what you are. How much more do you really envision dropping? And could you run your current times on half the training? Possibly.

I know your hs times line up in principle but I recall lots of 426 guys and few 927 guys, so your endurance was well developed already.

For a 5k, it may be your speed limiting you at this point.

Rodgers and Shorter Wannabe wrote:

70 seconds per quarter with 1 minute recovery type work. The second workout of the week tends to be easier. Sometimes moderate effort steep hill repeats.

That is not short recovery. That is almost equal recovery. Try doing twenty 70 second quarters off of a 100m jog in 30 seconds.

It kind of is short recovery because he is running the 400s at his 2 mile pace. One week he should do the workout he has been doing and the next week he should do it as 78-80 second 400s with 20 second jogs.

fact is... wrote:

At some point you are what you are. How much more do you really envision dropping?

I believe he is a long way from his limit.

[quote]fact is... wrote: