I was notified of this thread a few days ago and hesitate to post but misinformation is worse than no information so I'm chiming in. I coach Grant Fisher and I do read/post on LetsRun occasionally. I'm older so I mainly post on the old man threads (the 50+ training thread).
I wish coaching was as easy as laying out the number of miles someone runs per week and listing the workouts an athlete runs. It would be great if spelling out exactly what we do for training would yield similar results for everyone but it's just not that simple. I coach a handful of runners and each of them is different. Based on their strengths and weaknesses, we create a strategy to make them the best athlete they can be. I live in a small town. Our group is full of solid athletes. Not all of them will reach the elite level but each of them will be successful. I guarantee it. It might be in an academic field versus the athletic field but I coach success. And I'm serious about it (like the poster above mentioned). Our group is made of dedicated and disciplined guys.
To address the specific questions and misinformation out there, Grant is a low mileage guy. Very low. I am not a count the miles, wear a Garmin coach so even I cannot tell you exactly how much he runs. I can tell you he does those runs properly. HOW you run your miles is much more important than IF you run the miles. And the HOW is very controlled in our group. That is my job....
And to the 'marathon coach' poster, I don't run marathons. I'm too old and too slow. I have run them in the past (ok, the way past) but my running really has nothing to do with the success of my athletes. My athletes are much more successful than I ever was and I like it that way. Isn't that what we're trying to do? Make the next generation better than we were?
Good luck to all of you out there running. The sport has been wonderful to me for many years. I'm honored to be associated with the successful athletes I have now and the ones I've had in the past. Watching them grow and succeed is the reason I coach.
If you see me at an event, feel free to say hello.
Mike