Is mileage overrated? Brandon Johnson ran 1:43 on 50-60 mpw, 1:46 on 80 to 90?

JRinaldi wrote:

The 1:44.40 guy I coach (Alex Rowe) averages around 60-63km per week (28-30 miles) and that's counting warm ups, cool downs and strides...and running for the bus if he's late!

Longest run is 60min every Sunday and that drops to 40min during racing season.

We will work up to 80km in the lead up to 2016. You can run well off lower mileage...but it's not for everyone. You can look at the sub 1:50 thread for details on his training.

JR

What's his 200/400 ability?

dfadsfdsf wrote:

ScottEvil wrote:

Sounds to me like he benefitted from both the mileage and the long term taper, like Ritz in 2009. Base buildup can take years.

Yeah clearly the garbage results for THREE YEARS was just a long buildup for that success....come on, do you really believe that?

That would depend on the magnitude of the garbage. I believe it WRT Ritz and he himself said so in interviews IIRC. With the unnamed college student, we don't know the full story.

Coach Rinaldi, I'm sure you've done a fantastic job with Rowe. 1:44.4 and counting. But I was thinking that it seemed impossible that he was running only 28-30 miles per week, particularly with a 60 minute run which would probably be 10-11 miles for someone of his ability, leaving just 17-20 miles in the remaining 6 days, or about 3 miles per day, including w/u and c/d. His warmups would have to be more drills than running. But at any rate the math doesn't work. 60-63 km/week is not 28-30 miles, but more like 37-39, still paltry, but more possible.

28-30 is clearly a typo, Australians do their running in km so the km is the accurate one. I doubt a low mileage 800 runner is breaking 6:00 pace on a "long run," that's probably more like 8-9 miles. That leaves 50 km for the rest of the week.

when is jeremy wariner's 800m?

A typo or maybe he doesn't know how to convert kms to miles?

Going back a long time, but Mark Enyeart may be the world record holder for results off the least mileage. A converted quartermiler, he supposedly ran his 1:44 off 3 miles a day of training.

http://www.si.com/vault/1975/06/30/616667/high-fast-and-very-upsetting

I thought this was an exaggeration until I read in his local paper that he later stepped up his mileage to build a real base -- all of 25 miles a week.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19781114&id=V9pSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WoADAAAAIBAJ&pg=7108,4182317

I am an 800/1500 guy who has trained up to 120 miles/week (60-80 normally), and I find the jump in mileage for BJ, a converted hurdler, as absolutely bone-headed. Who was the coach?

Les wrote:

Going back a long time, but Mark Enyeart may be the world record holder for results off the least mileage. A converted quartermiler, he supposedly ran his 1:44 off 3 miles a day of training.

http://www.si.com/vault/1975/06/30/616667/high-fast-and-very-upsetting

I thought this was an exaggeration until I read in his local paper that he later stepped up his mileage to build a real base -- all of 25 miles a week.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19781114&id=V9pSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WoADAAAAIBAJ&pg=7108,4182317

Here's the 1:44.

rojo don't let these people phase you - most of us appreciate the insight of a former DI coach like yourself. As a budding mid-distance coach, I always enjoy reading about what the top DI guys are doing.

Saw Brandon Johnson doing strides before my local turkey trot. I was suprised to see an Olympian on the starting line of a turkey trot 5k. He led for a while before fading to 4th in 15:38.

http://racewire.com/live_results.php?id=4091#5K

rojo wrote:

We've got a pretty interesting interview with him up on the HP where he talks about how he was awful in 2014 as he couldn't handle a big increase in mileage:

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2015/01/brandon-johnson-discusses-injury-plagued-2014-new-coach-joaquim-cruz-goals-2015/

Another obvious issue is how fast the mileage in base training is run. This too needs to be individualized. For Snell it was rarely faster than 6-minute per mile pace, often in the 6:30 range. For Ovett it was often around 5:15 per mile.

reader of the forums wrote:

JRinaldi wrote:

The 1:44.40 guy I coach (Alex Rowe) averages around 60-63km per week (28-30 miles) and that's counting warm ups, cool downs and strides...and running for the bus if he's late!

Longest run is 60min every Sunday and that drops to 40min during racing season.

We will work up to 80km in the lead up to 2016. You can run well off lower mileage...but it's not for everyone. You can look at the sub 1:50 thread for details on his training.

JR

What's his 200/400 ability?

My Bad 37-40miles per week! Was using kg to pounds (2.2) instead of km to miles (1.6) - feel stupid.

Biggest week ever was 65.3km or (40.58 miles)

PR's 47.47 - 1:44.40 - 3:46.16 all run last season.

snell running 630 per mile average???

that is going backwards even for a somewhat fast guy in snell.

maybe 10 milers in 62-64 minutes over hills on the turf in the rain..on a very average outing.

in 1977, i ran with speed 800m guys like dennis norris (21.5-ish 200m guy) in new zealand over 18 miles and the pace was 630 per mile the first couple and after than it went to 6 minutes down to 530 per mile...and the big hill (1 mile) was always balls out, way under 5 minutes per mile effort, way under.

lydiard buildups are all over the place. and the reporting my guys is all over the place. best ask the training partner of snell about what he really did and in which season.

he is smarter than you wrote:

kod3200 wrote:

No, the 800 is not 50/50 aerobic/anaerobic. Not even close. Its 90% anaerobic and 10% aerobic. If your calculations were right then that high milage would've helped quite a bit.

Cannot tell if you're trolling...

Probably just stupid.

i've heard caballo won '76 gold in a virtually solo 1'43.5 after rounds off

15 miles/ week !!!

Rojo,

There's a lot more to training than how many miles an athlete runs in a given week. Aerobic development is huge, but there's but there are so many other parameters in training than just that one number. If we take Johnson at his word, he added 30 miles per week to his training in one year. It didn't work. But I'd be interested to know what else changed. He was finely tuned in 2013, so it's safe to say that he wasn't running an hour easy every day. So what did Brandon do to make room for the extra 30 miles a week? Did he spend less time lifting? Did he do considerably less speed work? Did he spend less time doing drills? Maybe he didn't take anything out and maybe that's why he got hurt. Maybe he was used to running 50-60 mpw at fairly high intensity and tried to do the same thing while running 90 mpw. Maybe his speed took a hit because he was doing a 10 mile "easy" day following a hard workout instead of a 6 mile easy day and his body couldn't handle it. Or maybe it all would have worked out if he managed to stay healthy. Presumably, someone who is running 1:43 in the 800m is training hard enough that he can't just increase his volume by 50% without making adjustments to the rest of the training plan. As someone stated earlier though, maybe all the volume he did last year will pay off this year. Hopefully anyway. I don't know why I'm typing this because you know all of this already.

Oz

I am reminded that Steve Ovett ran 20 weeks at an average of over 100 miles per week in the winter of 1979-80 in his build up to a gold medal winning 800m in Moscow.

kod3200 wrote:

and 10% aerobic. If your calculations were right then that high milage would've helped quite a bit.

USATF Level 1 training course page 5

Event Aerobic Glycolytic Alactic

800m 40% 55% 5%

1500m 50% 48% 2%

3000m 70% 30%