So I'm fairly new to running (doing it for about 14 months now) with an 18 year background in elite road cycling. I am currently 34 years old with zero running background prior to the 14 months. Started running last winter and jumped into several races last year and sloooowly increased my mileage over the year up to a peak of around 55 mpw. Ended up getting injured in the fall (hip flexor/TFL issues) because I was stupid and did a little too much intensity while increasing the miles.
So here I am and finally back to trying to increase the mileage again. Right now I'm comfortably able to get in 40-45 mpw and able to recover adequately while fitting in some speedwork. Having competed for some time at the elite level of cycling, I'm naturally motivated to see what I can achieve on the running side. Based on everything I've read, gaining running economy through mileage is really the key (of course speedwork fits in too), but I'm trying to determine how long it should take me to get to SAFELY reach that "high mileage" area (whether that's 70 mpw or 100 mpw...I'll find what works and doesn't when I get there). So are talking taking a couple of years to get to that to level or could I expect to crank things up steadily and reach it within a year or so? Any help would be greatly appreciated.