If everyone was only permitted 10 miles a week of running, what would the WR marathon be?

Prince Johnny wrote:

ya..... wrote:

Alternate 5 miles every 3 days with a saturday 10 miler at midnight and sunday 10 miler right after for a 20 mile long run. Op never said anything about 10 miles in 7 days, just 10 miles per week.

1) Trying to find loopholes isn't the point of the thread

2) If you ran 10 miles starting at 12 am Sunday morning you wouldn't be able to do said Saturday run.. you wouldn't be allowed to run again until 12 am the next Sunday

3) You didn't answer the question

Assuming they're allowed to complete the marathon despite it requiring you run 26.2 miles in one week, I would guess low 3 hours. I don't think it would be a very popular endeavor though.

It's not a loophole, do I have to spell it out?

Week 1:

05/04/15: 5 miles

05/08/15: 5 miles

05/16/15: 10 miles

05/17/15: 10 miles

05/25/15: 5 miles

05/29/15: 5 miles

Rinse repeat

With that schedule, throwing workouts in, I think a very talented person could run 2:30-2:35.

george oscar bluth wrote:

50k racewalking world record is 3:32...I'm assuming the event would be more competitive in a world without running....sooooooo 2:52:37 is my answer.

I take it back. SInce you could run the first 10 miles and racewalk the last 16.2, it might be able to get a little faster. 2:47:11.

ya..... wrote:

05/16/15: 10 miles

05/17/15: 10 miles

Didn't follow the rules of the world and are subsequently put to death.

... 2:30-45ish

My completely untrained debut was 3:35, run very poorly (paced badly), off similar mileage (maybe ~ 20 mpw), but I'm a pretty mediocre runner. Best times eventually reached low 2:40s. I think very good runners with real natural talent could get a lot closer to their ultimate (trained) best of about 2:03, so I'm guessing somewhere in the 2:30-45 range.

I'd try to be more precise but there's no basis for picking 2:30 over 2:45, or vice versa, that I can come up with.

I bet you could train some of those super talented Kenyans to run pretty fast off of a couple 5 mile runs/week as long as you supplemented it with lots of walking and hiking. You could probably make a whole training plan out of it:

Monday AM 2 hours easy walking

PM 1 hour easy walking

Tuesday AM 5 miles easy + drills/plyometrics

PM 2 hours easy walking

Wednesday AM 5 hours hard hiking

PM OFF

Thursday AM 2 hours easy walking

PM 1 hour easy walking

Friday AM 5 miles hard + drills/plyometrics

PM 1 hour easy walking

Saturday AM 2 hours easy walking

PM 1 hour easy walking

Sunday AM 8 hours hard hiking

PM OFF

I just pulled that schedule out of my ass but I wouldn't be surprised if you took a Wilson Kipsang type guy and got him down to 2:20 off something like that.

Also I'm assuming that you would be exempt from the 10 mpw rule on the day of the marathon.

bigtool05 wrote:Also I'm assuming that you would be exempt from the 10 mpw rule on the day of the marathon.

... I think that was pretty obviously an unstated part of the OP's hypothetical scenario, although lots of posts have worked that angle to take tangents away from the obvious question...

If you find someone who really wants it, he could run 2:08. With PEDs, sub-2:05.

yeah me too... wrote:

bigtool05 wrote:Also I'm assuming that you would be exempt from the 10 mpw rule on the day of the marathon.

... I think that was pretty obviously an unstated part of the OP's hypothetical scenario, although lots of posts have worked that angle to take tangents away from the obvious question...

The hypothetical is 10 MILES A WEEK OF RUNNING, PERIOD. No exemption for races.

you're not so smart, dummy wrote:

Baconn wrote:

Under your restrictions everyone would DNF.

Funny when a guy tries to be a smart-ass, and gets his own answer wrong.

Ever see somebody walk in a marathon, champ?

I thought it was pretty clever. And not dickish....champ. On the other hand, the response.....

Not Cool Bro wrote:

I think the way it was proposed it is 10 miles per week of running in a given 7-day period ... not necessarily a calendar week. So you can't run 10 miles on Saturday and 10 miles on Monday because it's a new week.

The guy who mentioned walking has a good point though. So if you could run 10 miles at 5 minute pace (so 50minutes) and then walk at roughly 15:00/mile (I'm not considering what someone could "race walk" since that's still running since they lift both feet off the ground) then I get 4:53:17.

Oh-so-clever people, stop. Train 10 miles a week, race a marathon.

Regarding non-running rules, the gist of the question is wrecked if you allow other significant aerobic activity. Train 10 miles a week, do strength training if you care to, and race a marathon. Time estimates, please.

Again, don't need any more clever replies. Geez.

Spiridon Louis wrote:

The Olympics weren't held in 1898 so that 3:18 is bogus.

It also depends how many weeks of ten miles we are talking about

As many as you want. Geez.

Fool -- Morun -- Dolt -- IdjiotFrom the OP: "How far could TALENT get someone who is only running 10 miles a week?"Where does it say 'train'?Where does it say 'race'?

Come Onn wrote:

Oh-so-clever people, stop. Train 10 miles a week, race a marathon.

Regarding non-running rules, the gist of the question is wrecked if you allow other significant aerobic activity. Train 10 miles a week, do strength training if you care to, and race a marathon. Time estimates, please.

Again, don't need any more clever replies. Geez.

Hard question, at least for the casual fan. Maybe it's too easy to discount the value of volume, even for the extremely-talented, but I still have a hard time seeing a 2:03 guy run high 2's or low 3's.

Between 2:20 and 2:30 ?

In the world of meaningless what-if questions, this one's pretty good !

[quote]Not so clever... wrote:

Fool -- Morun -- Dolt -- Idjiot

From the OP: "How far could TALENT get someone who is only running 10 miles a week?"

Where does it say 'train'?

Where does it say 'race'?

See "yeah me too..." d***.......

It is TRULY amazing - and very depressing - the number d***h**** out there that will take what a normal person would think would be a friendly exchange on a silly-but-interesting hypothetical and turn it into a) "I proudly and annoyingly found (maybe) technicalities in the question," and much worse, b) I'm now going to be a COMPLETE a****** to others regarding these stupid, CLEARLY not-the-point points. Please die.

But and am I stupid for reading? Yeah.

Come Onn wrote:

[quote]Not so clever... wrote:

Fool -- Morun -- Dolt -- Idjiot

From the OP: "How far could TALENT get someone who is only running 10 miles a week?"

Where does it say 'train'?

Where does it say 'race'?

See "yeah me too..." d***.......

It is TRULY amazing - and very depressing - the number d***h**** out there that will take what a normal person would think would be a friendly exchange on a silly-but-interesting hypothetical and turn it into a) "I proudly and annoyingly found (maybe) technicalities in the question," and much worse, b) I'm now going to be a COMPLETE a****** to others regarding these stupid, CLEARLY not-the-point points. Please die.

But and am I stupid for reading? Yeah.

Fuck you, man. The OP is creating an absurd world and you think everyone is supposed to infer beyond the guidelines he's laid out? It's not a technicality, and it's not being an as*hole to answer the question as posed in a fantasy world.

This thread has gotten off-track. I think the real question should be is this training regimen retroactive? In other words, does Kipsang have to go his whole life running only 10 miles per week? Or does he drop his mileage to 10 miles a week starting now?

Without building up any sort of base (even a general athletic base as a child), I think it would be hard to drop a marathon time anywhere below 2:40. The human body would never be able to get accustomed to that duration of exertion.

If this was a law that was suddenly implemented, I would say a lot of the pros could run around 2:20 seeing as they already have that aerobic base. Then it would just be a matter of maintaining fitness as best you can. You'd want to make every one of your miles fast. At minimum, you'd want to do 10-mile race pace. Or you could do something like 3x5k to build up your speed a little bit.

faulty premise wrote:Fuck you, man. The OP is creating an absurd world and you think everyone is supposed to infer beyond the guidelines he's laid out? It's not a technicality, and it's not being an as*hole to answer the question as posed in a fantasy world.

If you couldn't read the OP and understand that he/she meant train max 10 days a week, then race a marathon on only that training, then you are obtuse or plain stupid. It's really a pretty simple premise for a silly hypothetical discussion, but easy to understand.

A little bit slower than mike rossi.

He did 15mpw!