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

2:03

Rossi would cheat

Then Lance would cheat

Then a Kenyan would cheat

faulty premise wrote:Your assertion that I'm somehow an as#hole for answer the question that was actually presented is pathetic.

I will grant you my last reply (different random name) was a bit ash-hole-ish. But pathetic or no, yes I believe you, too, were being an ash-hole for parsing and spitting back the precise words instead of the obvious meaning, and I will claim you were being a bigger ash-hole than me. :-)

serious response here

I would guess a certain number of elite marathoners (sub-2:10) could run under 2:40 on their talent plus 10 mpw.

As far as the world record is concerned, we'd have to account for those once in a lifetime genetically gifted outliers. I'm thinking guys with Jim Ryun, Henry Rono, Daniel Komen level talent. I'm guessing that someone would come along and break 2:30.

One thing I think we're overlooking in this scenario is that the 10 mpw can all be quality work at a high intensity. Warm-ups can consist of walking and dynamic exercises. Off days can be filled with challenging walks, hikes, biking or swiming (to whatever degree that's allowed).

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.

Dude this a running forum about running. You need to go on a run.

This raises two "good" (and thoroughly related) issues - one admittedly trivial regarding this hypothetical, and another that I've always wondered about. About the hypothetical, I guess you would have to stipulate some (long) period of time NOT over 10 mpw. Months, at least. But....

The "real" issue is how long does it take one to lose all of one's aerobic training effect? Not being a physiologist, but simply a long-time runner, I've assumed it's somewhere in the 2-6 month neighborhood. I imagine it's been studied.... Is a former world-class Kenyan distance runner raised at altitude who now has a little gut and hasn't run in a year - or five - still benefiting from a previous base? I don't know, but intuitively, I'd be a little surprised if they are - at least in any significant way.

A genetically world class marathoner having never run more than 10 miles per week would go ~2:30 All mileage would have to be marathon pace or faster.

I ran sub 70 for the half after only 3 weeks above 10 miles/week, with a pretty big lifetime base also tons of pool work, cycling, and strength training. I probably could have gone sub 70 also if I maintained all the cross training and did something like 2 miles at 5k pace 5 days a week to meet the 10 miles a week maximum. I could see Kipchoge, Bikila, one of those types doing what I did for twice the distance on a similar routine.

My guess: If Kimetto has a perfect day, in his prime, with 10+ hours of pool running/week, also loads of eliptical-biking-skiing, 10 miles a week of very hard running, hardcore farming, strength training, etc. he would run....

2:09:30 + or - 2 minutes

Athletes still retain roughly half their cardiovascular training effect after 12 month absence.Back to the question it all depends on the athletes base or lack off.On no base even a very talented athlete probably wouldn't break 3 on 10 miles per week.In and around 3 hrs 10 mins i'd say.On the other hand a talented athlete with a big base and doing only 10 miles per week for 6 months would run close to 2hrs 20 mins.Personal example i ran 2hrs 12 mins despite doing very little for the last 2 months averaging less than 20 miles a week,obviously i had a huge base prior to that though.

after fifteen years out, I ran 20:30 5k on 10M/week with no workouts and I still couldn't walk up stairs because of my injury. So, I think that you would find people in their 20s with actual talent and no injuries able to keep up sub 20 pace for a marathon with 10M/week of training--probably 1/2M or 1M repeats and 5M tempos. So, sub 2:40. If you allow either a big base of prior training even years prior or lots of cross training, you would get sub 2:20 for sure and probably sub 2:10.

A friend of my ran 3:32 after about 6 weeks of training at age 42. He had no running experience before that and was normal weight (I'd guess bmi around 23). Neither had he done any competitive sport before. But he had done a lot of trekking in summertime, and some cross country skiing in winter. He had also done a decent amount of weight training in his youth.

Was he a huge running talent? Not at all. It took him 2-3 years to run sub-3 and that was after lots of mileage (but admittedly some shitty low heart rate training).

I'm certain a talent like Wanjiru could easily have run sub 2:30 on 10 mpw running only (i.e. not stretching OPs criteria).

Mike Rossi's 3:11 would be the world record.

2:15

I can't remember which book I read but it gives examples of early 1900s marathon training which consisted of 40 mile walks and 30 minutes of knees-ups.

My guess is that the original poster meant: what is the fastest a person with no running background and no cross training could run with only 10 miles a week training? But the variations are interesting:

- Someone with no running background but unlimited cross-training? (Example: a great cross-country skier in the prime of their career who added 10 miles of week running to their training and then raced a marathon)

- Someone with a huge running background who went for a fixed amount of time (6 months? one year?) running only 10 miles a week and doing no cross-training?

- Someone with a huge running background who cut their running to only 10 miles a week, but did unlimited cross-training (sort of the Joan Benoit Samuelson pre-Olympic '84 trials scenario, but for longer)? Do any of you remember the stories of Toshiko Seko walking *huge* distances very fast around a stadium in Japan when he was injured? Seems like the complicating factor in these is that the reason for running so little is usually injury in cases like these - and the injury itself could limit what times are possible.

Perhaps all our answers are idle speculation, but I wonder if any of you know any real examples of any of these?

2:02:57.

Why would this new rule erase the old record?