how do people run a 100 mpw

I run an easy 10 mile and that's tiring. Kudos to you guy who

run 100 mpw.I may try to get 50 mpw one of these weeks.

I'm not sure the argument that 100 miles a week is a lot of time is a strong one. Take the hobby golfer for example. Where I live Its often 25-30 minutes to the golf course. You get there to warm up 30 minutes ahead of time. You then play 18. Your walking and things are a little slow. 4.5 hours. 30 minute drive home. 6 hours gone. You do this twice a week and your easily up to 12 if not 13 or 14. I understand the argument that its tiring and difficult to keep up if you have family/work/social priorities. However running is damn good bang for buck.

fred wrote:

Randy Oldman wrote:

Let's say his easy pace at 9 minutes a mile, which is likely for someone that can't take more than 30-35 mpw, that's over 2 hours a day on average.

How many of you 100 mpw runners have logged over 15 hours per week?

150 miles at 6-6:30 plus speedwork.

100 was a cutback or rest week.

1

Part of the trick is learning to be efficient. I never cooled down post run. You can shower in less than five minutes and eventually I usually ran from my apartment or from work because I would rather use whatever time spent driving to a place to run actually running. You're right, a ten minute drive each way could have been three miles spent running.

I was crushed by many 60 mile a week people. But I also crushed many of them who I would not have been close to had I not run as much as I did. And as I always sort of wanted to be a hermit anyway being a running one was pretty neat.

go before and after work... right before, and right after. you get used to being tired all of the time. or go on your lunch breaks. 100 is just a number though and is useless if it's all junk mileage

I don't know how people run on their lunch break without a shower facility or run from home to work for the same reason.

Just run an ultra marathon and you can get 100 mpw in 1 day.

step 1 - have a pseudocareer/job. Think teaching, running store employee, professional student, etc.

step 2 - run all day

bdbgbdb wrote:

I don't know how people run on their lunch break without a shower facility or run from home to work for the same reason.

If you don't have a shower facility, just wipe off your body with a dry towel and change to dry clothes. You may want to use some deodorant so that you won't smell bad.

bdbgbdb wrote:

I don't know how people run on their lunch break without a shower facility or run from home to work for the same reason.

Those should be your easy barely sweating runs.

I know, I know, you live in Atlanta etc. etc.

Just Another LRC Idiot wrote:

800 dude wrote:

All the guidelines and research say 30 minutes per day is the minimum that adults should be doing, which is definitely more than 20 miles. It's probably even more important for people with sedentary jobs.

CDC recommends 150min a week of moderate exercise or 75 min of vigorous exercise for general health benefits, and twice that amount for "greater" benefits.

http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/guidelines/adults.html

"Moderate" is like brisk walking, and running at any speed is considered "vigorous." So for "greater" health benefit, all you need to do is to run 150 min a week. It's 20 miles @7:30pace. And most hobby joggers run way slower than that. Anything beyond that, you are basically doing it for your personal satisfaction, unless you are trying to lose weight.

I'm not talking about hobby joggers. I don't think anyone on this thread is talking about hobby joggers. I'm talking about people with a serious running background, after college. Moderate exercise for such a person isn't walking. If I'm walking, my heart rate goes up to around 70, which is a resting heart rate for most people. The UK's NHS says that moderate exercise means "you can still talk, but you can't sing the words to a song," whereas vigorous exercise means "you won't be able to say more than a few words without pausing for a breath." So vigorous is at or beyond lactate threshold. I've never in my life done 75 minutes at such high intensity in a week. As for "moderate" exercise, for the vast majority of my runs, I can easily sing a song, so I'm not even reaching that level, as far as the governmental organizations are concerned. (http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/fitness/Pages/physical-activity-guidelines-for-adults.aspx)

150 minutes is 30/day, 5 times a week (which is usually how the recommendation is laid out). Twice that, for "greater benefit," is 300 per week, which is enough to run about 50/week for a good runner. All the research points to higher levels than 150 being preferable, (with 450 perhaps being ideal:

) and every cardiologist will tell you to get at least 30/day.

And this all assumes that weight loss/control isn't one of your objectives, even though it realistically should be for a very larger percentage of the population, including runners.

In any event, I'm not a scientist, and I'm not trying to parse every study and recommendation, even though I do read a lot about this. My point was simply that for a good runner, 50 miles per week is a reasonable volume for pure health objectives.

Agree totally. I love Lydiard but a hundred is not grounded in exercise physiology. Some people do well on 70 whereas others need 140. For amateurs, doubling is exhausting and counter productive.

The time it takes to run 100 mpw varies with the speed/pace of the runs.

Elite fast runners can do easy runs at 6:00/mile pace. That's 10 miles for every hour. 100 miles per week is 10 hours a week of running.

If your easy pace is 9:00 min per mile, you cover 6.6 miles each hour.

that's over 15 hours a week.

There is a huge difference between an hour a day of running and over 2 hours a day of running.

runnerwhoprofesses wrote:

. For amateurs, doubling is exhausting and counter productive.

No it isn't. The body has no idea of the concepts of pro versus amateur.

Where did you get 2 hours per day? Your calculations are based on 60min./day vs 90min./day - keep your story straight, please.

thisandthis wrote:

The time it takes to run 100 mpw varies with the speed/pace of the runs.

Elite fast runners can do easy runs at 6:00/mile pace. That's 10 miles for every hour. 100 miles per week is 10 hours a week of running.

If your easy pace is 9:00 min per mile, you cover 6.6 miles each hour.

that's over 15 hours a week.

There is a huge difference between an hour a day of running and over 2 hours a day of running.

Thanks, HRE. You've answered one question this thread prompted, which was: What does it feel like when you've acclimated to higher mileages and come DOWN to 100 mpw--or 90, or 70?

It seems to me that one of the points of serious training at that level is to acclimate in a way that lets you essentially coast at a workload that would hobble many people. Wasn't that Lydiard's point? Get to the point where the 6 minute pace 22-milers over hills became something you could knock off without too much stress. That tells you that you're ready to come down off the mountain and hit some very hard workouts. That's the point of ONCE A RUNNER, too, of course. Perhaps the mythology (the novel) and the experiential reality aren't that far apart.

You'll often hear stories from people who say that they raced faster on 70 a week than on 100 so they think 70 is better. But they're overlooking the fact that they came down to 70 and that's very different than running 70 as your top mileage. (I'm just grabbing numbers here.) I alternated the biggest mileages over the summers with periods of maybe 100-115 through the fall.

As you reference, the pace picked up with the lower miles and cooler weather without any increased effort. Around Christmas I'd do a shorter build up to the bigger miles again and then drop back down for spring. Each time I went back up in miles it was at about the same pace as I'd done for the 100-115 phase and then when I'd come back to the next 100-115 phase the pace would pick up again. Intervals never worked for me so this was my version of Lydiard-like periodization.

i would go a step further on your post ( i agree with you) and say that who cares if you run lots of miles and run a 2:25...or even a 2:20. that's faster than I can run, and very impressive, but it's still hobby jogger in my opinion because you aren't qualifying to the olympic trials. i'm going to keep running my 33:xx 10ks on 35-40 miles a week and have a life, bike to/from work, go hiking on weekends etc while the 31-32:xx guys keep running their 70-90 mpw and get their race tshirt and coconut water a minute before i cross the linei had my fast races in college and know i might be able to get back there with a focused plan and sacrifice, but for what reason? any good races i want to run a fast time in will have a wining time around 30:xx

geetar wrote:

100mpw is just a number, don't obsess on it. If you want to do it as a goal, then fine, work your way up to it.

I've never run that much in one week, and I know that I regularly crush fools that do. I'm just more about the racing than the training. Some people just REALLY get off on the daily grind, and just doing more and more (ultra folks), but that's just not my thing.

If I were a collegiate runner, or someone getting PAID to run, then yeah, but I'm not willing to put THAT much time and effort into a hobby. And seriously, if I run a 2:45 marathon on a peak of 75 miles, how much difference is that extra few miles going to make, and does it even matter?

Just because you don't like running to the best of your ability doesn't mean others don't. Also, some people enjoy the pursuit and don't feel like it's a waste of time. To each his own. I'm not sure why you are posting here actually. Are you trying to get one of us who runs more mileage than you to justify why we do it?