Alain Mimoun did 150-175mpw for years before winning the marathon gold medal in 1956?

Zatopek was doing big volumes in the late 40s, early 50s. He was one of Lydiard's inspirations for doing big miles and probably the same was true for Mimouin who reportedly idolized Zatopek.

And before Zatopek there were guys like Arthur Newton and Peter Gavuzzi. Newton did a 20 mile run pretty much daily. Jack Holden, marathon champ in 1950 at both the Euros and Empire Games was doing 100 mile weeks in six days.

In the early 1950s Gordon Pirie was doing some very big mileage in training - influenced by Zatopek. Later on he seems to have reduced the volume and increased the intensity under the guidance of Gerschler.

I guess this proves mileage doesn't result in fast running. You'd think the dude would run 2:06 but ran 2:20s.

8FE wrote:

I guess this proves mileage doesn't result in fast running. You'd think the dude would run 2:06 but ran 2:20s.

And yet people running fast today are running the same kind of mileage as Mimouin. If those people had been running in his time they'd have run times along the lines of what he and others from those days ran. What it proves is that times are products of the eras in which they were run.

HRE wrote:

8FE wrote:

I guess this proves mileage doesn't result in fast running. You'd think the dude would run 2:06 but ran 2:20s.

And yet people running fast today are running the same kind of mileage as Mimouin. If those people had been running in his time they'd have run times along the lines of what he and others from those days ran. What it proves is that times are products of the eras in which they were run.

Yup. Todays 2:06-ers would barely break a sweat running 2:25+. Further evidence that many past champs were just not that talented. Ooooooo!

Thanks HRE for the serious answer. I associated Zatopek training with two things:

1. Unbelievably high number of repeats for the intervals 40*400m

2. Running with military equipment to make it harder

I did not know he was doing high mileage. I always imagined like Nurmi, higher than all his competitors but far from high. I'm glad I learnt something today.

And yes Mimoun and Zatopek were definitely friends so he could have taken his training ideas from it.

Here is a video in French, where he talked briefly about his training (he was working a full time job at the time):

1 hour in the morning

1 hour during lunch

2 hours at night.

Can't have more info, for now; but I am curious

If you think about Zatopek's 40x400 sessions, you see ten miles of 400 reps with 200 meter jogs. So there's fifteen miles. And he usually started and finished each session with 10x200 with a 200 jog so that's another five. That's pretty big miles. Van Aaken had people doing a lot of volume in those years as well though they were names no one would recognize now.