Nick Willis' 10 week mileage high is 880 - What is yours?

So Coach J.S., I hope you're nor a troll... I bite with some kind of interest abou your insight.

I have almost two decades of high mileage background but have limited time bc of my job now. So for a 2:15 - 2:20ish marathoner, how would a typical week look like? I don't wanna jerk around, but honestly: With 55 - 60 miles... That's like one 20 miler, 5 x 7 - 8 milers and one rest day. You even said you think your PRs would be faster when you were even stricter with this low mileage quality stuff. It just seems odd to reach full marathon potential with this as I have beaten many, many guys with more speed just by plowing through thousands and thousands and thousands of miles. Brutal miles. Slow, tired running at 5 am or 10 pm and more sub 6 minute miles than I can think of ,sometimes struggling bad with tiredness but that's marathon training. Really: I usually beat those guys that tell me - like you - "yeah, I'm doing no empty junk miles... I run less but faster." And the Kenyans I know (and I know world class runners with sub 60 HM PRs that paced world record pace through 30k) are doing brutal mileage as well. Staple is Monday through Friday doubles that total 2 - 2:10 hours per day. Tuesday track, Thursday 1 hour fartlek, Saturday long and hard. Sunday might be one session or even rest. And when they do not double they run some hell of a pace most freakin' days - not everyone is made for this. They are most 100+ mpw runners for sure when hitting it for real. In my mind you have to hit volume AND quality to reach good 10k or longer times.

Pikachu

(btw: Even Mo Farah ran 100+ mpw and he bangs out most of his runs quite fast, too)

Hey Coach, maybe your Kenyans could actually be faster if they trained more. Like the 2:04 guys.

Kip Chode wrote:

Hey Coach, maybe your Kenyans could actually be faster if they trained more. Like the 2:04 guys.

+1

That's what I was thinking. Maybe low mileage is what's keeping his 2:07, 2:08, 2:09 runners from running 2:05, 2:06 and 2:07?

1041. This preceded my marathon PR and my only negative split marathon.

The mileage compromised the amount of quality running that I was able to do to some extent. My LT was significantly worse than it had been in previous marathons, but I was able to hold a very high percentage of my LT pace for the entire race. It was a strange feeling. People always say the beginning of a marathon feels super easy, which had been my experience in previous races, but I felt borderline uncomfortable right away. It's just that it never got any worse.

Setting the bar low...447 to start 2012. I did run PR for half with that training.

I'm also a low mileage runner. Highest is 425 miles. Current half and full Marathon PBs are 1:19 and 2:49 respectively.

800 dude wrote:

1041. This preceded my marathon PR and my only negative split marathon.

The mileage compromised the amount of quality running that I was able to do to some extent. My LT was significantly worse than it had been in previous marathons, but I was able to hold a very high percentage of my LT pace for the entire race. It was a strange feeling. People always say the beginning of a marathon feels super easy, which had been my experience in previous races, but I felt borderline uncomfortable right away. It's just that it never got any worse.

Very impressive mileage, especially from an 800m dude! I did 877miles at most.

I´ve done 3 marathons, but never after high mileage which was what I would've needed, to transform more towards a diesel-mode. You obviously reached that goal. I always have felt super easy during the early part up to around 25-30k mark, then I had to start pushing more, and was empty (almost) of glycogen after 35-40k. How fast have you ran the 800/marathon, if you don't mind I'm asking? My pb's are 1:57 / 3:00,20, damn it.

I'm on it right now, about 500 miles. Though, this is the first time I've really that hit high mileage cause Im just a sophomore.