Justyn Knight 13:34 on 35 mpw!!!

WOW this really something useless!

My neighbor, Jon Dildung, ran the mile in 4:33 in high school while only running 10 miles per week!

miles per how?! wrote:

If you read the Syracuse come up story about their recent XC success, it goes on to talk about how Justyn Knight ran 35mpw his freshman fall, 45 his sophomore and 60 his junior year? how is it that he ran 3:39 (1500) and 13:34 (5k) on such low mileage??!

I think there must be some kind of Badger Miles thing going on combined with a hefty cross training schedule. I'm surprised there weren't follow up questions after his mileage was revealed.

Mileage is a touchy subject for recruits; too much and either they're maxed out or able to handle heavy workloads, too little and either poor results or you have gobs of talent.

Either way there seems to be a desire to stretch the truth in both directions.

While I won't bet my life on it there is no way he ran 35 mpw his freshman year.

Also, a hilly 4 to 5 mile tempo run is the key to their success? It seems as though Fox wants his competitors to read that interview and mimic their "training", nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Are you a better coach if you had your guys and gals run too many miles and burn out, or were too conservative and left something on the table?

I think most coaches are too worried about not doing enough that they typically swing to doing too much. I feel like being conservative is better than injuries though. Kind of like "The Price is Right", you want to get as close as you can, but if you go over you lose.

But still, gotta risk if for the biscuit.

BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

Someone once asked Seb Coe or his dad, Peter, how many miles a week he ran. He said like 50,60. Turns out they didn't include warmups, cooldowns, etc. But when you added it all up it was well over 80-85 a week. I don't think talent is all the hype people say. Hard work is much more important I think. However I doubt the young man was only doing 35mpw. That might just be the "quality" he runs each week, like with Coe, supposedly.

This is false. Coe sometimes ran about 30 a week and sometimes up to 85 and both extremes were the actual volume.

He was also completely open about running 70 per week in the winter of '79 and up to 85 in the spring of '85.

The low mile legend was made up by people who didn't bother reading what Coe wrote or said in interviews through the years.

Also talent matters more than anything. Everyone is working hard at the top level.

Talent, baby. Talent.

He didn't run that time off ,35 mpw

You nailed it. Uphill tempo running is a scam.

I ran the first sub 4 minute mile on 30 miles a week squuzed in during my medical residency

SlowWhiteGuy wrote:

Talent, baby. Talent.

Yep. Us fat, slow white guys hate to see it in teammates/competitors. Makes you wanna puke.

It's believable for 5K. Surely there's a huge dropoff in time at longer distances.

There are a lot of historical examples of people running relatively fast off of low mileage.

But what is often left out about the praise of low mileage is one of few things. Either, one, the runner developed his training to run more miles as they progressed. Or, two, other training methodologies that developed subsequently in the course of track history had greater success. Or, three, people often ignore the genetic freak of nature that the athlete may be and may just be an outlier that never needs much volume of training.

Evan Jager ran around 35 mpw in high school and was a top runner just after one year at Wisconsin before following Schumacher to go pro. And he didn't make a big jump in training. He was brought along slowly and much of his workouts in college were shorter (less volume, less reps) than the other guys at Wisconsin. Obviously, Schumacher had him do more in subsequent years.

Emma Coburn was a state champ running approx. a 5:05 mile at altitude but maybe running 20 mpw in track season, but also doing volleyball and basketball as opposed to xc and winter track. Obviously Wetmore progressed her slowly, but she was probably doing 60-70 mpw when she was done at Colorado.

Sebastian Coe is great example of how people ignore his high-mileage base. His books mention about doing 80 mpw during xc season to prepare for track season. And 80 mpw is a lot of mileage for an 800m runner! But people focus on his mileage during track, which was considerably lower.

Sure, Roger Bannister ran sub-4:00 and probably rarely, if ever, exceeded 50 mpw. I think I read he ran a sub-4:20 only running twice a week. However, plenty of runners that followed him ran way more miles and ran faster. Lydiard's runners ran way more and had faster times. Ryun ran way more and had faster times.

But I think the question will always be what is optimal training as opposed to good enough training? And what are the trade offs?

ukathleticscoach wrote:

He didn't run that time off ,35 mpw

I am sure he did. Mark Plaatjes was RSA national 3000 champ off no training.

(Awesome video BTW).

Actually, I was told this directly by a well respected coach who was at a clinic/class thing where either Peter or Seb was talking that day, and taking questions. Someone asked about the milage thing and was told a low #. But when pressed, Peter admitted they didn't include certain miles (slower). He may have thought the question was referring to quality weekly miles and not total weekly miles though. So, no, I'm not wrong. Have a good one.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

He didn't run that time off .35 mpw

In fact, he was running 100 times that amount.

Jim Spivey is also quoted running 1000 miles over the summer in prep for XC in High School. I believe it averaged out to 70 per week. You have to account for mileage and fitness that was built in previous seasons.

coach js claims to have coached justyn knight while he was at syracuse. what a bum!

He may well have done, but the thing that most raises doubts for me is that every budding scholar wants to understate their mileage because of a ridiculous bias amongst college coaches where lower mileage = greater potential.

It is common for people to exclude sessions ('workouts') from their mileage total also.

So it may be 35mpw of steady running but another 15 mpw of intervals or otherwise.