Why Increasing Mileage Improves Performance

Richard,

Keep in mind that most who post here are people with physiques that in comparison would make Barney Fife look muscular. That's why they use their pie holes like girlie men in response to your posts. Think they would talk this way to your face?

Richard, Ive been reading the post for a few days, but only today did I finally look over your site.

As a fellow texan, I would hate to say the following things:

Your research is basically like a high school research paper. You have found printed material or web publications, written articles about them, and cited your sources. Your professionalism is good, you have things written fairly clearly and have your findings documented well.

BUT....the truth is these findings only show what will work for the untrained runner. Or someone who is very very naturally talented.

These methods would NOT work for most above average runners. You cannot truly believe that this low mileage/high intensity training is the correct way for everyone to improve.

I am not trying to hurt you personally, but it's people like you who are ruining the state of American distance running!

Richard, after looking over and reading about you and some of your ideas on your website I have to be honest and say that it made me LAUGH! As an accomplished runner and coach I truly hope the young runners don't go to your website and believe the training that you support. However, I do applaud your efforts in encougaging the weekend warriors and the middle aged triathletes who just enjoy running and competing. It is apparent from the detail that you put into your website that you really beleive the training methods you preach. Unfortunately I like most of serious competitive running community, MUST whole heartely disagree with you.

BTW- What is your personal best at your favorite distances?

Here's the best training program ever:

m: am 1 hour pm 1 hour

t: am 1 hour pm 1 hour

w: am 1 hour pm 1 hour

t: am 1 hour pm 1 hour

f: am 1 hour pm 1 hour

s: 1 hour

s: 2 hours

2-3 times a week inject speed stuff at 10k pace, 5k pace, mile pace and short qick stuff at 400 pace.

runt detector wrote:

Richard,

Keep in mind that most who post here are people with physiques that in comparison would make Barney Fife look muscular. That's why they use their pie holes like girlie men in response to your posts. Think they would talk this way to your face?

runt detector,

So you're saying you have nothing substantive to add to the discussion, and instead would rather personally attack the physiques of posters here? Do I have that right?

Why not explain why anyone should go to the trouble of performing a years-long longitudinal study on thousands of runners (spending loads of money in the process) to prove what is already known - that increased stress combined with adequate recovery in the end yields more improved fitness and better competitive results, that is, that increasing your training well above three sessions a week will make you a faster runner? Why not instead look at existing training patterns that have proven successful beyond any doubt and attempt to modify them to suit the needs of you or athletes you work with, instead of trying to deinvent the wheel, perverting everything science stands for, and acting like a mongoloid with his head in a vise?

Please limit your comments to topical ones, or else I won't respond, except every time you post something new and attacking. The rest of us would rather discuss physiology and training, at least fantasy versions.

Balk at you later,

DoppelGibberer

DoppelGibberer wrote:

runt detector,

So you're saying you have nothing substantive to add to the discussion, and instead would rather personally attack the physiques of posters here? Do I have that right?

DoppelGibberer

Would have "attacked" their mind if I thought they had half a one.

Some have noted that Richard atarted a similar thread over at run-insight.com. I've been following both, and even went to his site to do a little reading. Anyway, I just posted the following on the other thread and thought it would be appropriate to paste it here:

"I was completely off-base in comparing Richard to Miss Cleo. I think a more apt comparison would be to a bible-literalist or flat-Earth/no-moon-landing conspiracy theorist. If someone believes that the Earth is only 6000 years old or that it is flat or that humans have never walked on the moon, no amount of rational debate is going to change their mind. You can hit them over the head with a boatload of evidence to the contrary, but you can rest assured that it will roll off of them like water on a duck's back. As noted on Richard's site, he sees himself as some sort of Terminator-like character, and he's on an evangelical mission to get people to run fewer miles. Like a 12th century Crusader, I'll give him points for his zeal, but demerits for "wisdom". Further, given this profile, Richard is not the sort to just go away no matter how hard people beg and plead. Evangelicals don't do that. They live for the engagement. The hope of a "conversion", no matter how remote, and especially when in the "belly of the beast" (i.e, a site filled with serious high-mileage runners), is all the fuel needed to sustain the fight.

"There is only one way to get rid of Richard's posts and that's to ignore him, to not engage him directly. He will, undoubtedly, claim that a lack of engagement vindicates his beliefs, and this may even cause an initial rise in his posts. But soon the "one note song of low mileage" will fade and perhaps become a bit of humorous folk-lore for newbies and masters alike."

Fiore, you're a certified bigot.

BTW, Bertrand Russell had you in mind. As Yoda might say,

"A bitter soul you are."

runt detector wrote:

Fiore, you're a certified bigot.

Off the topic, but how do you figure him as bigoted? Even more off topic, how does one attain official, sanctioned certification in bigotry? Is there a national governing body for this akin to the ones administering certain fitness and coaching credentials (USATF, the ACSM, AFAA) or CPR (the American Heart Association)? If so, it's gotta be headquartered in a small shitcracker town in either Georgia or Texas.

It's in Georgia alright.

JimFiore wrote:

Some have noted that Richard atarted a similar thread over at run-insight.com.

For the record, Richard did not start that thread.

Amateur discriminator wrote:

runt detector wrote:

Fiore, you're a certified bigot.

Off the topic, but how do you figure him as bigoted? Even more off topic, how does one attain official, sanctioned certification in bigotry? Is there a national governing body for this akin to the ones administering certain fitness and coaching credentials (USATF, the ACSM, AFAA) or CPR (the American Heart Association)? If so, it's gotta be headquartered in a small shitcracker town in either Georgia or Texas.

Come to my "small shitcracker town" (Cambridge, Mass) and I'll learn ya.

bibMouth wrote:

For the record, Richard did not start that thread.

No, for the record, he DID:

He is listed as the author of the thread and has the first post.

As far as my being a bigot is concerned, if asserting that by all current evidence it is wrong to say that lower mileage is the key to runnng success, or that the Earth is flat and/or only 6000 years old, or that humans never landed on the moon, then I'll wear that claim. While I'm at it, I should probably also mention that I strongly disagree with the KKK so I guess that makes me a KKK bigot too.

i'm in your small shitcracker town. name the time and place

Hickson, et all Linear Increase in Aerobic Power. (Published in 1977, not 1976 BTW).

Merely shows that VO2max increased faster than the researchers thought it would. Not really supportive of the less volume idea, just shows that you might not need to spend as much time improving VO2max as you can. Also, took a group that had not fully developed VO2max so there was room to grow so to speak. Does not address other performance factors like lactate threshold (although I am thinking they would improve with this type of training as well) and does not talk about running economy.

Hickson, et al 1985: Merely shows that training intensity is important. Does not really address the volume issue. In the study the group that dropped the intensity did more poorly.

Mikesell et al: Why have them cycle? Seriously this is a lame protocol (same could be said for Hickson's studies). This is actually a pretty good argument for why tapering works and that 6 weeks of high intensity training might lead to overload (overtraining is a strong word Richard). At least the subjects were well trained, but they were running something on the order of 50 mpw (hardly high volume).

Gaskill et al (1999). There are way too may variables here. However, the key point that the authors make is that if a person is not showing improvement with high volume, low intensity training that adding intensity would be a strategy for improvement. How about taking some of those low intensity miles and replacing them with higher intensity miles, but not reducing the volume (or at least not by much)? Also, skiing may be a sport where economy improvements from lots of miles can be tremendous. I would be interested to see what happened to each group on down the road. At least this study attempts to follow athletes over a period longer than a college semester.

Billat (2001): Not sure why you included this one since you state that Billat notes that the fastest marathoners ran more kilometers per week and at a higher velocity. Sounds like an argument for higher volume. Total higher intensity does not preclude running lots of miles. The question that comes from this is: If two groups of runners both ran 20 km of high intensity training and one group ran another 80 km and one group ran 140 km, which would do better?

That is all I have time for.

I would also note that the studies using a timed performance such as how far can one run in X minutes or runs at a fixed pace for as long as possible have very high variability from day to day. This is one reason that sport physiologists (as opposed to exercise physiologists) do not care for those types of tests.

Richard_ wrote:

a,

The only examples of world class athletes that I'm aware of that trained with relatively low mileage are posted on the results section of my web site.

No Richard. No Richard. No Richard. Answer the question. Which was "What elite runners have trained the way you prescrbie (three days a week)" Answer ZERO.

The "relatively low mileage" examples mean nothing and DO NOT support your theory because they do more than your 3 days a week plan. Your science and logic is flawed.

The Great,

You appear to not fully understand my training recommendations. I don't recommend just 3 days per week of training for those with elite level genetics. I recommend 3 days per week for those with average genetic talents, not elite genetic talent.

Still curious to know what your personal bests are?