There are a lot of discussions on mileage buildup on letsrun but I think it would be good to have a thread with some well thought out ideas of the best way to build mileage.
I have come across many different approaches on how to build mileage but there still doesn't seem to be a consensus about which one works the best.
Here are the approaches I've come across:
1. Jack Daniels strategy - From his book I believe he recommends staying at the same distance for 3 week blocks then increase by adding a mile for every day of the week you run. So if you run 7 days a week you would add a 7 miles a week onto the next 3 week block.
2. Galloway's very slow buildup strategy - This program is probably the most conservative approach to building mileage but it attempts to be scientific with the idea that it takes you 21 days to adapt to the stress of new mileage. Here is a thread that explains it in detail:
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5192990
3. The Joe Vigil approach - From what I understand Vigil recommends alternating mileage of up and down weeks throughout the season while building mileage then at the end of the season the mileage becomes more consistent. From what I can tell he also takes a very age graded approach, having younger runners run much less mileage. Here is a thread on this:
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2328905
He also explains it here:
http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_1/the-anatomy-of-a-medal.shtml
4. Three weeks up, one week down. I've seen this approach on letsrun several times, not sure who came up with it. Usually it involves increasing mileage by 5 mpw and then dropping mileage for a week then continuing the buildup the next week.
5. The 10% rule. I'm not sure who came up with this idea but it is a dated strategy that says to increase mileage by only 10% each week. I have not found any scientific backing for this idea. I believe it is something that someone came up with because it sounded good.
6. John Molvar's Lydiard interpretation - I hesitated including this plan because I am a very big Lydiard fan and I believe that Molvar very liberally interpreted Lydiard to come up with this plan. Nevertheless it is a plan to get from 0 to 100 mpw in 9 weeks. A good discussion on it can be found here:
http://www.bunnhill.com/BobHodge/Special/LydiardInterpreted.htm
Also it seems like some on letsrun have tried this approach and it didn't end well:
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2404336
I'm sure there are many strategies that I've forgotten, please add any that I haven't added.
Obviously building up mileage depends on many factors including what mileage you've run previously and how hard you run the mileage. So maybe the answer to what is the best mileage buildup approach is that it depends. But I would like to think we would be able to come up with a good approach that works most of the time for most people.