The High Mileage Experiment

High mileage paid off for Mark Nenow and Bill Rodgers.

Exactly. What I really want to see though is how much it can help an average runner improve. Reading bill Rodgers book, it was clear the guy had quite a bit of talent. I figured no better way to find out then to expirence it first hand. I would like to reach 140mpw sometime this coming summer.

Have you thought about strength work / form work? Those times with that mileage indicate there is more to do before you increase mileage

shorters stache wrote:

Grade 10: 60-70km per week: 3km- 9:37 1500m- 4:26 5km Road : 18:30

Grade 11: 80-90km per week: 3km- 9:31 1500m- 4:18 5km road: 17:30

It's interesting to look at your 3k times vs your 5k times, when taking into account the amount of kms you were running. They are reasonably close distances, but the disparity is unusual. With the reasonably decent mileage you were running, I would expect you to not drop off so badly at 5k.

Expected 5k time for someone running in the 9:3x range for 3k is in the 16:30 range.

It's unusual that in grade 10 you were running up to 70km weekly and could run a 9:37 for 3k (3:12/km - or 5:09/mile pace) and yet could only manage 3:42/km (5:58/mile) for 5k.

Your 1500 times are in-line with your 3k. I want to say it's clear you are more speed-oriented, but 3k is long enough that there shouldn't be such a tremendous drop-off for only 2km more. And you were certainly running more than enough mileage that you should have had the ability to run a 5k much more in-line with your 3k.

No outdoor season in Canada? Please support this.

I question being self-coached. Do you have someone to video-tape you?

How do you know that your form is improving?

I also noticed that you ran 2:00 in the 800 and yet only a 4:15 in the 1500. Your 3K and 5K also do not match.

At your young age it's not likely you know how to run with "classic running form." I also doubt that you have a clue when it comes to accelerating. That is not as simple as it may seem, if you haven't been coached in knowing how to accelerate then you do not know how to do it.

I do think that running high mileage is a good idea but it must be relaxed running. You have to learn how to run fast and relaxed.

You cannot grind, and grind which is what most young people think. In fact many coaches still think this.

I would put things together like this:

Day One: 10 to 22 mile run (Build this slowly over several years)

Day Two: Recovery run at 2-6 miles

Day Three: 2-4 mile Fast Distance (Some now call this "Tempo," but the pace is different for everyone. During part of this run you want to run race pace. You could also do a Progressive run of

6:00-5:50-5:40-5:30 or whatever your paces are relaxed.

Day Four: Recovery Run

Day Five: Warmup jog; 5 x 75 at 80-95%: Warmdown jog (Also jump rope; plyometrics; hills; downhills; etc)

Day Six: Recovery run---nervous system should have been stimulated on day five; you need recovery to get a benefit.

Day Seven: 5 x 400 (build to mid-season 10 x 400) Do not time and only go until you feel pleasantly tired. If racing 5Ks or longer start at 2 x mile and progress to 4 x mile. If racing the 800 you may want to do 100s, 150s, 200s, and 300s.

Day Eight: Recovery run

Day Nine: Fartlek run of 6-10 miles varying sprints of 100-400 with similar recoveries.

Keys:

Relaxation

Form

Recovery

Nutrition

Sleep

Careful Progression in all elements

*In no way is this a complete program. You need a coach.

waltertompatton wrote:

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Aren't you the guy who had an absolute meltdown on the boards a week or two ago because of the "repeated character" software issue? Like it was the end of the world to you? You made about half a dozen threads all in caps, freaking out?

Interesting idea. If you really want to keep things simple, just run an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening on easy days. Run doubles everyday except your long run day. 2 hours of running everyday. That's how the guys trained in the 1970s, without forgetting the 2 hard workouts a week. Not smart to run more than 2 hours a day, to hit 140 mpw off 2 hours a day that's 6:00 pace, but say 7:00 pace gets you about 120 mpw off 2 hours a day.

Cool story bro. Looking forward to the updates.

I did not run the 5km very regularly. Also, the year I ran 4:15 and 2:00, I ran 3 more 800s than 1500s that year. I never seemed to get in a fast 1500. In my last three races I went 4:15, 4;16, 4:15 finishing 2nd,3rd, and 4th getting outkicked in all after going through 800m in 2:20+. Usually conditions were to blame for the fields going so slow.

Another factor that plays a big role in the times not really correlating is that I was often over trained in high school. I bounces around a few coaches and clubs and for the most part, they were all moderate mileage (for that age) and big volume high intensity workouts. At the time I also had the personality of the classic workout hero so I did not fair well. Once a season id run how my workouts indicated but for the most part, every season ended in burnout. It was only when I began coaching myself last January that I took the approach of putting multiple b+ workouts back to back versus hammering the a+ workouts. Last track season was short as I didn't have much of a build up but my races went as the following. Each on a Wednesday night at the Ottawa twighligh meets. I races 4 straight weeks and went:

Saturday 5km Ottawa race weekend: 16:00 for third

Following Wednesday l: 1500m first in 4:20

Following Wednesday: 1500m third in 4:18 15min later 800m in 2:03

Following Wednesday: 1500m 4:10 (finally a stronger field) 3rd

Following Wednesday: 1500m 4:08 for sixth

Two week break without races (meet was cancelled)

Final race 3000m in 8:59 after splitting 6:05 at 2km.

Raced very consistently. That's off like I said about 130-140km per week on average. My first track race is a 3000m on January 6th so we will see how that goes.

There are outdoor meets just no university season

Tried weights grade 11 year and ran 2:05. Did them for a month my fifth year and injured my knee, did no weights for 4months and ran 2:00. I do a lot of core and glute work through body weight exercises though

Did shorter have someone video taping him? If the times are dropping that's enough indication of improvement for me. My form in midfoot with a decent cadence. Somewhat of a shuffler though...a blessing and a curse depending how you look at it. It's efficient and easy on the body for mileage and long races but hard to get moving in a 1500m

robert678 wrote:

Interesting idea. If you really want to keep things simple, just run an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening on easy days. Run doubles everyday except your long run day. 2 hours of running everyday. That's how the guys trained in the 1970s, without forgetting the 2 hard workouts a week. Not smart to run more than 2 hours a day, to hit 140 mpw off 2 hours a day that's 6:00 pace, but say 7:00 pace gets you about 120 mpw off 2 hours a day.

Yea for sure I don't really see much of a point in hitting more than 2hrs in a day but who knows...I may sprinkle in a few 2:30 days on my easy days down the road but definitely no time soon. I see moen had a few days totalling over 2hrs of running but I would have to be years into this program to feel the need for that. I run most my easy days between 4:35-4:45 per km , it's about as fast as I can go while still recovering. I do like to get the long run rolling tho.

Here is the update for this week:

Monday i did a long run of 2hrs at 4:30km avg. First few km around 5min km and last 5km around 4:00.

wednesday i did my first track workout of the season. 5x600m rest in 1:48/ 5x400 in 68/ 5x300 in 49/ 4x200 in 30 all with 2min rest

saturday i did another track workout of 5x400 in 66 2min jog and 8x200 in 32 with 1 min jog followed by 6x150 in 21.5-22.5

all other days i ran 2hrs total in doubles as well as 45min in the pm of the workout days for an average of 2hrs per day.

Nothing to interesting to note of this week as it was fairly straight forward. Leg speed is not great but i feel like i will start to come around by the time of my first race.

Today marks by 21st straight day of running 2hrs and so far legs are feeling fine.

It is clear that your gains are from miles so back off the track workouts.

If I were you I would try the basic Van Aaken method and just race more often.

a lot like me wrote:

It is clear that your gains are from miles so back off the track workouts.

If I were you I would try the basic Van Aaken method and just race more often.

What is the Van Aaken method?