How does running more mileage translates into running faster?

Clearly it's both

Running more mileage builds strength. From strength, you can then sustain a pace longer, that might have been tiresome previously. High mileage works when you can handle it. The other side of this is, that when you are a little older , you need to adjust your rest time.

A quote from an old coach . . .

"Training volume is an important tool, but must be used carefully. The body's ability to uptake, transport and utilize oxygen are all stimulated to adapt/super-compensate by those longer runs and up-tempo runs. And those systems have nearly no limit for response, as opposed to the ones that respond to killer 400’s on the track (for only about 5 weeks). So carefully increased volume, longer “long” runs, and methodically faster daily pace, will all bring significant gains."

I wish I would have listened!

Well it depends on what distance you mean as faster, running more mileage won't really improve your 100-400m times, your best off doing actual speed work, however when you run more mileage, even at a very slow pace, it improves your cardiovascular system, strengthens the heart and increases the blood supply in the muscles; it therefore enhances the body’s capacity to deliver oxygen to your muscles .... It's kind of like having a car with a bigger fuel tank .... The more you run, the longer you will be able to sustain that speed because you have more oxygen to deliver your muscles

There is no science, it's empirical.

increases your aerobic capacity in the base phase so that when it counts, you can hit your speed workouts hard

Bobby1 wrote:

There is no science, it's empirical.

Correct. The scientists would have you doing maxVo2 stuff all the time.

Fundamentally, wrote:

Fundamentally, it's to gain speed endurance. You want to be able to run as fast as you can already run but do it for longer.

Simplistically, if you can run one 5-minute mile, to train for a marathon, your goal might be to develop the ability to run 26.2 5-minute miles. To develop that ability, you have to increase your speed endurance. The most important factor in increasing speed endurance is to run more miles.

No. No!! No!!!!!

Speed endurance has nothing to do with races over a mile. Speed endurance is the ability to maintain near peak sprint speed through anaerobic glycolysis after the explosive phosphate system has been exhausted.

In its most precise form, speed endurance is critical for the last 30 meters of a 100 meter race and the last half of 200m and 400m races. Usain Bolt and Wayde van Niekirk have exceptional speed endurance. Asafa Powell has mediocre speed endurance relative to his outstanding acceleration ability.

Describing the phenomenal long kicks of middle distance runners like Coe, Cram, Makloufi, and Rudisha with the term speed endurance is acceptable as their tactical speed is largely dependent on anaerobic glycolysis to maintain 50-52 second pace over the last 400 meters of a slightly anaerobic event.

Farah, Bekele, and Gebressallassie have outstanding kicks in the 5k/10 but those kicks are based on vastly superior aerobic capacities that leave them fresh for the last lap.

Speed endurance is wholly irrelevant to the marathon.

A speed endurance workout for a sprinter would be 6 x150 at 400 pace plus 2 seconds.

A speed endurance workout for an 800 man is something like 4x300 at 800 race pace with 3 minutes rest. 500-600 meter repeats at sub mile pace are speed endurance workouts for a miler.

Continuous runs over 3 miles will help improve Vo2 Max, lactate threshold, and fat burning systems that utilize the aerobic system and are critical for 3k races and up. However, continuous runs will NOT, by themselves, improve anearobic glycolysis or true speed endurance.

Rant over-

Mitochondria density and size increase.

More Capillary beds.

This all equals better blood flow and efficiency. Running Economy improves (along with tendon/muscle strength) and neuromuscular coordination for better Running Economy.

Couch Trawler wrote:

Farah, Bekele, and Gebressallassie have outstanding kicks in the 5k/10 but those kicks are based on vastly superior aerobic capacities that leave them fresh for the last lap.

well,, wrote:

Couch Trawler wrote:

Farah, Bekele, and Gebressallassie have outstanding kicks in the 5k/10 but those kicks are based on vastly superior aerobic capacities that leave them fresh for the last lap.

That is nonsense. In this race, sihine was just as aerobically fit as Bekele, and still he was outrun in the last lap:

Jon Morange wrote:

ivorytowerology wrote:

Here's what really happens:

Think of a way to get some funding doing some spurious research, involving any kind of reductive hypothesis about performance boosting effects of whatever.

Get the funding

Do a crap series of tests on a treadmill.

Analyse the results

Agree with yourselves that you were right all along.

Submit your paper for peer review

Paper accepted

Encourage journalists to generate publicity with silly hype attention seeking headlines announcing your amazing discovery of incredibly effective performance boosting effects of whatever.

Repeat process ad infinitum.

That's how science really works ain't it?

Hi Jon. How about them doping Brits?

Hi Weldon. I don't care who takes what, including you. Use an inhaler if you thing it's performance enhancing. Post a video of you dancing like a fool when drunk. I dare ya.

ivorytowerology wrote:

Jon Morange wrote:

Hi Jon. How about them doping Brits?

Hi Weldon. I don't care who takes what, including you. Use an inhaler if you thing it's performance enhancing. Post a video of you dancing like a fool when drunk. I dare ya.

Hi Jon. Too ashamed to post under your name now, eh?

I can spell so clearly I'm not Weldon. Maybe you need some performance enhancing eye drops?

S. Canaday wrote:

This all equals better blood flow and efficiency. Running Economy improves (along with tendon/muscle strength) and neuromuscular coordination.

Is this true? I’d think something like short hill sprints would be more of a stimulus for tendon/muscle strength, and improved coordination... or is it that doing the mileage in a state of general fatigue spur these adaptations?...like how a long run with some quicker pace starts to recruit more fast twitch near the end and can help make some these fibers more aerobic?

I think I remember reading the Hansons having a marathon training philosophy kinda like this where they emphasize ‘global’ fatigue/stimulus a bit more than just a subset of workouts.

Yeah running a lot (high mileage) makes your legs stronger (as long as you don't get hurt). The mitochondria density and increase size and capillary beds are really key though. Of course you need periodization and balance with intensity/speed in the mix...not just LSD for ideal improvement/distance running adaptations that are race specific. If talking raw speed/power you would want to simulate the FT fibers (aka Canova or Lydiard "short alactic hill sprints." That is neuromuscular training. We never did any hill sprints/strides or formal real speed training at Hansons. Hansons was all about high mileage, running "easy days" at 6-min pace and then trying to hold it together for workouts like 2-3 mile repeats and "cut-downs" at slightly faster than marathon race pace. Every now and then we'd go to the track for 1km and/or 1600m repeats at about 20/sec per mile faster than MP.

Bubbadeeboos wrote:

S. Canaday wrote:

This all equals better blood flow and efficiency. Running Economy improves (along with tendon/muscle strength) and neuromuscular coordination.

Is this true? I’d think something like short hill sprints would be more of a stimulus for tendon/muscle strength, and improved coordination... or is it that doing the mileage in a state of general fatigue spur these adaptations?...like how a long run with some quicker pace starts to recruit more fast twitch near the end and can help make some these fibers more aerobic?

I think I remember reading the Hansons having a marathon training philosophy kinda like this where they emphasize ‘global’ fatigue/stimulus a bit more than just a subset of workouts.

[quote]S. Canaday wrote:

workouts like 2-3 mile repeats and "cut-downs" at slightly faster than marathon race pace. Every now and then we'd go to the track for 1km and/or 1600m repeats at about 20/sec per mile faster than MP.

quote]

Shouldn't that be enough? Bill Rodgers seemed to do just fine with miles and track workouts of mile repeats not much faster than MP. Certainly not 20 seconds faster.

Rider of the purple Sage wrote:

[quote]S. Canaday wrote:

workouts like 2-3 mile repeats and "cut-downs" at slightly faster than marathon race pace. Every now and then we'd go to the track for 1km and/or 1600m repeats at about 20/sec per mile faster than MP.

quote]

Shouldn't that be enough? Bill Rodgers seemed to do just fine with miles and track workouts of mile repeats not much faster than MP. Certainly not 20 seconds faster.

Rodgers also raced a lot. In the winter he would often run 2 and 3 mile races, though probably as much for a mental change of pace as physical.

Rider of the purple Sage wrote:

Shouldn't that be enough? Bill Rodgers seemed to do just fine with miles and track workouts of mile repeats not much faster than MP. Certainly not 20 seconds faster.

A lot of people are successful with a lot of different styles of training. Sometimes individual differences in athletes (muscle fiber distribution, ability to avoid injury, strengths and weaknesses from training background, plus a lot of genetic differences that we don't yet understand) require different training styles. Sometimes people are running fast in spite of their training. Sometimes there are multiple ways to get to the same destination. And sometimes the effect of unbalanced training isn't detectable until someone stagnates after years of running well.

I think this latter possibility is frequently ignored. People often have great success when they start with a program that is finally addressing their deficiencies as a runner. They end up thinking that they've discovered the right way to train, when they've really just discovered the right way for them at that moment in their careers. After years of doing the same thing, you stop adapting to the same stimulus. Whatever capacities you're working on have already been maxed out.

Also, I think until we know a lot more about genetic differences between athletes, we should be quite humble about assuming that we know the best way to train. What works for most is a good starting point, but every athlete is an experiment of one. Coaches like to sound like they really know what they're doing and everything has a sound scientific, or at least theoretical, basis, but really good coaches need to be able to admit that sometimes a runner does best on a program that doesn't make intuitive sense or gel with the coach's own ideas about how to train.

Yes but it seemed like miles and modest repeats worked for everyone 30-40 years ago and now it either works for nobody or nobody is doing exactly that.