Can you overtrain on pure high volume easy mileage?

Since you can overtrain on low-volume easy mileage, then yes, you can also overtrain on high-volume easy mileage. It just depends on the runner. Fatigue is fatigue. You can go to the well to grind out 20 miles just as much as you can to finish 20 x 400. Do that too much, and you get into overtraining. I don't know if your heart rate would stay low. You might get to a point where even easy running or walking sends your HR up quickly.

Libertarian vegan wrote:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbHVkA9lPP9/

There is a tendency for people, coaches and athletes especially, to use guru advice and apply it with a very broad brush. Lydiard is a better coach than I am, I have no doubt about that, but we need to be careful when we take a single quote or idea and hold it as a precipice of training.

"Overtraining" isn't a specific niche term that just encompasses metabolic fatigue or nervous system fatigue. If an athlete cannot recover from a stress then overtraining is occurring. So if you have an athlete that repeatedly gets stress fractures and only easy running is being done then overtraining is occurring. You might suggest that there is a dietary issue or a hormonal imblanance (and there may be), but that athlete is training at a level beyond what they are capable of handling for prolonged periods... overtraining.

All physical activity has some level of fatigue associated with it. Something like walking has an incredibly low level of fatigue and a low level of stress, but that isn't to say that it doesn't have impact on our bodies.

Is it harder to overtrain with easy mileage? Yes.

Is it possible to be exhausted for weeks on end while you are only running high mileage? Yup. And if it's evident in your performance then you might be overtraining.

Overtraining is usually not just intensity or just volume, it's usually density, a combination of the 2. But overloading either one sufficiently can and will cause the same deteriorated performance seen with overtraining.

Libertarian vegan wrote:

Perhaps you can get someone to just make a program that generates answers for posts with "See Lydiard" for you, and then you wouldn't even have to visit LRC!

an idea for ibertarian vegan wrote:

Libertarian vegan wrote:

Perhaps you can get someone to just make a program that generates answers for posts with "See Lydiard" for you, and then you wouldn't even have to visit LRC!

Libertarian vegan actually is a Lydiard bot. It needs a ton of work on the AI though.

The hard wiring to pace charts and lack of contextual understanding often results in bad advice.

If you're talking about getting actual overtraining syndrome (which is associated with central nervous system), then you can't really get that from easy miles. If you're talking about fractures and injuries, then you can get those if you bump up the mileage too much.

Me: 50-70mpw, all easy. Career-ending (and permanent) injury, age 20.

I am very confident that a mix of speeds would have been more likely to keep me sound, but I had an idiot for a coach. (I was self-coached.)

lease wrote:

Me: 50-70mpw, all easy. Career-ending (and permanent) injury, age 20.

I am very confident that a mix of speeds would have been more likely to keep me sound, but I had an idiot for a coach. (I was self-coached.)

What was your injury?

another runner wrote:

lease wrote:

Me: 50-70mpw, all easy. Career-ending (and permanent) injury, age 20.

I am very confident that a mix of speeds would have been more likely to keep me sound, but I had an idiot for a coach. (I was self-coached.)

What was your injury?

Bump

I'd like to know too.

Mythology that miles can't lead to overtraining.

Yes and boring too.

Another other runner wrote:

another runner wrote:

What was your injury?

Bump

I'd like to know too.

Grade 2 Adductor tear.

That's a good question. I was going to say yes you could but then I saw you mentioned "keeping the heart rate in the easy aerobic zone". Surely that would limit the number of miles you can run though?

lease wrote:

Me: 50-70mpw, all easy. Career-ending (and permanent) injury, age 20.

I am very confident that a mix of speeds would have been more likely to keep me sound, but I had an idiot for a coach. (I was self-coached.)

You sound like me. However running injuries are rarely "permanent," to the extent that it would keep you from running forever. In my case it took me 3 years to return to good running. Then I had a year of conditioning to run my one year of college eligibility. (Rules were different in the 1970s.)

It might be that you need to change your form or get some other type of intervention. But it's doubtful that your injury is permanent. I actually got a bit faster by the time I got re-habilitated, however I was just running about as fast as I should have in high school.

I was injured at 19. I returned to running at about 22. Work intervened after that but I am still running at age 60, albeit jiisst a bit slower. lol

overtraining123 wrote:

I see many posters talk about overtraining within the context of mixing in workouts with a mileage buildup; but what if someone were to just run a lot of mileage while keeping their heart rate in the easy aerobic zone. Can they still overtrain? And if so, would it be harder to achieve a point at which true overtraining would occur?

If you only run lots of mileage you will get injured when the faster work starts. Many have tried that route.

In addition we should be running lots of different speeds in training as that will prevent injuries

as well as make you faster. When you go fast you are emphasizing different muscle groups than when you are going slower. I once got injured because I ran with a very slow runner on an indoor track.

Yes you can get injured running slowly or very fast.

Volume and intensity should always be considered as well as

1. Sleeping patterns

2. Bowel movements

3. Eating patterms

4. Not wanting to run.

5. Heart rate changes.

Libertarian vegan wrote:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbHVkA9lPP9/

Well if Arthur MF Lydiard said it, there's no point arguing.

who is still following Lydiard

If you are running 200 miles a week you can get overtrained. Better stay at 150.