Justin Knight takes four weeks off before BU mile

It’s the Canadian blood

Have you watched or read his interviews? The dude is allergic to mileage. He's probably at 40-50 miles per week right now. Which is where he has been for the last few years, minus a few weeks in the 60s sometimes. His talent is insane. There was no quick ramp-up in training.

Awesome! Should be ready to run a 3:35 mile by July then!

I grew up racing justin knight all through highschool. during his earlier years in grade 10, he would run low 9 min for 3000m and low 4min for 1500m of literally not more than a jog or two per week. Started seriously training halfway through grade 11 and he dropped a sub 8:20 3km in 3 months. He is now running the times he is running off only 60-70mpw. Give him a few more years to build mileage and he will be top of the world. The kid is the most talented runner in north america period.

y, not i.

What a horrible example for young runners. The other 99.999% of us had to push through tons of tough miles for years before we had even moderate success on the track. Do you think Knight feels guilt for being better than everyone without having to work for it?

How exactly is this a bad example to other runners? Just because he was lucky to be incredibly naturally talented isn't his fault. Realistically, all world class runners were born with a genetic advantage that put them ahead of their peers with the same training. The majority of us could train like pros and still not sniff the times they hit.

Mahavishnu1500 wrote:

What a horrible example for young runners. The other 99.999% of us had to push through tons of tough miles for years before we had even moderate success on the track. Do you think Knight feels guilt for being better than everyone without having to work for it?

speak for yourself.

i do and did best on 40-50 mpw, even in college. i tried 70-80 for a few years and then senior year of college went back to 50 mpw and ran 1:50 and a 4:06 mile. before that i was 1:52-high and 4:11

quality short tempos, intervals and speed work, and a hard 8-10 miler is all you need to do that.

for the marathon, i do 50-60 miles per week - one hard 10 miler a week (5:45-6:00 pace), a long run, and a few short intervals at 3k-5k pace and have run 2:31

for some of us, mileage makes us slow., unless we run it fast. then it makes us tired.

Mahavishnu1500 wrote:

What a horrible example for young runners. The other 99.999% of us had to push through tons of tough miles for years before we had even moderate success on the track. Do you think Knight feels guilt for being better than everyone without having to work for it?

Easily the dumbest thing posted on this forum today.

Mahavishnu1500 wrote:

What a horrible example for young runners. The other 99.999% of us had to push through tons of tough miles for years before we had even moderate success on the track. Do you think Knight feels guilt for being better than everyone without having to work for it?

no he doesn't feel guilty nor should he lol, what in the world made you post this?

Mahavishnu1500 wrote:

What a horrible example for young runners. The other 99.999% of us had to push through tons of tough miles for years before we had even moderate success on the track. Do you think Knight feels guilt for being better than everyone without having to work for it?

8/10. You got some seriously indignant replies. Keep on trolling.

The US 1500m record is held by a moderate mileage runner, seldom over 60mi/week.

At 80mi/week, Knight would be slower than 3:55.

At 120mi/week, his season would be over.

Mahavishnu1500 wrote:

What a horrible example for young runners. The other 99.999% of us had to push through tons of tough miles for years before we had even moderate success on the track. Do you think Knight feels guilt for being better than everyone without having to work for it?

I'll bite. Who says he isn't working for it? If he can't handle more than that, why should he? He's working just as hard as a 100 mpw kid, he's just not as durable.

for some of us, mileage makes us slow., unless we run it fast. then it makes us tired.[/quote]

...and some of us constantly come up with excuses for why we don't work as hard as those who are more successful than us.

How can a 1:50/4:06 guy be proud of a 2:31 marathon? That's like a normal long run for an elite runner, many of who ran 4:06 when they only could muster 50 miles a week, then they grew up and realized they had to train harder to improve and did so.

Knight is the running equivalent of royal blood. Seriously, I don't know of another elite distance runner that ran that low of mileage minus maybe 800 specialists or "EPO positive conveniently lost B sample" Lagat.

kgvhi wrote:

How exactly is this a bad example to other runners? Just because he was lucky to be incredibly naturally talented isn't his fault. Realistically, all world class runners were born with a genetic advantage that put them ahead of their peers with the same training. The majority of us could train like pros and still not sniff the times they hit.

The majority cannot train like pros, that's the difference. Over and over again the majority makes excuses and finds ways to lie to themselves about how their training is as hard as it could be, how they don't need to stretch, need to take like everyday easy, don't need to eat healthy, don't need to research training because they already know best, don't need to increase milage, don't need to run fast on their long run, don't need to cut out alcohol, don't need to lift weights, don't need to stay after practice to do extra training...

And yes, he shouldn't feel guilty about being born talented, that part was trolling. But you can see my jealousy come through pretty clearly. I don't believe Knight is a good example for young athletes because if you tell a high school kid or college freshman that 50-60 miles a week is sufficient, they will take that as eternal dogma because it is easier than the 80-100 the rest of the top athletes average.

You're assuming that higher milage is absolute doctrine.

That's flawed. Knight's performances reflect what happens when the truly athletically gifted choose distance running. Not too many actually choose running so it seems otherworldly to someone like you. It's not about durability either. Pounding miles is not at all beneficial for faster twitch guys. Slow guys like you have no idea.

Lydiard would have come up with something different for Knight but his observations were not on athletes like him. Knight does plenty of quality training and his performances speak volumes.

....your drivel is, well just drivel

Slow guys like you have no idea.

....your drivel is, well just drivel[/quote]

Just FYI, if you are calling me slow, than you are also calling Justin Knight slow as we share a PR. You may not like what I have to say, but I promise, I am extremely well researched in running training, physiology, and have trained with athletes far faster than Knight.

Mileage is not everything, that is definitely true, but Knight is a severe outlier on a distribution of average mileage of elite distance runners. And whatever Knight has done has worked exquisitely well, so I credit him there.

I still stand behind my comment that he is a bad example for aspiring elite runners, as that low of mileage is multiple standard deviations under the mean.

QuickTurnAround wrote:

Citing illness as a reason to take an additional week off after cross country, J Knight took four weeks off after the end of Cross Country Nationals. Just six weeks of training from those four weeks off and he’s already in 355 shape? Incredible turnaround! Let’s see how far this guy can go!

Thoughts on the quick ramp up in training to achieve this feat? Raw talent? Thoughts?

Someone should send this info to Wisconsin's Director of Running, Mick Byrne!

Stop feeding the troll.