Justin Knight takes four weeks off before BU mile

sounds like a good example wrote:

Mahavishnu1500 wrote:

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.

He's doing what works for him. Shouldn't aspiring elite runners seek to do the same?

"....multiple standard deviations, blah blah blah"

Knight is a sterling example for all aspiring collegiate athletes.

Kills it in all competitions. Versatile. Plus, he can dunk. Among distance runners, maybe a handful of 800 guys can dunk. 10k d1 xc champs?? Not many. Hello?? This is what an athlete really looks like!

Take your runner-boi goggles off and see what other sports already recognize....Talent!

Individualuzation of the athletes needs does not mean that he isn't working harder than you. It just means he can work on many areas of his training while you probably should hit the pavement more.

Don't hate him cause you're slow.

Knight is what happens when a gifted athlete chooses distance running. He probably could have been a really good college basketball player had he pursued that. A lot of distance runners are uncoordinated and sub par athletes in other sports. This holds them back in running. The best both North American runners are generally good athletes. He's equipped with an elite combination of natural endurance, speed and athleticism. If he did 100mpw, he would get injured and would not be in the spotlight or winning. His coach has done a fantastic job understanding and harnessing his talent. A lot of other coaches would have abused his talent and injured him. Another thing that a lot of typical OCD runners fail to understand is that rest is key for improvement to occur. Rest between every season is huge. Sure, some runners can do good without it, but they would be better served to rest at least a week or two of no running after each season. If they never take a break, eventually they will get injured or stagnate. Kudos to coach Fox for his intelligence and patience.

Mahavishnu1500 wrote:

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

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.

Alexander supposedy runs very low mileage. At least for a 3:34 guy. 50-60 max, if that.

Callahan (3:37, 3:56) runs even less. Injury prone so he's around 40 max.

Wheating, as a senior at Oregon, ran 3:30 in the summer off 50 a week according to Vin.

In all these cases these guys are/were injury prone and that's why the low mileage. But maybe for milers, they are on to something. Do milers need mega-mileage? Are the junk miles physically beneficial or just a mental crutch?

I do know if you can crank out tines in the 3:30 to 3:37 range on low mileage, like the guys above, you possess some serious talent.

What was German Fernandez training like prior to his 3:55 indoor mile? Was that the year he had a hard crash in an xc meet a month prior?

....This is really hard for OP to accept this clear blasphemy of distance running dogma!

"No, no no!,.Arthur says you must run 110 miles per week! Anything less sets a poor example for all those millions of kids watching the NCAA XC championships!!"

German was 40 miles per week in high school.

While I ran with German his first 3 years at OSU, he went from 40 MPW to 90 MPW instantly at OSU.

We had a very loose training program, and one could double, add miles, or add reps, and so on. This was good for some, but a slippery slope for others. For folks like German, he needed to be held back, as he was a very self motivated fella.

There's a reason he didn't improve past his freshman year of college, and it has to deal with doing too much mileage, too soon.

German and Knight seem like identical talents, and even with similar pr's. Again, not everyone is made for high mileage, nor should they do it.

[quote]Mahavishnu1500 wrote:

I still stand behind my comment that he is a bad example for aspiring elite runners...

The genuinely extraordinarily gifted are all poor examples, in my opinion.

On a number of occasions I have avoided adducing Peter Snell as an illustration of some of my thoughts on training, because Snell was sui generis and, in my opinion, would have been a champion under Igloi, Cerutty, Lydiard, Daniels, or most any other top coach.

Jim Ryun's training in high school and (some of) college is a terrible example for perhaps every current kid in the United States, including some who are going to break 4:00 in high school.

Different things work for different people. It is to the credit of J. Knight and his coaches that they have been able to build a program that apparently works for him...for what kind of person and athlete he is right now.

Kind of an outlier comment here, but speaking of rest: Bannister took five days completely off--no running at all--before his first sub-4:00 race.

Worked for him. Would not work for most of us nowadays--we'd be stiff as a board on race day.

As the man said, different things work for different people--in different situations.

[quote]lease wrote:

The genuinely extraordinarily gifted are all poor examples, in my opinion.

Exactly. Also not sure that Snell had any real success until he went through tons of miles/intensive training. Being able to handle very intensive training may be thought of as a natural gift, but I think hard work, ability to manage stress, dedication, patience, are things we are all striving for by choosing to be a distance runner. Someone who chooses distance running simply because they have talent is a different case entirely and often those types or runners do not succeed at the next level.

Weather in Syracuse isn't exactly great for high mileage in the winter

sjtrj wrote:

Kind of an outlier comment here, but speaking of rest: Bannister took five days completely off--no running at all--before his first sub-4:00 race.

Worked for him. Would not work for most of us nowadays--we'd be stiff as a board on race day.

As the man said, different things work for different people--in different situations.

If I recall correctly he went hiking and scrambling up North, (which he found to be "re-invigorating") so not exactly laying on the couch.

YMMV wrote:

sjtrj wrote:

Kind of an outlier comment here, but speaking of rest: Bannister took five days completely off--no running at all--before his first sub-4:00 race.

Worked for him. Would not work for most of us nowadays--we'd be stiff as a board on race day.

As the man said, different things work for different people--in different situations.

If I recall correctly he went hiking and scrambling up North, (which he found to be "re-invigorating") so not exactly laying on the couch.

You recall wrong. That was what he did to get his 10x440 workout down below 60 seconds average. At that point, he was ready. And then he took the 5 days off.

YMMV wrote:

If I recall correctly he went hiking and scrambling up North, (which he found to be "re-invigorating") so not exactly laying on the couch.

I have no dog in this fight, but how much conditioning can be achieved by scrambling up north? I live in the North, can I do this too?

YMMV wrote:

If I recall correctly he went hiking and scrambling up North, (which he found to be "re-invigorating") so not exactly laying on the couch.

He did the four days' climbing (with Chris Brasher) about three weeks out from his first sub-4:00, and noted that his 10x440 sessions, which had been averaging ~61 seconds, dropped to 59.

From page 116 of his book (the paperback edition?):

"An extract from Bannister's medical student's diary for 1954, recording his training schedule. Training across the year amounted to between 13 and 53 miles per week in sessions of up to 40 minutes' duration. After five full days' rest . . . the achievement of the sub-four-minute mile is marked simply '3 59.4'. . . . The last days of training before 6 May [the day of the record] are recorded: on 22 April he ran 10 x 440 yards in 59 seconds each [standard recovery was a 440 jog in two minutes], on the 24th he completed a three-quarter mile in 3.00 and on 28 April a three-quarter mile in 2:59.9."

Bannister was certainly not lying on the couch--he was in medical school at the time--but his last five days before the record race included no training.

I found the excerpts from his "The Four-Minute Mile" here:

i don't think anyone gets it wrote:

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.

Can you tell us more how you structured your weeks when you ran 1.50? Both during fall, winter and competition period?

Former OSU Alum wrote:

German was 40 miles per week in high school.

While I ran with German his first 3 years at OSU, he went from 40 MPW to 90 MPW instantly at OSU.

We had a very loose training program, and one could double, add miles, or add reps, and so on. This was good for some, but a slippery slope for others. For folks like German, he needed to be held back, as he was a very self motivated fella.

There's a reason he didn't improve past his freshman year of college, and it has to deal with doing too much mileage, too soon.

German and Knight seem like identical talents, and even with similar pr's. Again, not everyone is made for high mileage, nor should they do it.

Go away, Clay Mayes.

Crouse wrote:

Weather in Syracuse isn't exactly great for high mileage in the winter

Weather is weather. Put in the miles or you're soft.